The festivities were over; the guests had departed; Eva and Susan
remained alone in the castle.
The fullness of spring had come thus early to that southern coast.
The festivals had been festivals of spring amid a tropical wealth of
flowers and in that heroic landscape. The flight from the winter of the
North had been so swift that no dignity could withstand its effects. It
had intoxicated every soul. They had given themselves up to the mere
delight of breathing, to the astonishment of the senses. Some had felt
like carousers and gluttons merely, others like liberated prisoners,
and all had been conscious of the brevity of their respite; and this
consciousness breathed a breath of melancholy over all delight.
The atmosphere still echoed the thrill of impassioned words and the
tread and laughter of women; the sounds had not yet quite died away,
and in the night the darkness of the silent park still yearned for the
glow of lights which the stars above could not cause it to forget.
But they were all gone.
The Grand Duke had accepted the invitation of an Austrian Archduke
to shoot on his estates. In April Eva was to meet him in Vienna and
accompany him to Florence. She had asked none of her friends to stay
longer, no woman, no artist, and no paladin. It had become a very
hunger of her soul to be alone once more. She had not been alone for
four years.
She felt even Susan to be in the way. When the woman crept about her
in foolish anxiety, she sent her out of the room. She desired not to
be addressed nor to be beheld; she wanted to escape into a crystalline
structure of loneliness. She had built it, and wanted the full
experience of it; and suddenly she became aware of the fact that it
estranged her from herself. Something had happened to make the blood of
her heart cool and sick.
She could not read nor write letters nor consider plans. No hour seemed
to grow out of another living hour. All day she walked alone by the
sea or sat amid flowers in the garden. The greater part of the night
she lay on an open terrace, in front of which the sky hung down like a
curtain of dark-blue velvet. Often the dawn had arisen before she went
to bed. She had a sensation within herself as of loosened organization
and rhythms dissolved. At times she felt a sting of dread. Noon glowed
on her like steel; evening was a gate into the unknown.
She had forbidden all messages. Letters that laid claim to any urgency
were answered by Susan or Monsieur Labourdemont. Yet casting a chance
and inattentive look at the letter of a friend she saw something about
Ivan Becker. What she read took possession of her mind. It was like a
presage and a touch of danger. When she lay at night on her terrace,
there was a pallid flashing behind the azure curtain of the sky, and
the silence breathed treachery.
At the head of fifteen thousand workingmen, all loyal to the Tsar, Ivan
Becker had appeared in front of the Winter Palace, in order to effect a
direct explanation and reconciliation between the Tsar and his people.
Regiments of Cossacks had surrounded the peaceful demonstration, and
it had ended in a shambles. Again the people had gathered, and Ivan
Becker on a tribunal had stretched out his arms to heaven and cursed
the Tsar. He was a fugitive in the land, hiding in monasteries and
in peasants’ huts. Next the mutineers of the “Panteleymon” and the
“Potemkin” sent him a message, bidding him join them. The crews of the
two dreadnoughts had refused obedience to their officers in the harbour
of Sebastopol. They had murdered their captains and other officers,
and cast their bodies into the sea or into the ships’ fires. They had
taken possession of the ships, elected their own officers, and had
steamed out to sea. It was not known whether Ivan Becker had followed
the summons of the mutineers; all trace of him had been lost. But many
people asserted with assurance that he had sought security from the
pursuit of the political police on board of the rebellious ships, and
had acquired a remarkable influence over the savage seamen.
It was his third appearance in the midst of revolt and blood.
Rumours were brought and spread by gardeners, fishermen, and peasants.
It was said that the mutineers had turned pirates, that they captured
merchantmen and bombarded cities. During many nights rockets flared
up in the sky, and the thunder of artillery was heard. Wherever they
needed not to fear the attack of superior forces, it was said, they
landed and looted towns and villages, killed all who resisted, and
filled the province far inland with terror.
Eva was warned. She was warned by the elder of a village that lay
on the confines of her park; she was warned by messengers sent by
the naval commander at Nicolayev, who informed her that the mutinous
sailors planned to attack all imperial estates in the Crimea,
especially those of the Grand Duke; she was finally warned by an
anonymous telegram from Moscow.
She did not heed these warnings. She had a feeling that she should
not and must not fear this thing of all others--not this menace of
degradation and ugliness. So she remained; but her stay was one long
waiting. A conviction of a thing ineluctable had come over her. It
proceeded not from the mutineers or their reign of crime, but from her
own mind and from the profound logic of things.
One evening she mounted the golden stairs to the tower. Gazing from
the platform across the dark tree-tops and over land and sea, she saw
along the northern horizon a seam of scarlet. Wrapped in a filmy veil,
she thoughtfully watched the spreading of that glow without anxiety or
curiosity as to its cause. She had a penetrant feeling of the presence
of fate, and bowed to it in fatalistic resignation.
Susan was waiting in the room with the Arabic frescoes. Walking up and
down with the stride of a dervish, she fought against her darkening
fears. The flame was burning low. How was it with Lucas Anselmo? Her
deep awareness of him, her sense of living for him, had not grown
feebler during these years of radiance and fulfilment. The dancer who
was his work, into whom he had breathed the breath of life and art, had
been to her, now as before, the assurance of his being and the message
of his soul. And what was happening now? Darkness was creeping on; the
shadow-creature of his making drooped in its lovely motions. Was the
hand that had formed and commanded it stricken and cold? Had that lofty
spirit grown weary, and lost the strength to project itself afar? Had
the end come?
Eva entered. She was startled by Susan’s appearance, and sat down on a
couch, at whose head stood glowing hortensias that were renewed each
morning. The sea wind had chilled her. The eyes in their carven hollows
were stern. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I think we ought to leave,” Susan answered. “It is foolish to delay.
The small military escort that is on the way from Yalta could not
protect us if the castle were to be attacked.”
“What are you afraid of?” Eva asked again. “Of men?”
“Yes, I am afraid of men; and it is a very reasonable fear. Use your
imagination, and think of their bodies and voices. We ought to leave.”
“It is foolish to be afraid of men,” Eva insisted, leaning her arm on
the pillows and her head upon her hand.
Susan said: “But you too are afraid. Or what is it? What is happening
to you? Is it fear? What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid ... yes, I am afraid,” Eva murmured. “Of what? I don’t know. Of
shadows and dreams. Something has gone from me; my guardian deity has
fled. That makes me afraid.”
Susan trembled at these confirmatory words. “Shall we order our boxes
packed?” she asked humbly.
Overhearing her question Eva continued: “Fear grows from guilt. Look
you, I wander about here, and am guilty. I open my garment because it
binds me, and feel my guilt. I stretch out my hand after one of those
blue blossoms, and know my guilt. I think and think, and brood and
brood, and cannot fathom the reason. The innermost, ultimate reason--I
cannot find it.”
“Guilt?” Susan stammered in her consternation. “Guilty? You? Child,
what are you saying? You are ill! Dearest, sweetest, you are ill!” She
kneeled at Eva’s feet, embraced her delicate body, and looked up at
her with swimming eyes. “Let us flee, dear heart, let us flee to our
friends. I knew this land would kill you. Yesterday’s wilderness which
your enchantment transformed into an unreal paradise still guards the
old malevolence of its remote and accursed earth. Arise and smile, dear
one. I shall sit down at the piano and play Schumann, whom you love.
I shall bring you a mirror, that you may behold yourself and see how
beautiful you still are. Who that is so beautiful can be guilty?”
Sadly Eva shook her head. “Beauty?” she asked. “Beauty? You would cheat
me of my deep perceptions with your talk of beauty. I know nothing of
beauty. If it be indeed a real thing, it is without blessing. No, do
not speak of beauty. I have reached out after too much in too short
a time, robbed too much, used too much, wasted too much--men and
souls and given pledges. I could not hold it all nor bear it. All my
wishes were fulfilled. The more measureless they became, the swifter
was the fulfilment. I had fame and love and wealth and power, the
service of slaves and adoration--everything, everything! So much that
I could burrow in it as in a heap of precious stories. I desired to
rise--from what depths you know, and wings were given me. I desired
to break obstacles; they melted at my glance. I wanted to devote
myself to a great cause, and its servants had faith in me before I had
begun to master its meaning. They proclaimed it in my name while I
still needed to be taught it. All things came too soon and too fully.
Millions sacrifice what is dearest to them, tremblingly and devoutly,
not to be swept away from the cliff to which they are clinging; I was
like Aladdin, to whom the genii bow the knee before his command is
uttered. And I thrust from me and misprized the only one whose heart
ever resisted me--though he himself knew not why. Every step has been
a step toward guilt, every yearning has been guilt, and every stirring
of gratitude. Every hour of delight has been guilt, every enjoyment an
impoverishment, and every rise a fall.”
“Blasphemer,” Susan murmured. “Pride and satiety cause you to sin
against yourself and your fate.”
“How you torment me,” Eva answered. “How all of you torment me--men and
women. How sterile I become through you. How your voices torture me,
and your eyes and words and thoughts. You lie so frivolously; you would
not listen, and truth is hateful to you. Who are you? Who are you,
Susan? You have a name; but I do not know you. You are another self;
and you torment me out of that other selfhood. Go! Have I asked you to
be with me? I want to enter my own soul, and you would keep me without?
I tell you I shall stay, though they burn the house down over my head.”
She spoke these words with a repressed passionateness, and arose. She
withdrew herself from her sobbing companion and entered her bedchamber.
An hour later Susan burst in, pale and with dishevelled hair. She
called out to her mistress, who was still awake and meditating by the
light of a shaded lamp: “They are upon us. They are approaching the
castle! Labourdemont has telephoned to Yalta. We are advised to flee
at once. During the past fifteen minutes the wires have been cut.
I’ve just left the garage; the motor will drive up in twenty minutes.
Quickly, quickly, while there is still time.”
Calmly Eva said: “There is no occasion for alarm or outcry; control
yourself. Experience in similar cases seems to show that flight only
goads the people on to plundering and destruction. If they have the
temerity to enter here, I shall face their leaders and deal with them.
That is the right and natural thing. I shall stay; but I shall force no
one to stay with me.”
Susan was quite calm at once, and her tone was dry: “You are very much
in error, if you think I tremble for myself. If you stay, it goes
without saying that I stay too. Let us not waste another word.” And she
gave her mistress the garment which a gesture had demanded.
Then were heard hurrying steps and cries, the whir of the motor, and
the barking of dogs. Monsieur Labourdemont strode wildly up and down
in the ante-room. The sergeant of gendarmes addressed his men from the
stairs. With equanimity Eva sat down at her toilet table, and let Susan
arrange her hair. The roar of the sea came through the open window. The
heavy dragging noise was suddenly interrupted by the rattle of rifle
fire.
A brief silence ensued. Labourdemont knocked at the door of the
sleeping chamber. There wasn’t another minute to be lost, he called
out, with a lump of terror in his throat. “Tell him what is needful,”
Eva commanded. Susan went out, and returned shortly with a sombre smile
on her lips. Eva’s glance questioned her. “Panic,” Susan said, and
shrugged her shoulders. “Naturally. They don’t know what to do.”
Again cries were heard; they were frightened and confused. A light
flickered; muffled commands followed. Loud cries burst into the
silence, then the howling of hundreds. Next came a sudden crash,
as though a wooden door had been broken down. Crackling of flames
swallowed the barking of the dogs, and was itself silenced by piercing
cries, hisses, roars. A pillar of fire arose without; the chamber was
crimson in the glow. Susan stood crimson in its midst; her eyes were
glassy, and her face a rigid mask.
Eva went to the window. Trees and bushes were steeped in glow. The
centre of the fire was not to be seen. The space in front of the castle
was deserted. The guards had vanished; seeing the hopelessness of
facing the superior forces of the mutineers, they had fled; nor was
a single one of Eva’s servants to be seen. Uncertain shadows rolled
forward, hissing in the glow and the darkness. Shots sounded from
all directions. The clash of shards resounded; they were stoning the
hothouses. Suddenly from the right and from the left, surging about the
house, masses of men burst out of the fiery twilight, that was momently
transformed into yellow brilliancy. It was a wild throng of arms and
rumps and heads, a raging mass, impetuously driving forward, whose
roaring and growling and whistling shook the very air.
“Leave the window!” Susan murmured, in rough beseeching.
Eva did not stir. Faces looked up and saw her. An incomprehensible word
flashed through the whirling mass. Many remained standing; but while
they stared upward, they were thrust aside by others behind them. The
human surge broke against the castle steps and ebbed away a little. A
wavering came upon it, then a silence.
“Leave the window!” Susan begged, with uplifted hands.
Masses of scarlet-tinged faces turned toward Eva. Close-packed, they
filled the semicircle in front of the castle; and still the mass
increased, like a dark fluid in a vessel that is slowly filled to the
brim. Those farthest behind stamped on the sward and flower-beds,
uprooted bushes, hurled statues to the ground. Most of them wore the
uniform of marines; but among them was also the mob of cities, human
offscourings eager for booty and blood--the men of the Black Hundreds.
They were armed with rifles, sabres, clubs, revolvers, iron bars, and
axes. A great number were drunk.
That incomprehensible word clanged once more above the serried heads.
The whirling forward rush started again. Fists worked their way upward.
A shot resounded. Susan uttered a throttled cry, as the hanging lamp
over the bed fell shattered. Eva stepped back from the window. She
shivered. Absent-mindedly she took a few steps, and lifted an apple
from a bowl. It slipped from her hand and rolled along the floor.
They entered the house. Blows of the axe were heard, the shuffle of
feet, the opening of doors. They were seeking.
“We are doomed,” Susan whispered, and clung to Eva’s arm with both
hands, as though someone were thrusting her into water.
“Let me be,” Eva repulsed her. “I shall try to speak to them. It will
suffice to show them courage.”
“Don’t go! For God’s sake, don’t!” Susan besought her.
“Let me go, I tell you. I see no other way. Hide, and let me go!”
Her step was the step of a queen. Perhaps she knew the sentence that
had been pronounced. Upon the threshold an icy feeling of ultimate
decision came over her. Her eyes were veiled. The way seemed far to
her and moved her to impatience. From the reflection of fire and the
twilit greyness, men bounded toward her and receded, surrounded her and
melted back. The nobility of her figure still had power over them; but
behind them venomous demons raged and made a path toward her. She spoke
some Russian words. The flaring whirl of heads and shoulders surged
fantastically up and down. She saw necks, beards, teeth, fists, ears,
eyes, foreheads, veins, nails. Features dislimned; the faces melted
into a glow of flame. Fire crackled in her gymnasium; hatchets crashed
against costly things; smoke filled the corridors; maniacal cries tore
the air. Eva turned.
It was too late. No magic of look or gesture availed. The depths were
unleashed.
She fled with the lightness of a gazelle. Loutish steps followed
her, and the wheezing of loud lungs. She reached the stairs of the
quadrangular tower, the structure of her whim. She ran up the stairs.
High up the gilded steps sparkled in the first glint of dawn. Her
hand glided without friction over the balustrade. The painted enamel,
another creation of her whims, was cool and calming to her palms. Her
pursuers grunted like wolves. But the light seemed to lift her upward.
She burst into the silvery morning, and beheld the burning buildings
swaying in the wind and the wide sea. Her pursuers surged after her
like a great heap of limbs, a polypus with hair and noses and cruel
teeth.
She leaped upon the parapet. Arms reached out after her. Higher! Ah, if
there were a higher height! Clouds covered the sky. Once upon a time
it had been different. Stars had comforted her--the lordly reaches of
the firmament. The memory lasted but a second. Hands grasped her; claws
were at her very breast. Four, six, eight pairs of arms were stretched
out toward her. A last reflection, a last struggle, a last sigh. The
air divided with a whir. She plunged....
On slabs of marble lay her body. That marvellous body was a mass
of bloody pulp. The broken eyes were open--empty, void of depth or
knowledge or consciousness. Over the parapet the human wolves howled in
their disappointed rage. Below others fell upon her dead. They tore the
garments from her body, and stuck shreds of them, like flags, on poles
and branches.
Slain on the threshold of her mistress’ bedchamber lay Susan Rappard.
When the work of plundering and destruction had been completed, the
wild horde withdrew. A man of mercy and shame had finally thrown a
horse-blanket over the dancer’s soiled and naked body.
As evening came, one man still wandered about amid the ruins, a lonely
man in lonely travail of spirit. He wore the garb of a priest, and on
his features was the stamp of a fate fulfilled. Those who came at a
late hour to seek and accompany him, greeted him with reverence, for
he was accounted by them a saint of the people and a prophet of the
kingdom to come.
He spoke to them: “I have lied to you; I am but a weak creature like
the rest.”
They rocked their heads and one answered: “Little Father Ivan
Michailovitch, do not destroy our hope or cease leading us in our
weakness.”
Thereupon this saint of his people gazed at the body that lay under
a horse-blanket amid the trampled flowers and the charred ruins, and
said: “Let us proceed then even unto the end.”