The next day, in the same room, Renditch was standing at the window;
before him, wrapped in a shawl, sat Elena. In the next room, Insarov
lay in his coffin. Elena’s face was both scared and lifeless; two lines
could be seen on her forehead between her eyebrows; they gave a strained
expression to her fixed eyes. In the window lay an open letter from Anna
Vassilyevna. She begged her daughter to come to Moscow if only for a
month, complained of her loneliness, and of Nikolai Artemyevitch, sent
greetings to Insarov, inquired after his health, and begged him to spare
his wife.
Renditch was a Dalmatian, a sailor, with whom Insarov had become
acquainted during his wanderings in his own country, and whom he had
sought out in Venice. He was a dry, gruff man, full of daring and
devoted to the Slavonic cause. He despised the Turks and hated the
Austrians.
‘How long must you remain at Venice?’ Elena asked him in Italian. And
her voice was as lifeless as her face.
‘One day for freighting and not to rouse suspicions, and then straight
to Zara. I shall have sad news for our countrymen. They have long been
expecting him; they rested their hopes on him.’
‘They rested their hopes on him,’ Elena repeated mechanically.
‘When will you bury him?’ asked Renditch.
Elena not at once replied, ‘To-morrow.’
‘To-morrow? I will stop; I should like to throw a handful of earth into
his grave. And you will want help. But it would have been better for him
to lie in Slavonic earth.’
Elena looked at Renditch.
‘Captain,’ she said, ‘take me and him and carry us across to the other
side of the sea, away from here. Isn’t that possible?’
Renditch considered: ‘Possible certainly, but difficult. We shall have
to come into collision with the damned authorities here. But supposing
we arrange all that and bury him there, how am I to bring you back?’
‘You need not bring me back.’
‘What? where will you stop?’
‘I shall find some place for myself; only take us, take me.’
Renditch scratched the back of his head.
‘You know best; but it’s all very difficult. I will, I will try; and you
expect me here in two hours’ time.’
He went away. Elena passed into the next room, leaned against the wall,
and for a long time stood there as though turned to stone. Then she
dropped on her knees, but she could not pray. There was no reproach in
her heart; she did not dare to question God’s will, to ask why He had
not spared, pitied, saved, why He had punished her beyond her guilt,
if she were guilty. Each of us is guilty by the fact that he lives; and
there is no one so great a thinker, so great a benefactor of mankind
that he might hope to have a right to live for the service he has
done.... Still Elena could not pray; she was a stone.
The same night a broad-bottomed boat put off from the hotel where the
Insarovs lived. In the boat sat Elena with Renditch and beside them
stood a long box covered with a black cloth. They rowed for about an
hour, and at last reached a small two-masted ship, which was riding at
anchor at the very entrance of the harbour. Elena and Renditch got
into the ship; the sailors carried in the box. At midnight a storm had
arisen, but early in the morning the ship had passed out of the Lido.
During the day the storm raged with fearful violence, and experienced
seamen in Lloyd’s offices shook their heads and prophesied no good.
The Adriatic Sea between Venice, Trieste, and the Dalmatian coast is
particularly dangerous.
Three weeks after Elena’s departure from Vienna, Anna Vassilyevna
received the following letter in Moscow:--
‘My DEAR PARENTS.--I am saying goodbye to you for ever. You will never
see me again. Dmitri died yesterday. Everything is over for me. To-day
I am setting off with his body to Zara. I will bury him, and what will
become of me, I don’t know. But now I have no country but Dmitri’s
country. There, they are preparing for revolution, they are getting
ready for war. I will join the Sisters of Mercy; I will tend the sick
and the wounded. I don’t know what will become of me, but even after
Dmitri’s death, I will be faithful to his memory, to the work of his
whole life. I have learnt Bulgarian and Servian. Very likely, I shall
not have strength to live through it all for long--so much the better.
I have been brought to the edge of the precipice and I must fall over.
Fate did not bring us together for nothing; who knows?--perhaps I killed
him; now it is his turn to draw me after him. I sought happiness, and I
shall find--perhaps death. It seems it was to be thus: it seems it was a
sin.... But death covers all and reconciles all; does it not? Forgive
me all the suffering I have caused you; it was not under my control. But
how could I return to Russia; What have I to do in Russia?
‘Accept my last kisses and blessings, and do not condemn me.