"Romochka, are you happy?"
"Yes--happy," he answered. Then, after reviewing in his mind, for an
instant, all the events of that day, he repeated fervently: "Oh, yes--so
happy, but tell me why you are to-day so, so?..."
"So? What do you mean?"
She bent lower towards him, gazed into his eyes, and all her lovely
countenance was for once visible to Romashov.
"Wonderful, divine Shurochka, you have never been so beautiful as now.
There is something about you that sings and shines--something new and
mysterious which I cannot understand. But, Alexandra Petrovna, don't be
angry now at the question. Are you not afraid that some one may come?"
She smiled without speaking, and that soft, low, caressing laugh aroused
in Romashov's heart a tremor of ineffable bliss.
"My dearest Romochka--my good, faint-hearted, simple, timorous
Romochka--have I not already told you that this day is ours? Think only
of that, Romochka. Do you know why I am so brave and reckless to-day?
No, you do not know the reason. Well, it's because I am in love with you
to-day--nothing else. No, no--don't, please, get any false notions into
your head. To-morrow it will have passed."
Romashov tried to take her in his arms.
"Alexandra Petrovna--Shurochka--Sascha,"[18] he moaned beseechingly.
"Don't call me Shurochka--do you hear? I don't like it. Anything but
that. By the way," she stopped abruptly as if considering something,
"what a charming name you have--Georgi. It's much prettier than
Yuri--oh, much, much, much prettier. Georgi," she pronounced the name
slowly with an accent on each syllable as though it afforded her delight
to listen to the sound of every letter in the word. "Yes, there is a
proud ring about that name."
"Oh, my beloved," Romashov exclaimed, interrupting her with passionate
fervour.
"Wait and listen. I dreamt of you last night--a wonderful, enchanting
dream. I dreamt we were dancing together in a very remarkable room. Oh,
I should at any time recognize that room in its minutest details. It was
lighted by a red lamp that shed its radiance on handsome rugs, a bright
new cottage piano, and two windows with drawn red curtains. All within
was red. An invisible orchestra played, we danced close-folded in each
other's arms. No, no. It's only in dreams that one can come so
intoxicatingly close to the object of one's love. Our feet did not touch
the floor; we hovered in the air in quicker and quicker circles, and
this ineffably delightful enchantment lasted so very, very long. Listen,
Romochka, do you ever fly in your dreams?"
Romashov did not answer immediately. He was in an exquisitely beautiful
world of wonders, at the same time magic and real. And was not all this
then merely a dream, a fairy tale? This warm, intoxicating spring night;
these dark, silent, listening trees; this rare, beautiful, white-clad
woman beside him. He only succeeded, after a violent effort of will, in
coming back to consciousness and reality.
"Yes, sometimes, but, with every passing year my flight gets weaker and
lower. When I was a child, I used to fly as high as the ceiling, and how
funny it seemed to me to look down on the people on the floor. They
walked with their feet up, and tried in vain to reach me with the long
broom. I flew off, mocking them with my exultant laughter. But now the
force in my wings is broken," added Romashov, with a sigh. "I flap my
wings about for a few strokes, and then fall flop on the floor."
Shurochka sank into a semi-recumbent position, with her elbow resting on
the ground and her head resting in the palm of her hand. After a few
moments' silence she continued in an absent tone--
"This morning, when I awoke, a mad desire came over me to meet you. So
intense was my longing that I do not know what would have happened if
you had not come. I almost think I should have defied convention, and
looked you up at your house. That was why I told you not to come before
five o'clock. I was afraid of myself. Darling, do you understand me
now?"
Hardly half an _arshin_ from Romashov's face lay her crossed feet--two
tiny feet in very low shoes, and stockings clocked with white embroidery
in the form of an arrow over the instep. With his temples throbbing and
a buzzing in his ears, he madly pressed his eager lips against this
elastic, live, cool part of her body, which he felt through the
stocking.
"No, Romochka--stop." He heard quite close above his head her weak,
faltering, and somewhat lazy voice.
Romashov raised his head. Once more he was the fairy-tale prince in the
wonderful wood. In scattered groups along the whole extensive slope in
the dark grass stood the ancient, solemn oaks, motionless, but attentive
to every sound that disturbed Nature's holy, dream-steeped slumbers.
High up, above the horizon and through the dense mass of tree trunks and
crests, one could still discern a slender streak of twilight glow, not,
as usual, light red or changing into blue, but of dark purple hue,
reminiscent of the last expiring embers in the hearth, or the dull
flames of deep red wine drawn out by the sun's rays. And as it were,
framed in all this silent magnificence, lay a young, lovely, white-clad
woman--a dryad lazily reclining.
Romashov came closer to her. To him it seemed as if from Shurochka's
countenance there streamed a pale, faint radiance. He could not
distinguish her eyes; he only saw two large black spots, but he felt
that she was gazing at him steadily.
"This is a poem, a fairy-tale--a fairy-tale," he whispered, scarcely
moving his lips.
"Yes, my friend, it is a fairy-tale."
He began to kiss her dress; he hid his face in her slender, warm,
sweet-smelling hand, and, at the same time, stammered in a hollow
voice--
"Sascha--I love you--love you."
When she now raised herself somewhat up, he clearly saw her eyes, black,
piercing, now unnaturally dilated, at another moment closed altogether,
by which the whole of her face was so strangely altered that it became
unrecognizable. His eager, thirsty lips sought her mouth, but she turned
away, shook her head sadly, and at last whispered again and again--
"No, no, no, my dear, my darling--not that."
"Oh, my adored one, what bliss--I love you," Romashov again interrupted
her, intoxicated with love. "See, this night--this silence, and no one
here, save ourselves. Oh, my happiness, how I love you!"
But again she replied, "No, no," and sank back into her former attitude
on the grass. She breathed heavily. At last she said in a scarcely
audible voice, and it was plain that every word cost her a great effort:
"Romochka, it's a pity that you are so weak. I will not deny that I feel
myself drawn to you, and that you are dear to me, in spite of your
awkwardness, your simple inexperience of life, your childish and
sentimental tenderness. I do not say I love you, but you are always in
my thoughts, in my dreams, and your presence, your caresses set my
senses, my thoughts, working. But why are you always so pitiable?
Remember that pity is the sister of contempt. You see it is unfortunate
I cannot look up to you. Oh, if you were a strong, purposeful man----"
She took off Romashov's cap and put her fingers softly and caressingly
through his soft hair. "If you could only win fame--a high
position----"
"I promise to do so; I will do so," exclaimed Romashov, in a strained
voice. "Only be mine, come to me ... all my life shall...."
She interrupted him with a tender and sorrowful smile, of which there
was an echo in her voice.
"I believe you, dear; I believe you mean what you say, and I also know
you will never be able to keep your promise. Oh, if I could only cherish
the slightest hope of that, I would abandon everything and follow you.
Ah, Romochka, my handsome boy, I call to mind a certain legend which
tells how God from the beginning created every human being whole, but
afterwards broke it into two pieces and threw the bits broadcast into
the world. And ever afterward the one half seeks in vain its fellow.
Dear, we are both exactly two such unhappy creatures. With us there are
so many sympathies, antipathies, thoughts, dreams, and wishes in common.
We understand each other by means of only half a hint, half a word--nay,
even without words. And yet our ways must lie apart. Alas! this is now
the second time in my life----"
"Yes, I know it."
"Has he told you this?" asked Shurochka eagerly.
"No; it was only by accident I got to know it."
They were both silent. In the sky the first stars began to light up and
display themselves to the eye as little, trembling, emerald, sparkling
points. From the right you might hear a weak echo of voices, laughter
and the strains of a song; but in all the rest of the wood, which was
sunk in soft, caressing darkness, reigned a deep, mysterious silence.
The great blazing pyre was not visible from this spot in the woods, but
the crests from the nearest oaks now and then reflected the flaming red
glow that, by its rapid changes from darkness to light, reminded one of
distant and vivid sheet-lightning. Shurochka softly and silently
caressed Romashov's hair and face. When he succeeded in seizing her
fingers between his lips, she herself pressed the palm of her hand
against his mouth.
"I do not love my husband," she said slowly and in an absent voice. "He
is rough, indelicate, and devoid of any trace of fine feeling. Ah, I
blush when I speak of it--we women never forget how a man first takes
forcible possession of us. Besides, he is so insanely jealous. Even
to-day he worries me about that wretched Nasanski. He forces confessions
from me, and makes the most insignificant events of those times the
ground for the wildest conclusions. Ah--shame, he has unblushingly dared
to put the most disgusting questions to me. Good God! all that was only
an innocent, childish romance, but the mere mention of Nasanski's name
makes him furious."
Now and then, whilst she spoke, a nervous trembling was noticeable in
her voice, and her hand, still continuing its caress, was thrilled, as
it were, by a shudder.
"Are you cold?" asked Romashov.
"No, dear--not at all," she replied gently. "The night is so
bewitchingly beautiful, you know." Suddenly, with a burst of
uncontrollable passion, she exclaimed, "Oh, my beloved, how sweet to be
here with you."
Romashov took her hand, softly caressed the delicate fingers, and said
in a shy, diffident tone:
"Tell me, I beg you. You have just said yourself that you do not love
your husband. Why, then, do you live together?"
She arose with a rapid movement, sat up, and began nervously to pass her
hands over her forehead and cheeks, as if she had awakened from a dream.
"It's late; let us go. Perhaps they are even now looking for us," she
answered in a calm and completely altered voice.
They got up from the grass, and both stood for a while silent, listening
to each other's breathings, eye to eye, but with lowered gaze.
"Good-bye," she suddenly cried in a silvery voice. "Good-bye, my
bliss--my brief bliss."
She twined her arms round his neck and pressed her moist, burning-hot
lips to his mouth. With clenched teeth and a sigh of intense passion she
pressed her body to his. To Romashov's eyes the black trunks of the oaks
seemed to reel and softly bend towards the ground, where the objects ran
into each other and disappeared before his eyes. Time stood still....
By a violent jerk she released herself from his arms, and said in a firm
voice:
"Farewell--enough. Let us go."
Romashov without a sound sank down on the grass at her feet, embracing
her knees, and pressing his lips against her dress in long, hot kisses.
"Sascha--Saschenka," he whispered, having now lost all self-command,
"have pity on me."
"Get up, Georgi Alexandrovich! Come--they might take us unawares. Let us
return to the others."
They proceeded on their way in the direction from which they heard the
sound of voices. Romashov's temples throbbed, his knees gave way, and
he stumbled like a drunken man.
"No, I will not," Shurochka answered at last in a fevered, panting
voice. "I will not betray him. Besides, it would be something even worse
than betrayal--it would be cowardice. Cowardice enters into every
betrayal. I'll tell you the whole truth. I have never deceived my
husband, and I shall remain faithful to him until the very moment when I
shall release myself from him--for ever. His kisses and caresses are
disgusting to me, and listen, now--no, even before--when I thought of
you and your kisses, I understood what ineffable bliss it would be to
surrender myself wholly to the man I love. But to steal such a
joy--never. I hate deceit and treacherous ways."
They were approaching the spot where the picnic had taken place, and the
flames from the pyre shone from between the trees, the coarse,
bark-covered trunks of which were sharply outlined against the fire, and
looked as if they were molten in some black metal.
"Well," resumed Romashov, "if I shake off my sluggishness, if I succeed
in attaining the same goal as that for which your husband is striving,
or perhaps even something still higher--would you then ...?"
She pressed her cheek hard against his shoulder, and answered
impetuously and passionately--
"Yes, then, then!"
They gained the open. All the vast, burning pyre was visible; around it
a crowd of small, dark figures were moving.
"Listen, Romochka, to still another last word." Shurochka spoke fast,
and there was a note of sorrow and anguish in her voice. "I did not
like to spoil this evening for you, but now it must be told. You must
not call at my house any more."
He stopped abruptly before her with a look of intense astonishment. "Not
call? But tell me the reason, Sascha. What has happened?"
"Come, come; I don't know, but somebody is writing anonymous letters to
my husband. He has not shown them to me, only casually mentioned several
things about them. The foulest and most disgusting stories are being
manufactured about you and me. In short, I beg you not to come to us any
more."
"Sascha," he moaned, as he stretched out his arms to her.
"O my friend, my dearest and most beloved. Who will suffer more from
this than I? But it is unavoidable. And listen to this, too. I am afraid
he is going to speak to you about this. I beseech you, for God's sake,
not to lose your temper. Promise me you won't."
"That is all right; don't be afraid," Romashov replied in a gloomy tone.
"That is all. Farewell, poor friend. Give me your hand once more and
squeeze mine tight, quite tight, till it hurts. Oh! good-bye, darling,
darling."
They separated without going closer to the fire. Shurochka walked
straight up the slope. Romashov took a devious path downwards along the
shore. The card-playing was still going on, but their absence had been
remarked, and when Romashov approached the fire, Ditz greeted him so
insolently, and with such a vulgar attack of coughing in order to draw
attention, that Romashov could hardly restrain himself from flinging a
firebrand at his face.
Directly after this he noticed that Nikoläiev left his game, took
Shurochka aside, and talked to her for some time with angry gestures and
looks of hatred. Suddenly she pulled herself together, and answered him
in a few words with an indescribable expression of indignation and
contempt on her features. And that big, strong man all at once
shrivelled up humbly in her presence, like a whipped hound which
obediently goes its way, but gnashes its teeth with suppressed fury.
The party broke up soon after this. The night felt chilly, and a raw
mist rose from the little river. The common stock of good humour and
merriment had long been exhausted, and all separated, weary, drowsy, and
without hiding their yawns. Romashov was soon once more sitting in his
trap, opposite the Misses Michin, but he never uttered a word during the
course of the journey. Before his mind's eye still stood the mighty dark
and silent trees and the blood-red sunset over the brow of the woodland
hill. There, too, in the soft, scented grass, he saw beside him a female
shape robed in white, but during all his intense, consuming pain and
longing, he did not fail to say of himself, pathetically--
"And over his handsome countenance swept a cloud of sorrow."