Once more alone! He sat in his room, musing of her, recalling her dear
features.
There was an album before him--portrait after portrait of her--naked,
beautiful, calling to love, to the sweet solace of love. Would this
white breast cease heaving? Would these clear eyes grow dim?
She died.
Trirodov closed the album. For a long time he remained immersed in
thought. Suddenly there was a rustling behind the wall, which
gradually grew louder--it seemed as if the whole house were alive with
the movements of the quiet children. Some one knocked on the door;
Kirsha entered, distraught. He said:
“Father, let us go into the wood as fast as we can.”
Trirodov looked at him in silence. Kirsha went on:
“Something terrible is happening. There, near the hollow, by the
spring.”
Elisaveta’s blue eyes appeared to him suddenly as in a flame. Where
was she? Was she in a difficulty? And his heart fell into the dark
abyss of fear.
Kirsha made haste. He almost cried in his agitation.
They went on horseback. They whipped up their horses. They feared they
might be too late.
Again the quiet, dark, intensely pensive wood. Elisaveta walked
alone--tranquil, blue-eyed, simple in her dress, harmonious in the
graceful harmony of her deep experiences. She fell into thought--she
recalled things and mused upon them. Her dreams were revealed in the
gleam of her blue eyes. Dreams of happiness and of passionate love
were interwoven with a different, greater love; and these melted into
one another in the fiery longing for noble activity and sacrifice.
What did she not recall? What did she not dream of?
Sharp swords were being forged. To whose lot would they fall?
The high standard of solitary freedom was fluttering.
Youths and maidens!
There, in the dark halls of his house, proud plans were being made.
What a beautiful environment of naked beauty!
There were the children--happy and beautiful--in the wood.
There were the quiet children in his house--radiant and lovable and
touched with such sadness.
There was the strange Kirsha.
Portraits of his first wife--naked and beautiful.
Elisaveta’s blue eyes gleamed dreamily.
She recalled the details of the previous evening--the remote room in
Trirodov’s house, the small gathering in it, the long discussions, the
subsequent labours, the measured knock of the typing-machine, the damp
pages put into portfolios.
Then she thought how she, Stchemilov, Voronok and some one else walked
out into the various streets of the town to paste up the bills. They
put the paste on while still walking. They always took a look round
first to see that no one was in sight. Then they would pause and
quickly stick the bill on the fence. They would go on farther.... The
effort had been successful.
Elisaveta did not think where she was going; she had walked quite far
out of her way, to a place that she had not been to before. She
imagined that the quiet children were keeping guard over her. She
walked trustfully in the forest silence, yielding her bare feet to the
caresses of the moist forest grasses, and now listened, now ceased
listening, in delicious drowsiness.
Something rustled behind the bushes, some one’s nimble feet were
running behind the light undergrowth.
Suddenly she heard a loud laugh--almost at her ears; it broke into her
sweet reverie with such a violent suddenness--like the trumpet of an
archangel calling to wake the dear dead on Judgment Day. Elisaveta
felt some one’s hot breath on her neck. A rough, perspiring hand
caught her by her bared forearm.
It was as if Elisaveta had suddenly awakened from a pleasant dream.
She raised her frightened eyes and paused like one bewitched. Two
vigorous ragged men stood before her. They were both handsome young
fellows; one of them was astonishingly handsome, swarthy, black-eyed.
Both were barely covered by their dirty rags, the openings in which
showed their dirty, perspiring, powerful bodies.
The men were laughing and crying insolently:
“We’ve caught you this time, pretty one!”
“We’ll fondle you to your heart’s content--you shan’t forget us so
soon!”
They drew closer and closer to her and blew their hot breath upon her.
Elisaveta suddenly came to herself, tore herself away with a quick
movement and began to run. A horror akin to wonder swung the
resounding bell in her breast--her heavily beating heart. It hindered
her running, and there was a beating of sharp little hammers under her
knees.
The two men quickly overtook her, and as they obstructed her passage
they laughed insolently and said:
“Ah, my beauty! Don’t make a fuss!”
“You won’t get away anyway.”
They jostled one another as they pulled Elisaveta about, each towards
himself; and acted altogether awkwardly, as if they did not know who
should begin and how. Their sensual panting bared their white teeth,
vigorous as those of a wild beast. The beauty of the half-naked,
swarthy man tempted Elisaveta--it was a sudden piquant temptation
acting like a poison.
The handsome man, his voice hoarse with agitation, shouted:
“Tear her clothes! Let her dance naked before us, and make our eyes
glad.”
“She hasn’t much on!” the other responded with a gay laugh.
He caught the broad collar of Elisaveta’s dress with one hand and
jerked it forward; he thrust the other hand, large, hot, and
perspiring, under her chemise and pressed and squeezed her taut young
breast.
“Two men against one woman--aren’t you ashamed?” said Elisaveta.
“Don’t be ashamed, my lass, and lie down on the grass,” exclaimed the
handsome, swarthy one, with a laugh very much like a horse’s neigh.
His white teeth gleamed, his eyes flamed with desire, as he tore
Elisaveta’s clothes with his hands and his teeth. The red and the
white roses of her body were soon bared.
The sensual breathing of the assailants was horrible and repugnant to
her, and she found it no less horrible and repugnant to look at their
perspiring faces, at the gleaming of their enkindled eyes. But their
beauty was tempting. In the dark depths of her consciousness a thought
struggled--to yield herself, to yield willingly.
Her dress and chemise, flimsy of texture, ripped with a barely audible
noise. Elisaveta struggled desperately, and shouted something--she did
not remember what.
All her clothes were already torn, and soon the last shreds of her
very light garments fell from her naked body. And in the struggle the
rags of the two clumsily moving men ripped with a loud, splitting
sound, their sudden nakedness rousing them even more.
There was seductiveness for Elisaveta in the nakedness of these
impetuous bodies. She taunted them:
“The two of you can’t manage one girl.”
She was strong and agile. It was difficult for them to conquer her.
Her naked body struggled and wriggled itself out of their arms. The
blue arch of her teeth on the naked shoulder of the handsome, swarthy
man grew red quickly. Drops of dark blood spurted on to his naked
torso.
“Wait, you carrion-flesh,” he cried in a hoarse voice, “I will....”
The powerful but awkward pair grew more and more exasperated. They
were enraged and intoxicated by her extraordinary resistance, by the
falling away of their rags and their sudden nakedness. They beat
Elisaveta, in the beginning with their fists, later with quickly
severed branches, or with those which already lay on the ground. The
sharp fires of pain stung her naked body and tempted her with a
burning temptation to yield herself willingly. But she did not yield
herself. Her loud sobs resounded for some distance around her.
The struggle continued for a long time. Elisaveta already began to
weaken, and the raging passions of the two men had not yet exhausted
themselves. Naked and savage, the lips of their wry mouths grown blue,
their blood-inflamed eyes gleaming dimly, they were on the point of
drawing her down to the ground.
Suddenly the white, quiet boys came running in a swarm into the glade,
lightly and noiselessly, like a rapid, light summer shower. They
appeared so quickly from among the bushes and threw themselves on the
savage pair; they surrounded them, cast themselves upon them, threw
them down, cast a sleeping spell upon them, and dragged them away into
the depth of the dark hollow. And they left the naked bodies sprawling
helplessly on the rough grasses.
The rapid, noiseless movements of the quiet boys put Elisaveta into a
mood verging on oblivion, half painful and half sweet.
What happened in that thicket seemed like a heavy and incredible dream
to Elisaveta--a sudden and cruel whim of the undependable Aisa. And
for a long time a dark horror nestled in her soul, merging with
senseless laughter--the exulting smile of pitiless irony....
Elisaveta came to herself. She saw above her the green branches of the
birches and the lovely pale faces. She lay in the refreshing grass
encircled by quiet children. She could not recall at once what had
happened to her. Her nakedness was incomprehensible to her--but she
felt no shame.
Her eyes paused for a moment on some one’s neatly combed fair hair.
She recognized Klavdia, the dissembling instructress. She stood under
the tree, her arms folded, and looked with her grey eyes gleaming with
envy at Elisaveta’s naked body; it was as if a grey spider was
spinning across her soul a grey web of dull oblivion and tedious
indifference.
“Clothes will be here in a moment,” said one of the boys quietly.
Elisaveta closed her eyes and lay tranquilly. Her head felt somewhat
dizzy. Fatigue overcame her. Beautiful and graceful she lay there--as
perfect as the dream of Don Quixote....
They were dark, long-drawn-out moments, and there fell in their midst
from the gradually darkening sky a brief interval of great
comprehension. And this brief interval became like an age--from birth
until death. Early next morning Elisaveta clearly recalled the course
of this strange, vivid life--the sad lofty road, the life of Queen
Ortruda.[25]
And when, suffocating, Ortruda was dying....
The rush of light feet in the grass awakened Elisaveta. Light, adroit
hands dressed her. The quiet boys helped her to rise. Elisaveta rose
and looked around her: a light green Grecian tunic draped her tired
body within its broad folds. Elisaveta thought:
“How shall I manage to walk so far?”
And as if in answer to her question, she suddenly caught sight of a
light trap under the trees. Some one said:
“Kirsha will drive you home.”
In her strange dress Elisaveta returned home. She sat silently in the
trap. She did not even notice Trirodov. She was trying to recall
something. Through the dark horror and senseless laughter there shone
clearer and clearer the recollection of another life lived through
momentarily--the life of Queen Ortruda.