Raisky laughed as he went out into the garden. He looked sadly at the
closed shutters of the old house, and stood for a long time on the edge
of the precipice, looking down thoughtfully into the depths of the
thicket and the trees rustling and cracking in the wind. Then he turned
to look at the long avenues, here forming gloomy corridors, and then
opening out into open stately spaces, at the flower gardens now fading
under the approach of autumn, at the kitchen garden, and at the distant
glimmer of the rising moon, and at the stars. He looked out over the
Volga, gleaming like steel in the distance. The evening was fresh and
cool, and the withered leaves were falling with a gentle rustle around
him. He could not take his eyes from the river, now silvered by the moon,
which separated him from Vera. She had gone without leaving a word for
him. A word from her would have brought tenderness and would have
drowned all bitterness, he thought. But she was gone without leaving a
trace or any kind remembrance. With bent head and full of anxious
thought he made his way along the dark avenues.
Suddenly delicate fingers seized his shoulders, and he heard a low laugh.
“Vera!” he cried, seizing her hand violently. “You here, and not away
over the Volga!”
“Yes, here, not over there.” She put her arm in his and asked him,
laughing, whether he thought she would let him go without saying good-bye.
“Witch!” he said, not knowing whether fear or joy was uppermost. “I was
this very moment complaining that you had not left a line for me, and
now I can’t understand, as everyone in the house told me you had gone
away yesterday.”
“And you believed it,” she said laughing. “I told them to say so, to
surprise you. They were humbugging.... To go away without two words,”
she asked triumphantly, “or to stay, which is better?”
Her gay talk, her quick gestures, the mockery in her voice, all these
things seemed unnatural, and he recognised beneath it all weariness,
strain, an effort to conceal the collapse of her strength. When they
reached the end of the avenue he tried to lead her to an open spot,
where he could see her face.
“Let me look at you! How gay and merry you are, Vera!” he said timidly.
“What is there to see?” she interrupted impatiently, and tried to draw
him into the shadow again. He felt that her hands were trembling, and
for the moment his own passion was stilled, and he shared her suffering.
“Why do you look at me like that? I am not crazy,” she said, turning her
face away.
He was stricken with horror. The insane are always assuring everyone of
their sanity. What was wrong with Vera? She did not confide in him, she
would not speak out, she was determined to fight her own battles. Who
could support and shelter her? An inner voice told him that Tatiana
Markovna alone could do it.
“Vera, you are ill,” he said earnestly. “Give Grandmother your
confidence.”
“Silence! Not a word of Grandmother! Goodbye! To-morrow we will go for a
stroll, do some shopping, go down by the river, anything you like.”
“I will go away, Vera,” he cried, filled with inexpressible fear. “I am
worn out. Why do you deceive me? Why did you call me back to find you
still here? Was it to mock my sufferings?”
“So that we could suffer together,” she answered. “Passion is beautiful,
as you yourself have said; it is life itself. You have taught me how to
love, have educated passion in me, and now you may admire the result of
your labour,” she ended, drawing in a deep breath of the cool evening
air.
“I warned you, Vera. I told you passion was a fierce wolf.”
“No, worse, it is a tiger. I could not believe what you said, but I do
now. Do you know the picture in the old house which represents a tiger
showing his teeth at a seated Cupid? I never understood the picture,
which seemed meaningless, but now I understand it. Passion is a tiger,
lying there apparently so peaceful and inviting, until he begins to howl
and to whet his teeth.”
Raisky pursued the comparison in the hope that he might learn the name
of Vera’s lover.
“Your comparison is false, Vera. There are no tigers in our Northern
climate. I am nearer the mark when I compare passion to a wolf.”
“You are right,” she said with a nervous laugh. “A real wolf. However
carefully you feed him he looks always to the woods. You are all wolves,
and _he_, too, is a wolf.”
“Who?” he asked in an expressionless voice. “Tushin is a bear, a genuine
Russian bear. You may lay your hand on his shaggy head, and sleep; your
rest is sure, for he will serve you all his life.”
“Which of the animals am I?” he asked gaily, noting that Tushin was not
the man. “Don’t beat about the bush, Vera, you may say I am an ass.”
“No,” she said scornfully. “You are a fox, a nice, cunning fox, with a
gift for deception. That’s what you are. Why don’t you say something?”
she went on, as he kept an embarrassed silence.
“Vera, there are weapons to be used against wolves, for me, to go away;
for you, not to go down there,” he said, pointing to the precipice.
“Tell me how to prevent myself from going there. Teach me, since you are
my mentor, how not to go. You first set the house on fire, and then talk
of leaving it. You sing in praise of passion, and then....”
“I meant another kind of passion. Where both parties to it are
honourable, it means the supreme happiness in life, and its storms are
full of the glow of life....”
“And where there is no dishonour, no precipice yawns? I love, and am
loved, yet passion has me in its jaws. Tell me what I should do.”
“Confess all to Grandmother,” whispered Raisky, pale with terror, “or
permit me to talk to her.”
“To shame me and ruin me? Who told me I need not obey her?”
“At one moment you are on the point of telling your secret, at another
you hide behind it. I am in the dark, and feel my way in uncertainty.
How can I, when I do not know the whole truth, diagnose the case?”
“You know what is wrong with me? Why do you say you are in the dark.
Come,” she said, leading him into the moonlight. “See what is wrong with
me.”
He stood transfixed with terror and pity. Pale, haggard, with wild eyes
and tightly pressed lips, this was quite another Vera. Strands of hair
were loose from beneath her hood, and fell in gipsy-like confusion over
her forehead and temples, and covered her eyes and mouth with every
quick movement she made. Her shoulders were negligently clad in a satin
wrap trimmed with swansdown, held in place by a loosely tied knot of
silk.
“Well,” she said, shaking her hair out of her eyes. “What has happened
to the beauty whose praise you sang?”
“Vera,” he said, “I would die for you. Tell me how I may serve you.”
“Die!” she exclaimed. “Help me to live. Give me that beautiful passion
which sheds its glorious light over the whole of life. I see no passion
but this drowning tiger passion. Give me back at least my old strength,
you, who talk of going to my Grandmother to place her and me on the same
bier. It is too late to tell me to go no more to the precipice.”
She sat down on the bench and looked moodily straight before her.
“You yourself, Vera, dreamed of freedom, and you prided yourself on your
independence.”
“My head burns. Have pity on your sister! I am ashamed to be so weak.”
“What is it, dear Vera?”
“Nothing. Take me home, help me to mount the steps. I am afraid, and
would like to lie down. Pardon me for having disturbed you for nothing,
for having brought you here. You would have gone away and forgotten me.
I am only feverish. Are you angry with me?”
Too dejected to reply, he gave her his arm, took her as far as her room,
and struck a light.
“Send Marina or Masha to stay in my room, please. But say nothing to
Grandmother, lest she should be alarmed and come herself. Why are you
looking at me so strangely? God knows what I have been saying to you, to
plague you and to avenge myself of all my humiliations. Tell Grandmother
that I have gone to bed to be up early in the morning, and I pray you
bless me in your thoughts, do you hear?”
“I hear,” he said absently, as he pressed her hand and went out in
search of Masha.
He looked forward with anxiety to Vera’s awakening. He seemed to have
forgotten his own passion since his imagination had become absorbed in
the contemplation of her suffering.
“Something is wrong with Vera,” said Tatiana Markovna, shaking her grey
head as she saw how grimly he avoided her questioning glance.
“What can it be?” asked Raisky negligently, with an effort to assume
indifference.
“Something is wrong, Borushka. She looks so melancholy and is so silent,
and often seems to have tears in her eyes. I have spoken to the doctor,
but he only talks the old nonsense about nerves,” she said, relapsing
into a gloomy silence.
Raisky looked anxiously for Vera’s appearance next morning. She came at
last, accompanied by the maid, who carried a warm coat and her hat and
shoes. She said good morning to her aunt, asked for coffee, ate her roll
with appetite, and reminded Raisky that he had promised to go shopping
with her in the town and to take a walk in the park. It amazed him that
she should be once more transformed, but there was a certain audacity in
her gestures and a haste in her speech which seemed forced and alien
from her usual manner and reminded him of her behaviour the day before.
She was plainly making a great effort to conceal her real mood. She
chatted volubly with Paulina Karpovna, who had turned up unexpectedly
and was displaying the pattern of a dress intended for Marfinka’s
trousseau. That lady’s visit was really directed towards Raisky, of
whose return she had heard. She sought in vain an occasion to speak with
him alone, but seized a moment to sit down beside him, when she made
eyes at him and said in a low voice: _“Je comprends; dites tout, du
courage.”_
Raisky wished her anywhere, and moved away. Vera meanwhile put on her
coat and asked him to come with her. Paulina Karpovna wished to
accompany them, but Vera declined on the ground that they were walking
and had far to go, that the ground was damp, and that Paulina’s elegant
dress with a long train was unsuited for the expedition.
“I want to have you this whole day for myself,” she said to Raisky as
they went out together, “indeed every day until you go.”
“But, Vera, how can I help you when I don’t know what is making you
suffer. I only see that you have your own drama, that the catastrophe is
approaching, or is in process. What is it?” he asked anxiously, as she
shivered.
“I don’t feel well, and am far from gay. Autumn is beginning. Nature
grows dark and sinister, the birds are already deserting us, and my mood,
too, is autumnal. Do you see the black line high above the Volga? Those
are the cranes in flight. My thoughts, too, fly away into the distance.”
She realised halfway that this strange explanation was unconvincing, and
only pursued it because she did not wish to tell the truth.
“I wanted to ask you, Vera, about the letters you wrote to me.”
“I am ill and weak; you saw what an attack I had yesterday. I cannot
remember just now all that I wrote.”
“Another time then!” he sighed. “But tell me, Vera, how I can help you.
Why do you keep me back, and why do you want to spend these days in my
society? I have a right to ask this, and it is your duty to give a plain
answer unless you want me to think you false.”
“Don’t let us talk of it now.”
“No,” he cried angrily. “You play with me as a cat does with a mouse. I
will endure it no longer. You can either reveal your own secrets or keep
them as you please, but in so far as it touches me, I demand an
immediate answer. What is my part in this drama?”
“Do not be angry! I did not keep you back to wound you. But don’t talk
about it, don’t agitate me so that I have another attack like
yesterday’s. You see that I can hardly stand. I don’t want my weakness
to be seen at home. Defend me from myself. Come to me at dusk, about six,
and I will tell you why I detained you.”
“Pardon me, Vera. I am not myself either,” he said, struck by her
suffering. “I don’t know what lies on your heart, and I will not ask. I
will come later to fetch you.”
“I will tell you if I have the strength,” she said.
They went into the shops, where Vera made purchases for herself and
Marfinka, she talked eagerly to the acquaintances they met, and even
visited a poor godchild, for whom she took gifts. She assented readily
to Raisky’s suggestion that they should visit Koslov.
When they reached the house, Mark walked out of the door. He was plainly
startled, made no answer to Raisky’s inquiry after Leonti’s health, and
walked quickly away. Vera was still more disconcerted but pulled herself
together, and followed Raisky into the house.
“What is the matter with him?” asked Raisky. “He did not answer a word,
but simply bolted. You were frightened, too, Vera. Is it Mark who
signalises his presence at the foot of the precipice by a shot? I have
seen him wandering round with a gun,” he said joking.
She answered in the same tone: “Of course, Cousin,” but she did not look
at him.
No, thought Raisky to himself, she could not have taken for her idol a
wandering, ragged gipsy like that. Then he wondered whether the
possibility could be entirely excluded, since passion wanders where he
lists, and not in obedience to the convictions and dictates of man. He
is invincible, and master of his own inexplicable moods. But Vera had
never had any opportunity of meeting Mark, he concluded, and was merely
afraid of him as every one else was.
Leonti’s condition was unchanged. He wandered about like a drunken man,
silent and listening for the noise of any carriage in the street, when
he would rush to the window to look if it bore his fugitive wife.
He would come to them in a few weeks, he said, after Marfinka’s wedding,
as Vera suggested. Then he became aware of Vera’s presence.
“Vera Vassilievna!” he cried in surprise, staring at her as he addressed
Raisky. “Do you know, Boris Pavlovich, who else has read your books and
helped me to arrange them?”
“Who has been reading my books?” asked Raisky.
But Leonti had been distracted by the sound of a passing carriage and
did not hear the question. Vera whispered to Raisky that they should go.
“I wanted to say something, Boris Pavlovich,” said Leonti thoughtfully,
raising his head, “but I can’t remember what.”
“You said some one else had been reading my books.”
Leonti pointed to Vera, who was looking out of the window, but who now
pulled Raisky’s sleeve “Come!” she said and they left the house.
When they reached home Vera made over some of her purchases to her aunt,
and had others taken to her room. She asked Raisky to go out with her
again in the park and down by the Volga.
“Why are you tiring yourself out, Vera?” he asked, as they went. “You
are weak.”
“Air, I must have air!” she exclaimed, turning her face to the wind.
She is collecting all her strength, he thought, as they entered the room
where the family was waiting for them for dinner. In the afternoon he
slept for weariness, and only awoke at twilight, when six o’clock had
already struck. He went to find Vera, but Marina told him she had gone
to vespers, she did not know whether in the village church on the hill
or in the church on the outskirts of the town. He went to the town
church first, and after studying the faces of all the old women
assembled there, he climbed the hill to the village church. Old people
stood in the corners and by the door, and by a pillar in a dark corner
knelt Vera, with a veil wrapped round her bowed head. He took his stand
near her, behind another pillar, and, engrossed in his thoughts of her
state of mind, watched her intently as she prayed motionless, with her
eyes fixed on the cross. He went sadly into the porch to wait for her,
and there she joined him, putting her hand in his arm without a word.
As they crossed the big meadow into the park he thought of nothing but
the promised explanation. His own intense desire to be freed from his
miserable uncertainty weighed with him less than his duty, as he
conceived it, of shielding her, of illuminating her path with his
experience, and of lending his undivided strength to keep her from
overstepping her moral precipice. Perhaps it was merely a remnant of
pride that prevented her from telling him why she had summoned him and
detained him.
He could not, and, even if he could, he had not the right to share his
apprehensions with anyone else. Even if he might confide in Tatiana
Markovna, if he spoke to her of his suspicion and his surmises, he was
not clear that it would help matters, for he feared that their aunt’s
practical, but old-fashioned wisdom would be shattered on Vera’s
obstinacy. Vera possessed the bolder mind, the quicker will. She was
level with contemporary thought, and towered above the society in which
she moved. She must have derived her ideas and her knowledge from some
source accessible to her alone. Though she took pains to conceal her
knowledge, it was betrayed by a chance word, by the mention of a name or
an authority in this or that sphere of learning, and it was betrayed
also in her speech; in the remarkable aptness of the words in which she
clothed her thoughts and feelings. In this matter she held so great an
advantage over Tatiana Markovna that the old lady’s efforts in argument
were more likely to be disastrous than not.
Undoubtedly Tatiana Markovna was a wise woman with a correct judgment of
the general phenomena of life. She was a famous housewife, ruling her
little tsardom magnificently; she knew the ways, the vices and the
virtues of mankind as they are set out in the Ten Commandments and the
Gospels, but she knew nothing of the life where the passions rage and
steep everything in their colours. And even if she had known such a
world in her youth it must have been passion divorced from experience,
an unshared passion, or one stifled in its development, not a stormy
drama of love, but rather a lyric tenderness which unfolded and perished
without leaving a trace on her pure life. How could she lend a rescuing
hand to snatch Vera from the precipice, she who had no faith in passion,
but had merely sought to understand facts?
The shots in the depths of the precipice, and Vera’s expeditions were
indeed facts, against which Tatiana Markovna might be able to adopt
measures. She might double the watch kept on the property, set men to
watch for the lover, while Vera, shut up in the house, endured
humiliation and a fresh kind of suffering.
Vera would not endure any such rough constraint, and would make her
escape, just as she had fled across the Volga from Raisky. These would
be, in fact, no means at all, for she had outgrown Tatiana Markovna’s
circle of experience and morals. No, authority might serve with Marfinka,
but not with the clear-headed, independent Vera.
Such were Raisky’s thoughts as he walked silently by Vera’s side, no
longer desiring full knowledge for his own sake, but for her salvation.
Perhaps, he thought, he would best gain his end by indirect efforts to
make her betray herself.
“Leonti said,” he began, “that you have been reading books out of my
library. Did you read them with him?”
“Sometimes he told me of the contents of certain books; others I read
with the priest, Natasha’s husband.”
“What books did you read with the priest?”
“For the moment I don’t remember, but he read the writings of the
Fathers, for instance, and explained them to Natasha and me, to my great
advantage. We also read with him Voltaire and Spinoza. Why do you
laugh?” she asked, looking at Raisky.
“There seems a remarkable gap between the Fathers and Spinoza and
Voltaire. The Encyclopædists are also included in my library. Did you
read them?”
“Nikolai Ivanovich read some to us, and talked about others.”
“Did you also occupy yourselves with Feuerbach, with the Socialists and
the Materialists?”
“Yes, Natasha’s husband asked us to copy out passages, which he
indicated by pencil marks.”
“What was his object in this?”
“I think he was preparing to publish a refutation.”
“Where did you obtain the newer books that are not in my library?
Not the exile,” he suggested as she gave no answer, “who lives
here under police supervision, the same man about whom you wrote
to me? But you are not listening.”
“Yes, I am. Who gave me the books? Sometimes one person, sometimes
another here in the town.”
“Volokov borrowed these books.”
“Perhaps so, I had them from professors.”
The thought flashed through Raisky’s head that there might be other
professors of the same kind as Monsieur Charles. But he merely asked
what were the views of Nikolai Ivanovich on Spinoza and these other
writers.
“He says.” replied Vera, “that these writings are the efforts of bold
minds to evade the truth; they have beaten out for themselves side paths
which must in the end unite with the main road. He says too, that all
these attempts serve the cause of truth, in that the truth shines out
with greater splendour in the end.”
“But he does not tell you where truth lies?”
By way of answer she pointed to the little chapel now in sight.
“And you think he is right?”
“I don’t think, I believe. And don’t you also believe he is right.”
He agreed, and she asked him why, that being so, he had asked her.
“I wanted,” he said, “to know your opinion.”
“But you have often seen me at prayer,” said Vera.
“Yes, but I do not overhear your prayers. Do you pray for the
alleviation of the restless sorrow that afflicts your mind?”
They had reached the chapel, and Vera stood still for a moment. She did
not appear to have heard his question, and she answered only with a deep
sigh. It was growing dark as they retraced their steps, Vera’s growing
slower and more uncertain as they approached the old house, where she
stood still and glanced in the direction of the precipice.
“To still the storm I must not go near the precipice, you say--I beg of
you to stand by me, for I am sick and helpless.”
“Will not Grandmother know better how to help you, Vera? Confide in her,
a woman, who will perhaps understand your pain.”
She shook her head. “I will tell you, Grandmother and you, but not now;
now I cannot. And yet I beg of you not to leave me, not to allow me out
of your sight. If a shot summons me, keep me away from the precipice,
and, if necessary, hold me back by force. Things are as bad as that with
me. That is all you can do for me. That is why I asked you not to go
away, because I felt that my strength is failing, because except you I
have no one to help me, for Grandmother would not understand. Forgive
me.”
“You did right, Vera,” he replied, deeply moved. “Depend on me. I am
willing to stay here for ever, if that will bring you peace.”
“No, in a week’s time the shots will cease.”
She dried her eyes, and pressed his hand; then with slow, uneven steps,
supporting herself by the balustrade she passed up the steps and into
the house.