We are sometimes frightened at the sudden fulfilment of a wish which we
have believed unattainable.
And as Lensky under the weight of his new, strange happiness sank at
the feet of his betrothed and covered the hem of her dress with tears
and kisses, in the midst of his happiness he felt an oppressed anxiety,
a great fear.
* * * * *
A few days after Natalie's betrothal there was a short, imperious ring
at the door of the artistic gray anteroom, in which the imposing
butler, as usual, sat majestically intrenched behind his newspaper.
Monsieur Baptiste raised his eyebrows; he did not like this imperious
manner of ringing a bell, and did not hurry at all to open the door.
Only when the ring was repeated did he unlock it. His face changed
color from surprise, and he bowed quite to the ground when he
recognized in the entering gentleman the young prince, the eldest
brother of Natalie, Sergei Alexandrovitch Assanow.
"Are the ladies at home?" he asked shortly in a high, somewhat vexed
voice without further noticing the respectful greeting of the servant.
"The princess is still in bed, but the Princess Natalie is already up."
"Good. Do not disturb the princess, and announce me to Princess
Natalie," said Assanow, and with that he followed the butler, who was
hastening before him, into the drawing-room. There he sat down in a
mahogany arm-chair upholstered in faded yellow damask, crossed his
legs, rested his tall shining hat on his knee and looked around him. On
one of his hands was a gray glove, the other was bare. It was a long,
slender, aristocratic hand, very well cared for, too white for a man's
hand, but bony, and with strongly marked veins on the back--a hand
which one saw would certainly hold firmly what it had once grasped, and
a hand which was capable of no caress. For the rest it would have been
hard to judge anything from the exterior of the prince. He was a tall
slender man of about thirty, with light-brown hair that was already
thin on the top of the head, and a face--smoothly shaven except a long
mustache--which in the cut of the delicate regular features resembled
his sister's not unnoticeably. But the expression, that animating soul
of beauty which lent Natalie's pale face more charm than the regularity
of the lines, was lacking in him. Everything about him was as correct
as his profile--his high stiff collar, the drab gaiters which showed
beneath his trousers, his light-gray gloves with black stitching. He
was the type of the Russian state official of the highest category, the
type of men who in public life only permit themselves to think as far
as will not injure their advancement.
As he was a very clever, sharp, judging man withal, he revenged himself
for the discomfort which the systematic crippling of his intellectual
capacity in the service of the state caused him, by devoting all the
superfluity of his unneeded intellect to shedding an unpleasantly
glaring intellectual light about him, and condemning as absolute
foolishness all those little poetic, pleasant trifles which make life
beautiful.
He called this manner of pleasing himself doing his duty.
Strangely enough, with all his sterile dryness he was a true lover of
music. He played the cello as well as a man of the world can permit
himself to--that is to say, with an elegant inaccuracy, together with
pedantic bursts of virtuosity, and in consequence had cultivated
Lensky's acquaintance assiduously.
While he waited for his sister he looked around the room distrustfully
with his handsome dark but unpleasantly piercing eyes. He grew uneasy.
The atmosphere of the whole room was quite permeated with happiness.
Everything seemed to feel happy here--the shabby furniture, the music
which lay somewhat confusedly on the piano. On the table near which
Sergei Alexandrovitch sat stood a basket of pale Malmaison roses, under
the piano was a violin case.
Sergei Alexandrovitch frowned. Then Natalie entered the room; he rose,
went to meet her, kissed and embraced her. It seemed strange to her
that she did not feel as glad to see him as formerly, but rather felt a
kind of chill. Which of them had changed, he or she?
"What a surprise!" said she, and felt herself that her voice had a
forced sound. "It has not formerly been your custom to appear so
unexpectedly."
"My journey was only decided upon last month," replied he, somewhat
hesitatingly; and with his dull smile he added, "I hope I do not arrive
inopportunely, Natalie?"
"How can you ask such a thing!" said she. "But sit down and put your
hat away--you are at home."
He remarked the uneasiness of her manner. He coughed twice, and then
sat down again near the table on which the basket of roses stood.
Natalie sat down. Both hands resting on the red surface of the mahogany
table, she bent over the flowers, and slowly with a kind of tenderness
inhaled the dreamy, melancholy perfume.
"Have you had a pleasant winter?" began Sergei Alexandrovitch.
"I do not know," replied she without looking at him; "I have forgotten,
but the spring was wonderfully beautiful, wonderfully beautiful," and
she bent over the flowers again.
"Hm! So you prefer Rome to Naples?" said he condescendingly.
"Yes."
"You seem to have been very comfortably fixed here," he remarked, with
a glance around. "You have very pretty rooms. Those are beautiful roses
which you have there."
"Boris Lensky sent them to me," said she, while she at the same time
pulled a rose from the basket to fasten it in the bodice of her light
foulard dress. Then she sat down opposite Sergei. War was declared.
"Lensky seems to be a great deal with you," said Assanow,
condescendingly.
"Yes."
"I heard of it through acquaintances in Petersburg," began the prince.
"It did not quite please me."
Natalie only shrugged her shoulders, with an expression as if she would
say: "I am very sorry, but that does not change matters at all." In
spite of that she secretly trembled before her brother. The
announcement which she had to make to him would not cross her lips.
"It is hard to speak of certain things to you," he continued, while he
tried to make his thin high voice sound confidential. He did not wish
to make his sister refractory by overhasty roughness. "I have no
prejudices." It had recently become the fashion in his set, and
especially for the upper ten thousand, to boast of a kind of harmless
liberality. "No one can accuse me of smallness. I am always in favor of
attracting young artists into society--first, because they form an
animating element in our circles, and secondly, because one should give
them an opportunity to improve their manners a little; but all in
moderation. Too great intimacy in such cases is bad for both parties.
You are too much carried away by the generosity of your heart. I know
that in reality your immoderate kindness to Lensky does not mean much,
but----"
Her wonderfully beautiful eyes met his.
"I am betrothed to Boris Nikolaivitch," said she wearily but very
distinctly.
"Betrothed!" he burst out. "You to Lensky? You are crazy!"
"Not at all."
"Does mother know of it?"
"Certainly."
"And she has given her consent?"
"At first she was surprised; she cried a whole afternoon. I was very
sorry to pain her. Then she gave way. She is very fond of him. Every
one must be fond of him who learns to know him well." Natalie's eyes
beamed with animation.
Sergei Alexandrovitch pulled at his mustache. "Hm, hm," he murmured;
"we will leave that undecided. As it happens, I am one of those who
know him well; there are few in our set who know him as intimately as
I, and--hm--I do not know that he has caused me any very enthusiastic
feelings. As artist I rank him very high, not so high as has been the
fashion lately, for as a _beau dire il manque de style_, he lacks
style! But that has nothing to do with this. But if he united in
himself the genius of Beethoven and Paganini, I would still look upon
the possibility of your alliance with him as unheard of, and I tell you
frankly, that I shall do all that is in my power to prevent it." He had
taken up again the hat which he had formerly laid down, and held it on
his knee as if paying a call of state. While he spoke the last words,
he knocked on the top of it with malicious decision.
Natalie crossed her arms.
"I knew that you would oppose the mesalliance," said she, "but----"
He would not let her finish. "Mesalliance!" said he, and laughed very
mockingly, quite shortly and softly, to himself, and began to drum on
the top of his hat again. "Mesalliance! I cannot say that the marriage
of my sister to this Mr. Lensky would be especially pleasant--no, that
I cannot say. What must be my horror at your undertaking if I scarcely
think of my opposition on account of the unequal birth!" He was silent,
but then as Natalie remained obstinately silent, he continued: "That
you will in consequence change your social position is your affair. But
do not believe that this will be all that you give up. You sacrifice
not only your position, your whole personality, all your habits of
life, but more than all these, you sacrifice all your formerly so
spared and guarded womanly tender feeling if you insist upon marrying
this violinist. Oh, I know what you will say," said he, while he
noticed the glance which Natalie gave the roses on the table. "He is
full of poetic attentions for you. When they are in love, the roughest
men speak in verse. And I believe that he loves you. But his enthusiasm
for you is still only a passing effervescence. What will remain when
that is gone? I ask you, what would remain in a man without principles,
without a trace of moral restraint, who has grown up amid surroundings
which have forever blunted his feelings for things which would horrify
you, and others of which you have no suspicion?"
Again he paused, but this time Natalie spoke: "May I ask you," began
she, with the calm behind which irritation bordering on uncontrollable
anger concealed itself--"may I ask you to tell me exactly, without any
more finely veiled insinuations, what you have against Boris
Nikolaivitch, except that he is of lower birth and has enjoyed no
careful bringing up?"
"My God! If it is a question of my sister's future husband, that is
enough and more than enough!" said Assanow.
"Is it all?" asked Natalie, and looked at him penetratingly.
"What do you mean?"
"Is it all?" she repeated, while she slowly rose from her chair. "Have
you anything else against him?"
"I have really nothing against him as long as it is not a question of
my sister's husband," he hissed; "but in that case everything. And if
instead of Lensky he were called Prince Dolgorouki, I would still say,
as a husband for you he is impossible!"
"Why--I wish to know it--why?"
"Why? Good. I will tell you, as far as one can tell you--because he is
a wild animal, with bursts of roughness of which you cannot form the
slightest conception," said Assanow; and, striking his thin hands
together, he added, with evidently genuine excitement: "_Mais, ma
pauvre fille_, you have no suspicion to what humiliations, what
degradations, you expose yourself."
He stopped. He looked at his sister triumphantly. She still stood
before him with her hand resting on the top of the table, staring, pale
and without a word. It would be false, to say that his speech made no
impression on her. It had made an impression on her. Still, she
ascribed all that he said to boundless, passionate opposition. While he
spoke it seemed to her as if little pointed icicles were hurled in her
face. And weary and wounded from this hailstorm of fruitless prudence,
she longed with all her heart for a reconciling delusion.
He misunderstood her apparently great excitement, and in the firm
conviction that she already secretly began to fall in with his opinion,
he began, this time in a kindly, playful tone: "My poor Natalie, my
poor, unwise but always charming sister, you are like children who see
that they are wrong and are ashamed to acknowledge it. Well, we will
not press you too much. At first it is always painful to be undeceived;
but time cures everything, and when you are married to a distinguished
and reasonable young fellow--_un garcon distingue et raisonnable_--who
will rationally cure you of your romantic ideas, you will only think of
this youthful foolishness with a smile."
She threw back her head and measured him from head to foot. At this
moment he seemed to her quite pitiable. How poverty-stricken, how sad
was his whole inner life, his feelings, his thoughts, to those to which
she had recently accustomed herself! "And you really believe that it
could occur to me to give up Boris Nikolaivitch?" said she slowly with
proudly curved lips.
"I think, after what I have said to you--" He tried to be patient, and
even wished to take her hand, but she drew it back; the touch of his
cold, bloodless fingers was unpleasant to her. Yet it had never been so
before. What had changed in her?
The prince's face took on a hard, vexed expression. "I think after what
I have told you--" he repeated.
"Is it not true, after what you have told me, after the consolation you
have offered me, you cannot understand that I keep my word?" said she,
challengingly. "What will you, I am now so foolish?" Her voice, veiled
at first, became warmer and stronger, while she continued: "You take
away summer from me, and offer me winter as consolation--that is, you
ask of me that I should refuse everything in the world that blooms and
bears fruit, only because sometimes a devastating thunderstorm bursts
over this wealth of beauty and life! I know that in a normal winter
there are no thunderstorms, and in spite of that I prefer the summer!"
"But it is a tropical summer!" exclaimed Assanow.
"That may be," she replied, calmly; "but for that very reason it is
more magnificent--yes, even because of the dangers involved in it--more
magnificent than any other."
He stood up. "It is useless to speak to you," said he, coldly; "the
only thing that remains for me is to speak to Lensky. He has a clear
head in spite of all his genius. He can be talked over."
Then Natalie was startled out of her proud calm. "You would be
indelicate enough to say to him what you have said to me!" she burst
out.
"In such cases it is not only wisest, but most humane, to use pure
prudence instead of foolish sentimentality," announced Assanow; and,
bowing to his sister as to a stranger, he left, with all his vexation,
still elevated by the thought that he had again had opportunity to
display his "prudence" in a brilliant light. He loved his prudence as
an artistic capability, and was glad to give proofs, by all kinds of
virtuoso performances, of its extent and unusual pliability. Whether
these productions were exactly suited to the time troubled the virtuoso
little, and that by his last threat he had attained exactly the
opposite with Natalie from what he wished, did not occur to him at all,
momentarily.
He had gone. Natalie still stood in the middle of the room, her hand
resting on the table, and trembling in her whole body. Suddenly the
memory of the "musical confession" arose in her, which Lensky had laid
before her the morning when he tried the Amati, the confession which
had frightened her. And through her mind vibrated, piercingly and
cuttingly, the mysterious succession of tones from the Arabian
folksongs which echoed lamentingly through all his compositions--the
devil's music: Asbein.
As long as she had to defend herself from her brother, she had not
realized how deeply he had wounded her. She felt at once miserable,
wounded, and discontented with life--as a young tree must feel, over
whose fragrant young spring blossoms a hailstorm has passed. Then
Lensky came in. He perceived in a moment what had happened.
"They have tormented you on my account," said he. "Poor heart! if I
could only take all this vexation upon myself."
She smiled at him. "Then I would not be worthy of you," replied she.
He drew her gently toward him. Her discouragement had disappeared;
warm, strong life again pulsated in her veins.
"Everything has its recompense," whispered she; "it is sweet to bear
something for any one whom----"
"Well, for any one whom--please finish," he urged, and drew her closer
to him.
"You know it without."
"I would so love to hear you say it once."
She raised herself on tiptoes and whispered something in his ear.
He held her tighter and tighter to him. "Oh, my happiness, my queen!"
he murmured, and his warm lips met hers.
She felt as if wrapped in a sunbeam, in a warm, animating atmosphere,
through which none of the critical sneers and opinions of those who
stood without the consecrated magic circle of love could penetrate.
* * * * *
Six weeks later Natalie and Lensky were married, and at the Russian
Embassy in Vienna. Her dowry consisted of a very incomplete trousseau,
in part lavishly trimmed with lace; of a mortgaged estate in South
Russia that had brought in no rents for three years; and of three
Cremona violins.
While her elder brother silently concealed the true despair which the
marriage caused him behind stiff dignity, the younger, an officer of
the guard, with a becoming talent for arrogant impertinences, pleased
himself by jesting over this adventurous marriage, and describing the
"strange taste" of his sister, with a shrug of the shoulders, as a case
of acute monomania. When he spoke of his brother-in-law, he called him
nothing but "_cette bete sauvage et indecrottable_," even when he had
long made a practice of borrowing money of him.
Neither of Natalie's brothers or her married sister appeared at her
wedding. Only the old princess accompanied her daughter to the altar.