Raisky lay on the grass at the top of the cliff for a long time in
gloomy meditation, groaning over the penalty he must pay for his
generosity, suffering alike for himself and Vera. “Perhaps she is
laughing at my folly, down there with him. Who is there?” he cried aloud,
stung with rage. “I will have his name.” He saw himself merely as a
shield to cover her passion. He sprang up wildly, and hurried down the
precipice, tearing his clothes in the bushes and listening in vain for a
suspicious rustling. He told himself that it was an evil thing to pry
into another’s secret; it was robbery. He stood still a moment to wipe
the sweat from his brow, but his sufferings overcame his scruples. He
felt his way stealthily forward, cursing every broken branch that
cracked under his feet, and unconscious of the blows he received on his
face from the rebounding branches as he forced his way through. He threw
himself on the ground to regain his breath, then in order not to betray
his presence crept along, digging his nails into the ground as he went.
When he reached the suicide’s grave he halted, uncertain which way to
follow, and at length made for the arbour, listening and searching the
ground as he went.
Meanwhile everything was going on as usual in Tatiana Markovna’s
household. After supper the company sat yawning in the hall, Tiet
Nikonich alone being indefatigable in his attentions, shuffling his foot
when he made a polite remark, and looking at each lady as if he were
ready to sacrifice everything for her sake.
“Where is Monsieur Boris?” inquired Paulina Karpovna, addressing Tatiana
Markovna.
“Probably he is paying a visit in the town. He never says where he
spends his time, so that I never know where to send the carriage for
him.”
Inquiries made of Yakob revealed the fact that he had been in the garden
up to a late hour. Vera was not in the house when she was summoned to
tea. She had left word that they were not to keep supper for her, and
that she would send across for some if she were hungry. No one but
Raisky had seen her go.
Tatiana Markovna sighed over their perversity, to be wandering about at
such hours, in such cold weather.
“I will go into the garden,” said Paulina Karpovna. “Perhaps Monsieur
Boris is not far away. He will be delighted to see me. I noticed,” she
continued confidentially, “that he had something to say to me. He could
not have known I was here.”
Marfinka whispered to Vikentev that he did know, and had gone out on
that account.
“I will go, Marfa Vassilievna, and hide behind a bush, imitate Boris
Pavlovich’s voice and make her a declaration,” suggested Vikentev.
“Stay here, Nikolai Andreevich. Paulina Karpovna might be frightened and
faint. Then you would have to reckon with Grandmother.”
“I am going into the garden for a moment to fetch the fugitive,” said
Paulina Karpovna.
“God be with you, Paulina Karpovna,” said Tatiana Markovna. “Don’t put
your nose outside in the darkness, or at any rate take Egorka with you
to carry a lantern.”
“No, I will go alone. It is not necessary for anyone to disturb us.”
“You ought not,” intervened Tiet Nikonich politely, “to go out after
eight o’clock on these damp nights. I would not have ventured to detain
you, but a physician from Düsseldorf on the Rhine, whose book I am now
reading and can lend you if you like, and who gives excellent advice,
says....”
Paulina Karpovna interrupted him by asking him if he would see her home,
and then went into the garden before he could resume his remarks. He
agreed to her request and shut the door after her.
Soon after Paulina Karpovna’s exit there was a rustling and crackling on
the precipice, and Raisky wearing the aspect of a restless, wounded
animal, appeared out of the darkness. He sat for several minutes
motionless on Vera’s favourite bench, covering his eyes with his hands.
Was it dream or reality, he asked himself. He must have been mistaken.
Such a thing could not be. He stood up, then sat down again to listen.
With his hands lying listlessly on his knees, he broke into laughter
over his doubts, his questionings, his secret. Again he had an access of
terrible laughter. Vera--and _he_. The cloak which he himself had
sent to the “exile” lay near the arbour. The rogue had been clever
enough to get two hundred and twenty roubles for the settlement of his
wager, and the earlier eighty in addition. Sekleteia Burdalakov!
Again he laughed with a laugh very near a groan. Suddenly he stopped,
and put his hand to his side, seized with a sudden consciousness of pain.
Vera was free, but he told himself she had dared to mock another fellow
human being who had been rash enough to love her; she had mocked her
friend. His soul cried for revenge.
He sprang up intent on revenge, but was checked by the question of how
to avenge himself. To bring Tatiana Markovna, with lanterns, and a crowd
of servants and to expose the scandal in a glare of light; to say to her,
“Here is the serpent you have carried for two and twenty years in your
bosom”--that would be a vulgar revenge of which he knew himself to be
incapable. Such a revenge would hit, not Vera, but his aunt, who was to
him like his mother. His head drooped for a moment; then he rose and
hurried like a madman down the precipice once more.
There in the depths passion was holding her festival, night drew her
curtain over the song of love, love ... with Mark. If she had
surrendered to another lover, to the tall, handsome Tushin, the owner of
land, lake, and forest, and the Olympian tamer of horses....
He could hardly breathe. Against his will there rose before him, from
the depths of the precipice, the vision of Vera’s figure, glorified with
a seductive beauty that he had never yet seen in her, and though he was
devoured by agony he could not take his eyes from the vision. At her
feet, like a lion at rest, lay Mark, with triumph on his face. Her foot
rested on his head. Horror seized him, and drove him onward, to destroy
and mar the vision. He seemed to hear in the air the flattering words,
the songs and the sighs of passion; the vision became fainter,
mist-enshrouded, and finally vanished into air, but the rage for
revenge remained.
Everywhere was stillness and darkness, as he climbed the hill once more,
but when he reached Vera’s bench he saw a human shadow.
“Who is there?” he cried.
“Monsieur Boris, it is I, Paulina.”
“You, what are you doing here?”
“I came, because I knew, I knew that you have long had something to say
to me, but have hesitated. Du courage. There is no one to see or hear us.
_Espérez tout...._”
“What do you want? Speak out.”
_“Que vous m’aimez._ I have known it for a long time. _Vous
m’avez fui, mais la passion vous a ramené ici...._”
He seized her roughly by the hand, and pushed her to the edge of the
precipice.
“Ah, _de gráce. Mais pas si brusquement ... qu’est-ce que vous
faites ... mais laissez donc,_” she groaned.
Her anxiety was not altogether groundless, for she stood on the edge of
an abrupt fall of the ground, and he grasped her hand more determinedly.
“You want love,” he cried to the terrified woman. “Listen, to-night is
love’s night. Do you hear the sighs, the kisses, the breath of passion?”
“Let me go! Let me go! I shall fall.”
“Away from here,” he cried, loosening his grasp and drawing a deep
breath.
Like a madman he ran across the garden and the flower garden into the
yard, where Egorka was washing his hands and face at the spring.
“Bring my trunk,” he cried. “I am going to St. Petersburg in the
morning.” He ran water over his hands and washed his face and eyes
before he turned to go to his room.
He could not stay within the four walls of his chamber. He went out
again and again, unprotected against the cold, to look at Vera’s window.
It was hardly possible to see ten paces ahead in the darkness. He went
to the acacia arbour to watch for Vera’s return, and was furious because
he could not conceal himself there, now that the leaves had fallen. He
sat there in torture until morning dawned, not from passion, which had
been drowned in that night’s experiences. What passion would stand such
a shock as this? But he had an unconquerable desire to look Vera in the
face, this new Vera, and with one glance of scorn to show her the shame,
the affront she had put on him, on their aunt, on the whole household,
on their society, on womanhood itself. He awaited her return in a fever
of impatience. Suddenly he sprang up with an evil look of triumph on his
face.
“Fate has given me the idea,” he thought. He found the gates still
locked, but there was a lamp before the ikon in Savili’s room, and he
ordered him to let him out and to leave the gates unlocked. He took from
his room the bouquet holder and hastened to the orangery to the gardener.
He had to wait a long time before it opened. The light grew stronger.
When he looked over at the trees in the orangery, an evil smile again
crossed his face. The gardener was arranging Marfinka’s bouquet.
“I want another bouquet,” said Raisky unsteadily.
“One like this?”
“No, only orange blossoms,” he whispered, turning paler as he spoke.
“Right, Sir,” said the gardener, recalling that one of Tatiana
Markovna’s young ladies was betrothed.
“I am thirsty,” said Raisky. “Give me a glass of water.”
He drank the water greedily, and hurried the gardener on. When the
second bouquet was ready he paid lavishly.
He returned to the house cautiously, carrying the two bouquets. As he
did not know whether Vera had returned in his absence, he had Marina
called, and sent her to see if her mistress was at home or had already
gone out walking. On hearing she was out he ordered Marfinka’s bouquet
to be put on Vera’s table and the window to be opened. Then he dismissed
Marina, and returned to the acacia arbour. Passion and jealousy set
loose raged unchecked, and when pity raised her head she was quenched by
the torturing, overmastering feeling of outrage. He suppressed the low
voice of sympathy, and his better self was silent. He was shuddering,
conscious that poison flowed in his veins, the poison of lies and
deception.
“I must either shoot this dog Mark, or myself,” he thought.
He held the bouquet of orange-blossoms in his two hands, like a sacred
thing, and drank in its beauty with a wild delight. Then he fixed his
eyes on the dark avenue, but she did not come.
Broad daylight came, a fine rain began to fall and made the paths sodden.
At last Vera appeared in the distance. His heart beat faster, and his
knees trembled so that he had to steady himself by the bench to keep
from falling.
She came slowly nearer, with her bowed head wrapped in a dark mantilla,
held in place over her breast by her pale hands, and walked into the
porch without seeing him. Raisky sprang from his place of observation,
and hid himself under her window.
She entered her room in a dream, without noticing that her clothes which
she had flung on the floor when she went out had been put back again,
and without observing the bouquet on the table or the opened window.
Mechanically she threw aside her mantilla, and changed her muddy shoes
for satin slippers; then she sank down on the divan, and closed her eyes.
After a brief minute she was awakened from her dream by the thud of
something falling on the floor. She opened her eyes and saw on the floor
a great sheaf of orange blossoms, which had plainly been thrown through
the window.
Pale as death, and without picking up the flowers, she hurried to the
window. She saw Raisky, as he went away, and stood transfixed. He looked
round, and their eyes met.
She was seized by pain so sharp that she could hardly breathe, and
stepped back. Then she saw the bouquet intended for Marfinka on the
table. She picked it up, half unconsciously, to press it to her face,
but it slipped from her hands, and she herself fell unconscious on the
floor.