IV

When Romashov reached the yard it was quite dark. He stumbled like a

blind man into the street, his huge goloshes sank deep into the thick,

stiff mud, and every step he took was accompanied by a smacking noise.

Now and again one golosh stuck so fast in the mud of the road that it

remained there, and he had all the difficulty in the world, whilst

balancing himself wildly on his other foot, to recover his treasure.

The little town seemed to him to be absolutely dead. Not a sound was

heard, even the dogs were silent. Here and there a gleam of light

streamed from the small, low-pitched, white house, against which the

window-sills sharply depicted their shapes in the yellowish-brown mire.

From the wet and sticky palings along which Romashov slowly worked his

way, from the raw, moist bark of the poplars, from the dirty road

itself, there arose a strong, refreshing scent of spring, which aroused

a certain unconscious sense of joy and comfort. Nay, even with the

tormenting gale which swept violently through the streets seemed mingled

a youthful, reawakened desire of life, and the gusts of wind chased one

another like boisterous and sportive children in a "merry-go-round."

When Romashov reached the house where the Nikoläievs dwelt, he stopped,

despondent and perplexed. The close, cinnamon-coloured curtains were

let down, but behind them one could, nevertheless, distinguish the

clear, even glow of a lamp. On one side the curtain curved inwards and

formed a long, small chink against the window-sill. Romashov pressed his

face cautiously against the window, and hardly dared to breathe for fear

of betraying his presence.

He could distinguish Alexandra Petrovna's head and shoulders. She was

sitting in a stooping attitude on that green rep divan that he knew so

well. From her bowed head and slight movements he concluded that she was

occupied with some needlework. Suddenly she straightened herself up,

raised her head, and drew a long breath. Her lips moved.

"What is she saying?" thought Romashov. "And look! now she's smiling.

How strange to see through a window a person talking, and not to be able

to catch a word of what she says."

The smile, however, suddenly disappeared from Alexandra Petrovna's face;

her forehead puckered, and her lips moved rapidly and vehemently.

Directly afterwards she smiled again, but wickedly and maliciously, and

with her head made a slow gesture of disapproval.

"Perhaps they are talking about me," thought Romashov, not without a

certain disagreeable anxiety; but he knew how something pure, chaste,

agreeably soothing and benevolent beamed on him from this young woman

who, at that moment, made the same impression on him as a charming

canvas, the lovely picture of which reminded him of happy, innocent days

of long ago. "Shurochka," whispered Romashov tenderly.

At that moment Alexandra Petrovna lifted her face from her work and cast

a rapid, searching, despondent glance at the window. Romashov thought

she was looking him straight in the face. It felt as if a cold hand had

seized his heart, and in his fright he hid himself behind a projection

of the wall. Again he was irresolute and ill at ease, and he was just

about to return home, when, by a violent effort of the will, he overcame

his pusillanimity and walked through a little back-door into the

kitchen.

The Nikoläievs' servant relieved him of his muddy goloshes, and wiped

down his boots with a kitchen rag. When Romashov pulled out his

pocket-handkerchief to remove the mist from his eyeglass he heard

Alexandra Petrovna's musical voice from the drawing-room.

"Stepan, have they brought the orders of the day yet?"

"She said that with an object," thought Romashov to himself. "She knows

well enough that I'm in the habit of coming about this time."

"No, it is I, Alexandra Petrovna," he answered aloud, but in an

uncertain voice, through the open drawing-room door.

"Oh, it's you, Romashov. Well, come in, come in. What are you doing at

the side entrance? Volodya, Romashov is here."

Romashov stepped in, made an awkward bow, and began, so as to hide his

embarrassment, to wipe his hands with his handkerchief.

"I am afraid I bore you, Alexandra Petrovna."

He tried to say this in an easy and jocose tone, but the words came out

awkwardly, and as it seemed to him, with a forced ring about them.

"What nonsense you talk!" exclaimed Alexandra Petrovna. "Sit down,

please, and let us have some tea."

Looking him straight in the face with her clear, piercing eyes, she

squeezed as usual his cold fingers with her little soft, warm hand.

Nikoläiev sat with his back to them at the table that was almost hidden

by piles of books, drawings, and maps. Before the year was out he had to

make another attempt to get admitted to the Staff College, and for many

months he had been preparing with unremitting industry for this stiff

examination in which he had already twice failed. Staring hard at the

open book before him, he stretched his arm over his shoulder to Romashov

without turning round, and said, in a calm, husky voice--

"How do you do, Yuri[5] Alexievich? Is there any news? Shurochka, give

him some tea. Excuse me, but I am, as you see, hard at work."

"What a fool I am!" cried poor Romashov to himself. "What business had I

here?" Then he added out loud: "Bad news. There are ugly reports

circulating at mess with regard to Lieutenant-Colonel Liech. He is said

to have been as tight as a drum. The resentment in the regiment is

widespread, and a very searching inquiry is demanded. Epifanov has been

arrested."

"Oh!" remarked Nikoläiev in an absent tone. "But excuse my interruption.

You don't say so!"

"I, too, have been rewarded with four days. But that is stale news."

Romashov thought at that moment that his voice sounded peculiar and

unnatural, as if he were being throttled. "What a wretched creature I am

in their eyes!" thought he, but in the next moment consoled himself by

the help of that forced special pleading to which weak and timid persons

usually have recourse in similar predicaments. "Such you always are;

something goes wrong; you feel confused, embarrassed, and at once you

fondly imagine that others notice it, though only you yourself can be

clearly conscious of it," etc., etc.

He sat down on a chair near Shurochka, whose quick crochet needle was in

full swing again. She never sat idle, and all the table-covers,

lamp-shades, and lace curtains were the product of her busy fingers.

Romashov cautiously took up the long crochet threads hanging from the

ball, and said--

"What do you call this sort of work?"

"Guipure. This is the tenth time you have asked me that."

Shurochka glanced quickly at him, and then let her eyes fall on her

work; but before long she looked up again and laughed.

"Now then, now then, Yuri Alexievich, don't sit there pouting.

'Straighten your back!' and 'Head up!' Isn't that how you give your

commands?"

But Romashov only sighed and looked out of the corner of his eye at

Nikoläiev's brawny neck, the whiteness of which was thrown into strong

relief by the grey collar of his old coat.

"By Jove! Vladimir Yefimovich is a lucky dog. Next summer he's going to

St. Petersburg, and will rise to the heights of the Academy."

"Oh, that remains to be seen," remarked Shurochka, somewhat tartly,

looking in her husband's direction. "He has twice been plucked at his

examination, and with rather poor credit to himself has had to return to

his regiment. This will be his last chance."

Nikoläiev turned round suddenly; his handsome, soldierly, moustached

face flushed deeply, and his big dark eyes glittered with rage.

"Don't talk rubbish, Shurochka. When I say I shall pass my examination,

I shall pass it, and that's enough about it." He struck the side of his

outstretched hand violently on the table. "You are always croaking. I

said I should--"

"Yes, '_I said I should_,'" his wife repeated after him, whilst she

struck her knee with her little brown hand. "But it would be far better

if you could answer the following question: 'What are the requisites for

a good line of battle?' Perhaps you don't know" (she turned with a

roguish glance towards Romashov) "that I am considerably better up in

tactics than he. Well, Volodya--Staff-General that is to be--answer the

question now."

"Look here, Shurochka, stop it," growled Nikoläiev in a bad temper. But

suddenly he turned round again on his chair towards his wife, and in his

wide-open, handsome, but rather stupid eyes might be read an amusing

helplessness, nay, even a certain terror.

"Wait a bit, my little woman, and I will try to remember. 'Good fighting

order'? A good fighting order _must_ be arranged so that one does not

expose oneself too much to the enemy's fire; that one can easily issue

orders, that--that--wait a minute."

"That waiting will be costly work for you in the future, I think," said

Shurochka, interrupting him, in a serious tone. Then, with head down and

her body rocking, she began, like a regular schoolgirl, to rattle off

the following lesson without stumbling over a single word--

"'The requisites of "good fighting order" are simplicity, mobility,

flexibility, and the ability to accommodate itself to the ground. It

ought to be easy to be inspected and led. It must, as far as possible,

be out of reach of the enemy's fire, easy to pass from one formation to

another, and able to be quickly changed from fighting to marching

order.' Done!"

She opened her eyes, took a deep breath, and, as she turned her lively,

smiling countenance to Romashov, said--

"Was that all right?"

"What a memory!" exclaimed Nikoläiev enviously, as he once more plunged

into his books.

"We study together like two comrades," explained Shurochka. "I could

pass this examination at any time. The main thing"--she made an

energetic motion in the air with her crochet needle--"the main thing is

to work systematically or according to a fixed plan. Our system is

entirely my own invention, and I say so with pride. Every day we go

through a certain amount of mathematics and the science of war--I may

remark, by the way, that artillery is not my _forte_; the formulæ of

projectiles are to me specially distasteful--besides a bit out of the

Drill and Army Regulations Book. Moreover, every other day we study

languages, and on the days we do not study the latter we study history

and geography."

"And Russian too?" asked Romashov politely.

"Russian, do you say? Yes, that does not give us much trouble; we have

already mastered Groth's _Orthography_, and so far as the essays are

concerned, year after year they are after the eternal stereotyped

pattern: _Para pacem, para bellum_; characteristics of Onyägin and his

epoch, etc., etc."

Suddenly she became silent, and snatched by a quick movement the

distracting crochet needle from Romashov's fingers. She evidently wanted

to monopolize the whole of his attention to what she now intended to

say. After this she began to speak with passionate earnestness of what

was at present the goal of all her thoughts and aims.

"Romochka, please, try to understand me. I cannot--cannot stand this any

longer. To remain here is to deteriorate. To become a 'lady of the

regiment,' to attend your rowdy _soirées_, to talk scandal and intrigue,

to get into tempers every day, and wear out one's nerves over the

housekeeping, money and carriage bills, to serve in turn, according to

precedency, on ladies' committees and benevolent associations, to play

whist, to--no, enough of this. You say that our home is comfortable and

charming. But just examine this _bourgeois_ happiness. These eternal

embroideries and laces; these dreadful clothes which I have altered and

modernized God knows how often; this vulgar, 'loud'-coloured sofa rug

composed of rags from every spot on earth--all this has been hateful and

intolerable to me. Don't you understand, my dear Romochka, that it is

society--real society--that I want, with brilliant drawing-rooms, witty

conversation, music, flirtation, homage. As you are well aware, our good

Volodya is not one to set the Thames on fire, but he is a brave,

honourable, and industrious fellow. If he can only gain admission to the

Staff College I swear to procure him a brilliant career. I am a good

linguist; I can hold my own in any society whatever; I possess--I don't

know how to express it--a certain flexibility of mind or spirit that

helps me to hold my own, to adapt myself everywhere. Finally, Romochka,

look at me, gaze at me carefully. Am I, as a human being, so

uninteresting? Am I, as a woman, so devoid of all charms that I deserve

to be doomed to stay and be soured in this hateful place, in this awful

hole which has no place on the map?"

She suddenly covered her face with her handkerchief, and burst into

tears of self-pity and wounded pride.

Nikoläiev sprang from his chair and hastened, troubled and distracted,

to his wife; but Shurochka had already succeeded in regaining her

self-control and took her handkerchief away from her face. There were no

tears in her eyes now, but the glint of wrath and passion had not yet

died out of them.

"It is all right, Volodya. Dear, it is nothing." She pushed him

nervously away. Immediately afterwards she turned with a little laugh to

Romashov, and whilst she was again snatching the thread from him, she

said to him coquettishly: "Answer me candidly, you clumsy thing, am I

pretty or not? Remember, though, it is the height of impoliteness not to

pay a woman the compliment she wants."

"Shurochka, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" exclaimed Nikoläiev

reprovingly, from his seat at the writing-table.

Romashov smiled with a martyr's air of resignation. Suddenly he replied,

in a melancholy and quavering voice--

"You are very beautiful."

Shurochka looked at him roguishly from her half-closed eyes, and a

turbulent curl got loose and fell over her forehead.

"Romochka, how funny you are!" she twittered in a rather thin, girlish

voice. The sub-lieutenant blushed and thought according to his wont--

"And his heart was cruelly lacerated."

Nobody said a word. Shurochka went on diligently crocheting. Vladimir

Yefimovich, who was bravely struggling with a German translation, now

and then mumbled out some German words. One heard the flame softly

sputtering and fizzing in the lamp, which displayed a great yellow silk

shade in the form of a tent. Romochka had again managed to possess

himself of the crochet-cotton, which, almost without thinking about it,

he softly and caressingly drew through the young woman's fingers, and it

afforded him a delightful pleasure to feel how Shurochka unconsciously

resisted his mischievous little pulls. It seemed to him as if

mysterious, magnetic currents, now and again, rushed backwards and

forwards through the delicate white threads.

Whilst he was steadily gazing at her bent head, he whispered to himself,

without moving his lips, as if he were carrying on a tender and

impassioned conversation--

"How boldly you said to me, 'Am I pretty?' Ah, you are most beautiful!

Here I sit looking at you. What happiness! Now listen. I am going to

tell you how you look--how lovely you are. But listen carefully. Thy

face is as dark as the night, yet pale. It is a face full of passion.

Thy lips are red and warm and good to kiss, and thine eyes surrounded by

a light yellowish shadow. When thy glance is directed straight before

thee, the white of thine eyes acquires a bluish shade, and amidst it all

there beams on me a great dark blue mysteriously gleaming pupil. A

brunette thou art not; but thou recallest something of the gipsy. But

thy hair is silky and soft, and braided at the back in a knot so neat

and simple that one finds a difficulty in refraining from stroking it.

You little ethereal creature, I could lift you like a little child in my

arms; but you are supple and strong, your bosom is as firm as a young

girl's, and in all thy being there is something quick, passionate,

compelling. A good way down on your left ear sits a charming little

birthmark that is like the hardly distinguishable scar after a ring has

been removed. What charm----"

"Have you read in the newspapers about the duel between two officers?"

asked Shurochka suddenly.

Romashov started as he awoke from his dreams, but he found it hard to

remove his gaze from her.

"No, I've not read about it, but I have heard talk of it. What about

it?"

"As usual, of course, you read nothing. Truly, Yuri Alexeitch, you are

deteriorating. In my opinion the proceedings were ridiculous. I quite

understand that duels between officers are as necessary as they are

proper."

Shurochka pressed her crochet to her bosom with a gesture of conviction.

"But why all this unnecessary and stupid cruelty? Just listen. A

lieutenant had insulted another officer. The insult was gross, and the

Court of Honour considered a duel necessary. Now, there would have been

nothing to say about it, unless the conditions themselves of the duel

had been so fixed that the latter resembled an ordinary execution:

fifteen paces distance, and the fight to last till one of the duellists

was _hors de combat_. This is only on a par with ordinary slaughter, is

it not? But hear what followed. On the duelling-ground stood all the

officers of the regiment, many of them with ladies; nay, they had even

put a photographer behind the bushes! How disgusting! The unfortunate

sub-lieutenant or ensign--as Volodya usually says--a man of your

youthful age, moreover the party insulted, and not the one who offered

the insult--received, after the third shot, a fearful wound in the

stomach, and died some hours afterwards in great torture. By his

deathbed stood his aged mother and sister, who kept house for him. Now

tell me why a duel should be turned into such a disgusting spectacle.

Of course the immediate consequence" (Shurochka almost shrieked these

words) "was that all those sentimental opponents of duelling--eugh, how

I despise these 'liberal' weaklings and poltroons!--at once began making

a noise and fuss about 'barbarism,' 'fratricide,' how 'duels are a

disgrace to our times,' and more nonsense of that sort."

"Good God! I could never believe that you were so bloodthirsty,

Alexandra Petrovna," exclaimed Romashov, interrupting her.

"I am by no means bloodthirsty," replied Shurochka, sharply. "On the

contrary, I am very tender-hearted. If a beetle crawls on to my neck I

remove it with the greatest caution so as not to inflict any hurt on

it--but try and understand me, Romashov. This is my simple process of

reasoning: 'Why have we officers?' Answer: 'For the sake of war.' 'What

are the most necessary qualities of an officer in time of war?' Answer:

'Courage and a contempt of death.' 'How are these qualities best

acquired in time of peace?' Answer: 'By means of duels.' How can that be

proved? Duels are not required to be obligatory in the French Army, for

a sense of honour is innate in the French officer; he knows what respect

is due to himself and to others. Neither is duelling obligatory in the

German Army, with its highly developed and inflexible discipline. But

with us--us, as long as among our officers are to be found notorious

card-sharpers such as, for instance, Artschakovski; or hopeless sots, as

our own Nasanski, when, in the officers' mess or on duty, violent scenes

are of almost daily occurrence--then, such being the case, duels are

both necessary and salutary. An officer must be a pattern of

correctness; he is bound to weigh every word he utters. And, moreover,

this delicate squeamishness, the fear of a shot! Your vocation is to

risk your life--which is precisely the point."

All at once she brought her long speech to a close, and with redoubled

energy resumed her work.

"Shurochka, what is 'rival' in German?" asked Nikoläiev, lifting his

head from the book.

"Rival?" Shurochka stuck her crochet-needle in her soft locks. "Read out

the whole sentence."

"It runs--wait--directly--directly--ah! it runs: 'Our rival abroad.'"

"_Unser ausländischer Nebenbuhler_" translated Shurochka straight off.

"_Unser_," repeated Romashov in a whisper as he gazed dreamily at the

flame of the lamp. "When she is moved," thought he, "her words come like

a torrent of hail falling on a silver tray. _Unser_--what a funny word!

_Unser--unser--unser._"

"What are you mumbling to yourself about, Romashov?" asked Alexandra

Petrovna severely. "Don't dare to sit and build castles in the air

whilst I am present."

He smiled at her with a somewhat embarrassed air.

"I was not building castles in the air, but repeating to myself

'_Unser--unser._' Isn't it a funny word?"

"What rubbish you are talking! _Unser._ Why is it funny?"

"You see" (he made a slight pause as if he really intended to think

about what he meant to say), "if one repeats the same word for long, and

at the same time concentrates on it all his faculty of thought, the word

itself suddenly loses all its meaning and becomes--how can I put it?"

"I know, I know!" she interrupted delightedly. "But it is not easy to

do it now. When I was a child, now--how we used to love doing it!"

"Yes--yes--it belongs to childhood--yes."

"How well I remember it! I remember the word 'perhaps' particularly

struck me. I could sit for a long time with eyes shut, rocking my body

to and fro, whilst I was repeatedly saying over and over again,

'Perhaps, perhaps.' And suddenly I quite forgot what the word itself

meant. I tried to remember, but it was no use. I saw only a little

round, reddish blotch with two tiny tails. Are you attending?" Romashov

looked tenderly at her.

"How wonderful that we should think the same thoughts!" he exclaimed in

a dreamy tone. "But let us return to our _unser_. Does not this word

suggest the idea of something long, thin, lanky, and having a sting--a

long, twisting insect, poisonous and repulsive?"

"_Unser_, did you say?" Shurochka lifted up her head, blinked her eyes,

and stared obstinately at the darkest corner of the room. She was

evidently striving to improve on Romashov's fanciful ideas.

"No, wait. _Unser_ is something green and sharp. Well, we'll suppose it

is an insect--a grasshopper, for instance--but big, disgusting, and

poisonous. But how stupid we are, Romochka!"

"There's another thing I do sometimes, only it was much easier when I

was a child," resumed Romashov in a mysterious tone. "I used to take a

word and pronounce it slowly, extremely slowly. Every letter was drawn

out and emphasized interminably. All of a sudden I was seized by a

strangely inexpressible feeling: all--everything near me sank into an

abyss, and I alone remained, marvelling that I lived, thought, and

spoke."

"I, too, have had a similar sensation," interrupted Shurochka gaily,

"yet not exactly the same. Sometimes I made violent efforts to hold my

breath all the time I was thinking. 'I am not breathing, and I won't

breathe again till, till'--then all at once I felt as if time was

running past me. No, time no longer existed; it was as if--oh, I can't

explain!"

Romashov gazed into her enthusiastic eyes, and repeated in a low tone,

thrilling with happiness--

"No, you can't explain it. It is strange--inexplicable."

Nikoläiev got up from the table where he had been working. His back

ached, and his legs had gone dead from long sitting in the same

uncomfortable position. The arteries of his strong, muscular body

throbbed when, with arms raised high, he stretched himself to his full

length.

"Look here, my learned psychologists, or whatever I should call you, it

is supper-time."

A cold collation had been laid in the comfortable little dining-room,

where, suspended from the ceiling, a china lamp with frosted glass shed

its clear light. Nikoläiev never touched spirits, but a little decanter

of schnapps had been put on the table for Romashov. Shurochka,

contorting her pretty face by a contemptuous grimace, said, in the

careless tone she so often adopted--

"Of course, you can't do without that poison?"

Romashov smiled guiltily, and in his confusion the schnapps went the

wrong way, and set him coughing.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" scolded his young hostess. "You can't

even drink it without choking over it. I can forgive it in your adored

Nasanski, who is a notorious drunkard, but for you, a handsome,

promising young man, not to be able to sit down to table without vodka,

it is really melancholy. But that is Nasanski's doing too!"

Her husband, who was glancing through the regimental orders that had

just come in, suddenly called out--

"Just listen! 'Lieutenant Nasanski has received a month's leave from the

regiment to attend to his private affairs.' Tut, tut! What does that

mean? He has been tippling again? You, Yuri Alexievich, are said, you

know, to visit him. Is it a fact that he has begun to drink heavily?"

Romashov looked embarrassed and lowered his gaze.

"No, I have not observed it, but he certainly does drink a little now

and again, you know."

"Your Nasanski is offensive to me," remarked Shurochka in a low voice,

trembling with suppressed bitterness. "If it were in my power I would

have a creature like that shot as if he were a mad dog. Such officers

are a disgrace to their regiment."

Almost directly after supper was over, Nikoläiev, who in eating had

displayed no less energy than he had just done at his writing-table,

began to gape, and at last said quite plainly--

"Do you know, I think I'll just take a little nap. Or if one were to go

straight off to the Land of Nod, as they used to express it in our good

old novels----"

"A good idea, Vladimir Yefimovich," said Romashov, interrupting him in,

as he thought, a careless, dreamy tone, but as he rose from table he

thought sadly, "They don't stand on ceremony with me here. Why on earth

do I come?"

It seemed to him that it afforded Nikoläiev a particular pleasure to

turn him out of the house; but just as he was purposely saying good-bye

to his host first, he was already dreaming of the delightful moment

when, in taking leave of Shurochka, he would feel at the same time the

strong yet caressing pressure of a beloved one's hand. When this

longed-for moment at length arrived he found himself in such a state of

happiness that he did not hear Shurochka say to him--

"Don't quite forget us. You know you are always welcome. Besides, it is

far more healthy for you to spend your evenings with us than to sit

drinking with that dreadful Nasanski. Also, don't forget we stand on no

ceremony with you."

He heard her last words as it were in a dream, but he did not realize

their meaning till he reached the street.

"Yes, that is true indeed; they don't stand on ceremony with me,"

whispered he to himself with the painful bitterness in which young and

conceited persons of his age are so prone to indulge.

V

Romashov was still standing on the doorstep. The night was rather warm,

but very dark. He began to grope his way cautiously with his hand on the

palings whilst waiting until his eyes got accustomed to the darkness.

Suddenly the kitchendoor of Nikoläiev's dwelling was thrown open, and a

broad stream of misty yellow light escaped. Heavy steps sounded in the

muddy street, the next moment Romashov heard Stepan's, the Nikoläievs'

servant's, angry voice--

"He comes here every blessed day, and the deuce knows what he comes

for."

Another soldier, whose voice Romashov did not recognize, answered

indifferently with a lazy, long-drawn yawn--

"What business can it be of yours, my dear fellow? Good-night, Stepan."

"Good-night to you, Baúlin; look in when you like."

Romashov's hands suddenly clung to the palings. An unendurable feeling

of shame made him blush, in spite of the darkness. All his body broke

out into a perspiration, and, in his back and the soles of his feet, he

felt the sting of a thousand red-hot, pointed nails. "This chapter's

closed; even the soldiers laugh at me," thought he with indescribable

pain. Directly afterwards it flashed on his mind that that very evening,

in many expressions used, in the tones of the replies, in glances

exchanged between man and wife, he had seen a number of trifles that he

had hitherto not noticed, but which he now thought testified only to

contempt of him, and ridicule, impatience and indignation at the

persistent visits of that insufferable guest.

"What a disgrace and scandal this is to me!" he whispered without

stirring from the spot. "Things have reached such a pitch that it is as

much as the Nikoläievs can do to endure my company."

The lights in their drawing-room were now extinguished. "They are in

their bedroom now," thought Romashov, and at once he began fancying that

Nikoläiev and Shurochka were then talking about him whilst making their

toilet for the night with the indifference and absence of bashfulness at

each other's presence that is characteristic of married couples. The

wife is sitting in her petticoat in front of the mirror, combing her

hair. Vladimir Yefimovitch is sitting in his night-shirt at the edge of

the bed, and saying in a sleepy but angry tone, whilst flushed with the

exertion of taking off his boots: "Hark you, Shurochka, that infernal

bore, your dear Romashov, will be the death of me with his insufferable

visits. And I really can't understand how you can tolerate him." Then to

this frank and candid speech Shurochka replies, without turning round,

and with her mouth full of hairpins: "Be good enough to remember, sir,

he is not _my_ Romochka, but _yours_."

Another five minutes elapsed before Romashov, still tortured by these

bitter and painful thoughts, made up his mind to continue his journey.

Along the whole extent of the palings belonging to the Nikoläievs' house

he walked with stealthy steps, cautiously and gently dragging his feet

from the mire, as if he feared he might be discovered and arrested as a

common vagrant. To go straight home was not to his liking at all. Nay,

he dared not even think of his gloomy, low-pitched, cramped room with

its single window and repulsive furniture. "By Jove! why shouldn't I

look up Nasanski, just to annoy _her_?" thought he all of a sudden,

whereupon he experienced the delightful satisfaction of revenge.

"She reproached me for my friendship with Nasanski. Well, I shall just

for that very reason pay him a visit."

He raised eyes to heaven, and said to himself passionately, as he

pressed his hands against his heart--

"I swear--I swear that to-day I have visited them for the last time. I

will no longer endure this mortification."

And immediately afterwards he added mentally, as was his ingrained

habit--

"His expressive black eyes glistened with resolution and contempt."

But Romashov's eyes, unfortunately, were neither "black" nor

"expressive," but of a very common colour, slightly varying between

yellow and green.

Nasanski tenanted a room in a comrade's--Lieutenant Siégerscht's--house.

This Siégerscht was most certainly the oldest lieutenant in the whole

Russian Army. Notwithstanding his unimpeachable conduct as an officer

and the fact of his having served in the war with Turkey, through some

unaccountable disposition of fate, his military career seemed closed,

and every hope of further advancement was apparently lost. He was a

widower, with four little children and forty-eight roubles a month, on

which sum, strangely enough, he managed to get along. It was his

practice to hire large flats which he afterwards, in turn, let out to

his brother officers. He took in boarders, fattened and sold fowls and

turkeys, and no one understood better than he how to purchase wood and

other necessaries cheap and at the right time. He bathed his children

himself in a common trough, prescribed for them from his little

medicine-chest when they were ill, and, with his sewing-machine, made

them tiny shirts, under-vests, and drawers. Like many other officers,

Siégerscht had, in his bachelor days, interested himself in woman's

work, and acquired a readiness with his needle that proved very useful

in hard times. Malicious tongues went so far as to assert that he

secretly and stealthily sold his handiwork.

Notwithstanding all his economy and closeness, his life was full of

troubles. Epidemic diseases ravaged his fowl-house, his numerous rooms

stood unlet for long periods; his boarders grumbled at their bad food

and refused to pay. The consequence of this was that, three or four

times a year, Siégerscht--tall, thin, and unshaven, with cheerless

countenance and a forehead dripping with cold sweat--might be seen on

his way to the town to borrow some small sum. And all recognized the

low, regimental cap that resembled a pancake, always with its peak

askew, as well as the antiquated cloak, modelled on those worn in the

time of the Emperor Nicholas, which waved in the breeze like a couple of

huge wings.

A light was burning in Siégerscht's flat, and as Romashov approached the

window, he saw him sitting by a round table under a hanging-lamp. The

bald head, with its gentle, worn features, was bent low over a little

piece of red cloth which was probably destined to form an integral part

of a Little Russian _roubashka_.[6] Romashov went up and tapped at the

window. Siégerscht started up, laid aside his work, rose from the table,

and went up to the window.

"It is I, Adam Ivanich--open the window a moment."

Siégerscht opened a little pane and looked out.

"Well, it's you, Sub-Lieutenant Romashov. What's up?"

"Is Nasanski at home?"

"Of course he's at home--where else should he be? Ah! your friend

Nasanski cheats me nicely, I can tell you. For two months I have kept

him in food, but, as for his paying for it, as yet I've only had grand

promises. When he moved here, I asked him most particularly that, to

avoid unpleasantness and misunderstandings, he should----"

"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Romashov; "but tell me

now how he is. Will he see me?"

"Yes, certainly, that he will; he does nothing but walk up and down his

room." Siégerscht stopped and listened for a second. "You yourself can

hear him tramping about. You see, I said to him, 'To prevent

unpleasantness and misunderstandings, it will be best for----'"

"Excuse me, Adam Ivanich; but we'll talk of that another time. I'm in a

bit of a hurry," said Romashov, interrupting him for the second time,

and meanwhile continuing his way round the corner. A light was burning

in one of Nasanski's windows; the other was wide open. Nasanski himself

was walking, in his shirt sleeves and without a collar, backwards and

forwards with rapid steps. Romashov crept nearer the wall and called him

by name.

"Who's there?" asked Nasanski in a careless tone, leaning out of the

window. "Oh, it's you, Georgie Alexievich. Come in through the window.

It's a long and dark way round through that door. Hold out your hand and

I'll help you."

Nasanski's dwelling was if possible more wretched that Romashov's. Along

the wall by the window stood a low, narrow, uncomfortable bed, the

bulging, broken bottom of which was covered by a coarse cotton coverlet;

on the other wall one saw a plain unpainted table with two common chairs

without backs. High up in one corner of the room was a little cupboard

fixed to the wall. A brown leather trunk, plastered all over with

address labels and railway numbers, lay in state. There was not a single

thing in the room except these articles and the lamp.

"Good-evening, my friend," said Nasanski, with a hearty hand-shake and a

warm glance from his beautiful, deep blue eyes. "Please sit down on this

bed. As you've already heard, I have handed in my sick-report."

"Yes, I heard it just now from Nikoläiev."

Again Romashov called to mind Stepan's insulting remark, the painful

memory of which was reflected in his face.

"Oh, you come from the Nikoläievs," cried Nasanski and with visible

interest. "Do you often visit them?"

The unusual tone of the question made Romashov uneasy and suspicious,

and he instinctively uttered a falsehood. He answered carelessly--

"No, certainly not often. I just happened to look them up."

Nasanski, who had been walking up and down the room during the

conversation, now stopped before the little cupboard, the door of which

he opened. On one of its shelves stood a bottle of vodka, and beside it

lay an apple cut up into thin, even slices. Standing with his back to

his guest, Nasanski poured out for himself a glass, and quickly drained

it. Romashov noticed how Nasanski's back, under its thin linen shirt,

quivered convulsively.

"Would you like anything?" asked Nasanski, with a gesture towards the

cupboard. "My larder is, as you see, poor enough; but if you are hungry

one can always try and procure an omelette. Anyhow, that's more than our

father Adam had to offer."

"Thanks, not now. Perhaps later on."

Nasanski stuck his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room.

After pacing up and down twice he began talking as though resuming an

interrupted conversation.

"Yes, I am always walking up and down and thinking. But I am quite

happy. To-morrow, of course, they will say as usual in the regiment,

'He's a drunkard.' And that is true in a sense, but it is not the whole

truth. All the same, at this moment, I'm happy; I feel neither pain nor

ailments. It is different, alas! in ordinary circumstances. My mind and

will-power are paralysed; I shall again become a cowardly and despicably

mean creature, vain, shabby, hypocritical--a curse to myself and every

one else. I loathe my profession, but, nevertheless, I remain in it. And

why? Ah! the devil himself could not explain that. Because I had it

knocked into me in my childhood, and have lived since in a set where it

is held that the most important thing in life is to serve the State, to

be free from anxiety as to one's clothes and daily bread. And

philosophy, people say, is mere rubbish, good enough for one who has

nothing else to do or who has come into a goodly heritage from his dear

mamma.

"Thus I, too, occupy myself with things in which I don't take the

slightest interest, or issue orders that seem to me both harsh and

unmeaning. My daily life is as monotonous and cheerless as an old deal

board, as rough and hard as a soldier's regulation cap. I dare scarcely

think of, far less talk of, love, beauty, my place in the scheme of

creation, of freedom and happiness, of poetry and God. They would only

laugh ha! ha! ha! at me, and say: 'Oh, damn it! That, you know, is

philosophy. It is not only ridiculous but even dangerous for an officer

to show he holds any high views,' and at best the officer escapes with

being dubbed a harmless, hopeless ass."

"And yet it is this that alone gives life any value," sighed Romashov.

"And now the happy hour is drawing nigh about which they tattle so

heartlessly and with so much contempt," Nasanski went on to say without

listening to Romashov's words. He walked incessantly backwards and

forwards, and interpolated his speech, every now and then, with striking

gestures, which were not, however, addressed to Romashov, but were

always directed to the two corners of the room which he visited in turn.

"Now comes my turn of freedom, Romashov--freedom for soul, thought, and

will. Then I shall certainly live a peculiar, but nevertheless rich,

inner life. All that I have seen, heard, and read will then gain a

deeper meaning, will appear in a clear and more distinct light, and

receive a deep, infinite significance. My memory will then be like a

museum of rare curiosities. I shall be a very Rothschild. I take the

first object within my reach, gaze at it long, closely, and with

rapture. Persons, events, characters, books, women, love--nay, first and

last, women and love--all this is interwoven in my imagination. Now and

then I think of the heroes and geniuses of history, of the countless

martyrs of religion and science. I don't believe in God, Romashov, but

sometimes I think of the saints and martyrs and call to mind the Holy

Scriptures and canticles."

Romashov got up quietly from his seat at the edge of the bed and walked

away to the open window, and then he sat down with his back resting

against the sill. From that spot, from the lighted room, the night

seemed to him still darker and more fraught with mystery. Tepid breezes

whispered just beneath the window, amongst the dark foliage of the

shrubs. And in this mild air, charged with the sharp, aromatic perfume

of spring, under those gleaming stars, in this dead silence of the

universe, one might fancy he felt the hot breath of reviving,

generating, voluptuous Nature.

Nasanski continued all along his eternal wandering, and indulged in

building castles in the air, without looking at Romashov, as if he were

talking to the walls.

"In these moments my thoughts--seething, motley, original--chase one

another. My senses acquire an unnatural acuteness; my imagination

becomes an overwhelming flood. Persons and things, living or dead, which

are evoked by me stand before me in high relief and also in an

extraordinarily intense light, as if I saw them in a _camera obscura_. I

know, I know now, that all that is merely a super-excitation of the

senses, an emanation of the soul flaming up like lightning, but in the

next instant flickering out, being produced by the physiological

influence of alcohol on the nervous system. In the beginning I thought

such psychic phenomena implied an elevation of my inner, spiritual Ego,

and that even I might have moments of inspiration. But no; there was

nothing permanent or of any value in this, nothing creative or

fructifying. Altogether it was only a morbid, physiological process, a

river wave that at every ebb that occurs sucks away with it and destroys

the beach. Yes, this, alas! is a fact. But it is also equally

indisputable that these wild imaginings procured me moments of ineffable

happiness. And besides, let the devil keep for his share your

much-vaunted high morality, your hypocrisy, and your insufferable rules

of health. I don't want to become one of your pillar-saints nor do I

wish to live a hundred years so as to figure as a physiological miracle

in the advertisement columns of the newspapers. I am happy, and that

suffices."

Nasanski again went up to the little cupboard, poured out and swallowed

a "nip," after which he shut the cupboard door with much ceremony and an

expression on his face as if he had fulfilled a religious duty. Romashov

walked listlessly up from the window to the cupboard, the life-giving

contents of which he sampled with a gloomy and _blasé_ air. This done,

he returned to his seat on the window-bench.

"What were you thinking about just before I came, Vasili Nilich?" asked

Romashov, as he made himself as comfortable as possible.

Nasanski, however, did not hear his question. "How sweet it is to dream

of women!" he exclaimed with a grand and eloquent gesture. "But away

with all unclean thoughts! And why? Ah! because no one has any right,

even in imagination, to make a human being a culprit in what is low,

sinful, and impure. How often I think of chaste, tender, loving women,

of their bright tears and gracious smiles; of young, devoted,

self-sacrificing mothers, of all those who have faced death for love; of

proud, bewitching maidens with souls as pure as snow, knowing all, yet

afraid of nothing. But such women do not exist--yet I am wrong,

Romashov; such women do exist although neither you nor I have seen them.

This may possibly be vouchsafed you; but to me--never!"

He was now standing right in front of Romashov and staring him straight

in the face, but by the far-off expression in his eyes, by the

enigmatical smile that played on his lips, any one could observe that he

did not even see to whom he was talking. Never had Nasanski's

countenance--even in his better and sober moments--seemed to Romashov so

attractive and interesting as at this instant. His golden hair fell in

luxuriant curls around his pure and lofty brow; his blond, closely

clipped beard was curled in light waves, and his strong, handsome head

on his bare, classically shaped neck reminded one of the sages and

heroes of Greece, whose busts Romashov had seen in engravings and at

museums. Nasanski's bright, clever blue eyes glistened with moisture,

and his well-formed features were rendered still more engaging by the

fresh colour of his complexion, although a keen eye could not, I

daresay, avoid noticing a certain flabbiness--the infallible mark of

every person addicted to drink.

"Love--what an abyss of mystery is contained in the word, and what bliss

lies hidden in its tortures!" Nasanski went on to say in an enraptured

voice. In his violent excitement he caught hold of his hair with both

hands, and took two hasty strides towards the other end of the room, but

suddenly stopped, and turned round sharply to Romashov with a merry

laugh. The latter observed him with great interest, but likewise not

without a certain uneasiness.

"Just this moment I remember an amusing story" (Nasanski now dropped

into his usual good-tempered tone), "but, ugh! how my wits go

wool-gathering--now here, now there. Once upon a time I sat waiting for

the train at Ryasan, and wait I did--I suppose half a day, for it was

right in the middle of the spring floods, and the train had met with

real obstacles. Well, you must know, I built myself a little nest in the

waiting-room. Behind the counter stood a girl of eighteen--not pretty,

being pockmarked, but brisk and pleasant. She had black eyes and a

charming smile. In fact, she was a very nice girl. We were three, all

told, at the station: she, I, and a little telegraphist with white

eyebrows and eyelashes. Ah! excuse me, there was another person

there--the girl's father, a fat, red-faced, grey-haired brute, who put

me in mind of a rough old mastiff. But this attractive figure kept

itself, as a rule, behind the scenes. Only rarely and for a few minutes

did he put in an appearance behind the counter, to yawn, scratch himself

under his waistcoat, and immediately afterwards disappear for a longish

time. He spent his life in bed, and his eyes were glued together by

eternally sleeping. The little telegraphist paid frequent and regular

visits to the waiting-room, laid his elbows on the counter, but was, for

the most part, as mute as the grave. She, too, was silent and looked

dreamily out of the window at the floods. All of a sudden our youngster

began humming--

"'Love--love.

What is love?

Something celestial

That drives us wild.'

"After this, again silence. A pause of five minutes, she begins, in her

turn--

"'Love--love.

What is love?' etc.

"Both the sentimental words as well as the melody were taken from some

musty old operetta that had perhaps been performed in the town, and had

become a pleasant recollection to both the young people. Then again the

same wistful song and significant silence. At last she steals softly a

couple of paces to the window, all the while keeping one hand on the

counter. Our Celadon quietly lays hold of the delicate fingers, one by

one, and with visible trepidation gazes at them in profound devotion.

And again the _motif_ of that hackneyed operetta is heard from his lips.

It was spring with all its yearning. Then all this cloying 'love' only

awoke in me nausea and disgust, but, since then, I have often thought

with deep emotion of the vast amount of happiness this innocent

love-making could bestow, and how it was most certainly the only ray of

light in the dreary lives of these two human beings--lives, very likely,

even more empty and barren than my own. But, I beg your pardon,

Romashov; why should I bore you with my silly, long-winded stories?"

Nasanski again betook himself to the little cupboard, but he did not

fetch out the schnapps bottle, but stood motionless with his back turned

to Romashov. He scratched his forehead, pressed his right hand lightly

to his temple, and maintained this position for a considerable while,

evidently a prey to conflicting thoughts.

"You were speaking of women, love, abysses, mystery, and joy," remarked

Romashov, by way of reminder.

"Yes, love," cried Nasanski in a jubilant voice. He now took out the

bottle, poured some of its contents out, and drained the glass quickly,

as he turned round with a fierce glance, and wiped his mouth with his

shirt sleeve. "Love! who do you suppose understands the infinite meaning

of this holy word? And yet--from it men have derived subjects for

filthy, rubbishy operettas; for lewd pictures and statues, shameless

stories and disgusting 'rhymes.' That is what we officers do. Yesterday

I had a visit from Ditz. He sat where you are sitting now. He toyed with

his gold pince-nez and talked about women. Romashov, my friend, I tell

you that if an animal, a dog, for instance, possessed the faculty of

understanding human speech, and had happened to hear what Ditz said

yesterday, it would have fled from the room ashamed. Ditz, as you know,

Romashov, is a 'good fellow,' and even the others are 'good,' for really

bad people do not exist; but for fear of forfeiting his reputation as a

cynic, 'man about town,' and 'lady-killer,' he dares not express himself

about women otherwise than he does. Amongst our young men there is a

universal confusion of ideas that often finds expression in bragging

contempt, and the cause of this is that the great majority seek in the

possession of women only coarse, sensual, brutish enjoyment, and that

is the reason why love becomes to them only something contemptible,

wanton--well, I don't know, damn it! how to express exactly what I

mean--and, when the animal instincts are satisfied, coldness, disgust,

and enmity are the natural result. The man of culture has said

good-night to love, just as he has done to robbery and murder, and seems

to regard it only as a sort of snare set by Nature for the destruction

of humanity."

"That is the truth about it," agreed Romashov quietly and sadly.

"No, that is _not_ true!" shouted Nasanski in a voice of thunder. "Yes,

I say it once more--it is a lie. In this, as in everything else, Nature

has revealed her wisdom and ingenuity. The fact is merely that whereas

Lieutenant Ditz finds in love only brutal enjoyment, disgust, and

surfeit, Dante finds in it beauty, felicity, and harmony. True love is

the heritage of the elect, and to understand this let us take another

simile. All mankind has an ear for music, but, in the case of millions,

this is developed about as much as in stock-fish or Staff-Captain

Vasilichenko. Only one individual in all these millions is a Beethoven.

And the same is the case in everything--in art, science, poetry. And so

far as love is concerned, I tell you that even this has its peaks which

only one out of millions is able to climb."

He walked to the window, and leaned his forehead against the sill where

Romashov sat gazing out on the warm, dark, spring night. At last he said

in a voice low, but vibrating with strong inward excitement--

"Oh, if we could see and grasp Love's innermost being, its supernatural

beauty and charm--we gross, blind earth-worms! How many know and feel

what happiness, what delightful tortures exist in an undying, hopeless

love? I remember, when I was a youth, how all my yearning took form and

shape in this single dream: to fall in love with an ideally beautiful

and noble woman far beyond my reach, and standing so high above me that

every thought of possessing her I might harbour was mad and criminal; to

consecrate to her all my life, all my thoughts, without her even

suspecting it, and to carry my delightful, torturing secret with me to

the grave; to be her slave, her lackey, her protector, or to employ a

thousand arts just to see her once a year, to come close to her,

and--oh, maddening rapture!--to touch the hem of her garment or kiss the

ground on which she had walked----"

"And to wind up in a mad-house," exclaimed Romashov in a gloomy tone.

"Oh, my dear fellow, what does that matter?" cried Nasanski

passionately. "Perhaps--who knows?--one might then attain to that state

of bliss one reads of in stories. Which is best--to lose your wits

through a love which can never be realized, or, like Ditz, to go stark

mad from shameful, incurable diseases or slow paralysis? Just think what

felicity--to stand all night in front of her window on the other side of

the street. Look, there's a shadow visible behind the drawn curtain--can

it be _she_? What's she doing? What's she thinking of? The light is

lowered--sleep, my beloved, sleep in peace, for Love is keeping vigil.

Days, months, years pass away; the moment at last arrives when Chance,

perhaps, bestows on you her glove, handkerchief, the concert programme

she has thrown away. She is not acquainted with you, does not even know

that you exist. Her glance passes over you without seeing you; but

there you stand with the same unchangeable, idolatrous adoration, ready

to sacrifice yourself for her--nay, even for her slightest whim, for her

husband, lover, her pet dog, to sacrifice life, honour, and all that you

hold dear. Romashov, a bliss such as this can never fall to the lot of

our Don Juans and lady-killers."

"Ah, how true this is! how splendidly you speak!" cried Romashov,

carried away by Nasanski's passionate words and gestures. Long before

this he had got up from the window, and now he was walking, like his

eccentric host, up and down the long, narrow room, pacing the floor with

long, quick strides. "Listen, Nasanski. I will tell you something--about

myself. Once upon a time I fell in love with a woman--oh, not here; no,

in Moscow. I was then a mere stripling. Ah, well, she had no inkling of

it, and it was enough for me to be allowed to sit near her when she

sewed, and to draw quietly and imperceptibly, the threads towards me.

That was all, and she noticed nothing; but it was enough to turn my head

with joy."

"Ah, yes, how well I understand this!" replied Nasanski with a friendly

smile, nodding his head all the time. "A delicate white thread charged

with electrical currents. What a store of poetry is enshrined in that!

My dear fellow, life is so beautiful!"

Nasanski, absorbed in profound reverie, grew silent, and his blue eyes

were bright with tears. Romashov also felt touched, and there was

something nervous, hysterical, and spontaneous about this melancholy of

his, but these expressions of pity were not only for Nasanski, but

himself.

"Vasili Nilich, I admire you," cried he as he grasped and warmly pressed

both Nasanski's hands. "But how can so gifted, far-sighted, and

wide-awake a man as you rush, with his eyes open, to his own

destruction? But I am the last person on earth who ought to read you a

lesson on morals. Only one more question: supposing in the course of

your life you happened to meet a woman worthy of you, and capable of

appreciating you, would you then----? I've thought of this so often."

Nasanski stopped and stared for a long time through the open window.

"A woman----" he uttered the word slowly and dreamily. "I'll tell you a

story," he continued suddenly and in an energetic tone. "Once in my life

I met an exceptional--ah! wonderful--woman, a young girl, but as Heine

somewhere says: 'She was worthy of being loved, and he loved her; but he

was not worthy, and she did not love him.' Her love waned because I

drank, or perhaps it was I drank because she did not love me. _She_--by

the way, it was not here that this happened. It was a long time ago, and

you possibly know that I first served in the infantry for three years,

after that for four years with the reserves, and for a second time,

three years ago, I came here. Well, to continue, between her and me

there was no romance whatever. We met and had five or six chats

together--that was all. But have you ever thought what an irresistible,

bewitching might there is in the past, in our recollections? The memory

of these few insignificant episodes of my life constitutes the whole of

my wealth. I love her even to this very day. Wait, Romashov, you deserve

to hear it--I will read out to you the first and only letter I ever

received from her." He crouched down before the old trunk, opened it,

and began rummaging impatiently among a mass of old papers, during

which he kept on talking. "I know she never loved any one but herself.

There was a depth of pride, imperiousness, even cruelty about her, yet,

at the same time, she was so good, so genuinely womanly, so infinitely

pleasant and lovable. She had two natures--the one egoistical and

calculating, the other all heart and passionate tenderness. See here, I

have it. Read it now, Romashov. The beginning will not interest you

much" (Nasanski turned over a few lines of the letter), "but read from

here; read it all."

Romashov felt as if some one had struck him a stunning blow on the head,

and the whole room seemed to dance before his eyes, for the letter was

written in a large but nervous and compressed hand, that could only

belong to Alexandra Petrovna--quaint, irregular, but by no means

unsympathetic. Romashov, who had often received cards from her with

invitations to small dinners and card parties, recognized this hand at

once.

"It is a bitter and hard task for me to write this," read Romashov under

Nasanski's hand; "but only you yourself are to blame for our

acquaintance coming to this tragic end. Lying I abominate more than

anything else in life. It always springs from cowardice and weakness,

and this is the reason why I shall also tell you the whole truth. I

loved you up to now; yes, I love you even now, and I know it will prove

very hard for me to master this feeling. But I also know that, in the

end, I shall gain the victory. What do you suppose our lot would be if I

acted otherwise? I confess I lack the energy and self-denial requisite

for becoming the housekeeper, nurse-girl, or sister of mercy to a

weakling with no will of his own. I loathe above everything

self-sacrifice and pity for others, and I shall let neither you nor any

one else excite these feelings in me. I will not have a husband who

would only be a dog at my feet, incessantly craving alms or proofs of

affection. And you would never be anything else, in spite of your

extraordinary talents and noble qualities. Tell me now, with your hand

upon your heart, if you are capable of it. Alas! my dear Vasili Nilich,

if you could. All my heart, all my life yearns for you. I love you. What

is the obstacle, then? No one but yourself. For a person one loves, one

can, you know, sacrifice the whole world, and now I ask of you only this

one thing; but can you? No, you cannot, and now I bid you good-bye for

ever. In thought I kiss you on your forehead as one kisses a corpse, and

you are dead to me--for ever. I advise you to destroy this letter, not

that I blush for or fear its contents, but because I think it will be a

source to you of tormenting recollections. I repeat once more----"

"The rest is of little interest to you," said Nasanski abruptly, as he

took the letter from Romashov's hand. "This, as I have just told you,

was her only letter to me."

"What happened afterwards?" stammered Romashov awkwardly.

"Afterwards? We never saw one another afterwards. She went her way and

is reported to have married an engineer. That, however, is another

matter."

"And you never visit Alexandra Petrovna?"

Romashov uttered these words in a whisper, but both officers started at

the sound of them, and gazed at each other a long time without speaking.

During these few seconds all the barriers raised by human guile and

hypocrisy fell away, and the two men read each other's soul as an open

book. Hundreds of things that had hitherto been for them a profound

secret stood before them that moment in dazzling light, and the whole of

the conversation that evening suddenly took a peculiar, deep, nay,

almost tragic, significance.

"What? you too?" exclaimed Nasanski at last, with an expression

bordering on fear in his eyes, but he quickly regained his composure and

exclaimed with a laugh, "Ugh! what a misunderstanding! We were

discussing something quite different. That letter which you have just

read was written hundreds of years ago, and the woman in question lived

in Transcaucasia. But where was it we left off?"

"It is late, Vasili Nilich, and time to say good-night," replied

Romashov, rising.

Nasanski did not try to keep him. They separated neither in a cold or

unfriendly way, but they were, as it seemed, ashamed of each other.

Romashov was now more convinced than ever that the letter was from

Shurochka. During the whole of his way home he thought of nothing except

this letter, but he could not make out what feelings it aroused in him.

They were a mingling of jealousy of Nasanski--jealousy on account of

what had been--but also a certain exultant pity for Nasanski, and in

himself there awoke new hopes, dim and indefinite, but delicious and

alluring. It was as if this letter had put into his hand a mysterious,

invisible clue that was leading him into the future.

The breeze had subsided. The tepid night's intense darkness and silence

reminded one of soft, warm velvet. One felt, as it were, life's mystic

creative force in the never-slumbering air, in the dumb stillness of the

invisible trees, in the smell of the earth. Romashov walked without

seeing which way he went, and it seemed to him as if he felt the hot

breath of something strong and powerful, but, at the same time, sweet

and caressing. His thoughts went back with dull, harrowing pain to

bygone happy springs that would never more return--to the blissful,

innocent days of his childhood.

When he reached home he found on the table another letter from Raisa

Alexandrovna Peterson. In her usual bad taste she complained, in turgid,

extravagant terms, of his "deceitful conduct" towards her. She "now

understood everything," and the "injured woman" within her invoked on

him all the perils of hatred and revenge.

Now I know what I have to do (the letter ran). If I survive the

sorrow and pain of your abominable conduct, you may be quite

certain I shall cruelly avenge this insult. You seem to think that

nobody knows where you are in the habit of spending your evenings.

You are watched! and even walls have ears. Every step you take is

known to me. But all the same, you will never get anything _there_

with all your soft, pretty speeches, unless N. flings you

downstairs like a puppy. So far as I am concerned, you will be wise

not to lull yourself into fancied security. I am not one of those

women who let themselves be insulted with impunity.

A Caucasian woman am I

Who knows how to handle a knife.

--Once yours, now nobody's,