Raisky found himself between two fires. On the one hand, Tatiana
Markovna looked at him as much as to say that he probably knew what was
the matter with Vera, while Vera’s despairing glance betrayed her
anxiety for the moment of her confession. He himself would have liked to
have sunk into the earth. Tushin looked in an extraordinary manner at
Vera, as both Tatiana Markovna and Raisky, but most of all Vera herself,
noticed. She was terrified, and asked herself whether he had heard any
rumour. He esteemed her so highly, thought her the noblest woman in the
world, and, if she were silent, she would be accepting his esteem on
false premisses. He, too, would have to be told, she thought. She
exchanged greetings with him without meeting his eyes; and he looked
strangely at her, timidly and sympathetically. Vera told herself that
she must know what was in his mind, that if he looked at her again like
that she would collapse. He did look at her again, and she could endure
no more and left the company. Before she went she signed secretly to
Tushin to follow her.
“I cannot receive you in the old house,” she said, “Come into the
avenue.”
“Is it not too damp, as you are not well?”
“That does not matter,” she said.
He looked at his watch and said that he would be going in an hour. After
giving orders to have his horses taken out of the stable and brought
into the yard, he picked up his silver-handled whip and with his cloak
on his arm followed Vera into the avenue. “I will not beat about the
bush,” he said. “What is the matter with you to-day? You have something
on your mind.”
She wrapped her face in her mantilla as she spoke, and her shoulders
shivered as if with cold. She dare not raise her eyes to him as he
strode silently beside her.
“But you are ill, Vera Vassilievna. I had better talk to you another
time. You were not wrong in thinking I had something to say to you.”
“No, Ivan Ivanovich, let it be to-day. I want to know what you have to
say to me. I myself wanted to talk to you, but perhaps it is too late
for what I have to say. Do you speak,” she said, wondering painfully how
and where he could have learnt her secret.
“I came here to-day....” he said as they sat down on the bench.
“What have you to say to me? Speak!” she interrupted.
“How can I say it to you now, Vera Vassilievna?” said Tushin springing
to his feet.
“Do not make me suffer,” she murmured.
“I love you....”
“Yes, I know it,” she interrupted. “But what have you heard?”
“I have heard nothing,” he said, looking round in amazement. He was now
for the first time aware of her agitation, and his heart stood still
with delight. She has guessed my secret and shares my feelings, he
thought, and what she is asking, is for a frank, brief avowal. “You are
so noble, so beautiful, Vera Vassilievna, so pure....” An exclamation
was wrung from her, and she would have risen, but could not.
“You mock me, you mock me,” she said, raising her hands beseechingly.
“You are ill, Vera Vassilievna,” he said, looking at her in terror.
“Forgive me for having spoken to you at such a time.”
“A day earlier or later makes no difference. Say what you have to say,
for I also desire to tell you why I have brought you here.”
“Is it really true?” he cried, hardly knowing how to contain his delight.
“What is true? You want to say something else, not what I expected,” she
said. “Speak, and do not prolong my sufferings.”
“I love you,” he repeated. “If you can grant what I have confessed to
you (and I am not worthy of it), if your love is not given elsewhere,
then be my forest queen, my wife, and there will be no happier man on
earth than I. That is what I have long wished to say to you and have not
dared. I should have done it on your nameday but I could no longer
endure the suspense, and have come to-day, on the family festival, on
your sister’s birthday.”
“Ivan Ivanovich,” she moaned. The thought flashed through his head like
lightning that this was no expression of joy, and he felt his hair was
beginning to stand on end. He sat down beside her and said, “What is
wrong with you, Vera Vassilievna? You are either ill, or are bearing a
great sorrow.”
“Yes, Ivan Ivanovich! I feel that I shall die.”
“What is your trouble? For God’s sake, tell me. You said that you had
something to confide in me, which means that I must be necessary to you;
there is nothing I would not do for you. You have only to command me.
Forgive me my too hasty speech.”
“You, too, my poor Ivan Ivanovich! I can find neither prayers nor tears,
nor is there any guidance or help for me anywhere.”
“What words of despair are these, Vera Vassilievna?”
“Do you know _whom_ you love?”
He threw his cloak on the bench, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Her
words told him that his hopes were ruined, that her love was given
elsewhere. He drew a deep breath, and sat motionless, awaiting her
further explanations.
“My poor friend,” she said, taking his hand. The simple words filled him
with new sorrow; he knew that he was in fact to be pitied.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Forgive me ... I did not know, Vera
Vassilievna ... I am a fool.... Please forget my declaration. But I
should like to help you, since you say yourself you rely on me for a
service. I thank you for holding me worthy of that. You stand so high
above me; I always feel that you stand so high, Vera Vassilievna.”
“My poor Ivan Ivanovich, I have fallen from those heights, and no human
power can reinstate me,” she said, as she led him to the edge of the
precipice.
“Do you know this place?” she asked.
“Yes, a suicide is buried there.”
“There, in the depths below the precipice, your ‘pure’ Vera also lies
buried,” she said with the decision of despair.
“What are you saying? I don’t understand. Enlighten me, Vera
Vassilievna.”
Summoning all her strength she bent her head and whispered a few words
to him, then returned, and sank down on the bench. Tushin turned pale,
swayed, lost his balance, and sat down beside her. Even in the dim light
Vera noticed his pallor.
“And I thought,” he said, with a strange smile, as if he were ashamed of
his weakness, rising to his feet with difficulty, “that only a bear was
strong enough to knock me over.” Then he stooped to her and whispered,
“Who?”
The question sent a shudder through her, but she answered quickly:
“Mark Volokov.”
His face twitched ominously. Then he pressed his whip over his knee so
that it split in pieces, which he hurled away from him.
“So it will end with him too,” he shouted. As he stood trembling before
her, stooping forward, with wild eyes, he was like an animal ready to
spring on the enemy. “Is he there now?” he cried, pointing with a
violent gesture in the direction of the precipice.
She looked at him as if he were a dangerous animal, as he stood there,
breathing heavily; then she rose and took refuge behind the bench.
“I am afraid, Ivan Ivanovich! Spare me! Go!” she exclaimed, warding him
off with her arms.
“First I will kill him, and then I will go.”
“Are you going to do this for my sake, for my peace of mind or for your
own sake?”
He kept silence, his eyes fixed on the ground, and then began to walk
about in great strides. “What should I do?” he said, still trembling
with agitation. “Tell me, Vera Vassilievna.”
“First of all, calm yourself, and explain to me why you wish to kill him
and whether I desire it.”
“He is your enemy, consequently also mine.”
“Does one kill one’s enemies?”
He bent his head and seeing the pieces of the whip lying on the ground
he picked them up as if he were ashamed, and put them in his pocket.
“I do not accuse him. I alone bear the blame, and he has justification,”
she said with such bitter misery that Tushin took her hand.
“Vera Vassilievna,” he said, “you are suffering horribly. I do not
understand,” he went on, looking at her with sympathy and admiration,
“what you mean by saying that he has justification, and that you bring
no accusation against him. If that’s the case, why did you wish to speak
to me and call me here into the avenue?”
“Because I wanted you to know the whole truth.”
“Don’t leave me in the dark, Vera Vassilievna. You must have had some
reason for confiding your secret to me.”
“You looked at me so strangely to-day that I could not understand your
meaning, and thought you must already be informed of all that had
happened and could not rest until I knew what was in your mind. I was
too hasty, but it comes to the same thing, for sooner or later I should
have told you. Sit down, and hear what I have to say, and then have done
with me.” She explained the situation to him in a few words.
“So you forgive him,” he asked, after a moment’s thought.
“Forgive him, of course. I tell you that I alone am guilty.”
“Have you separated from him, or do you hope for his return?”
“There is nothing whatever in common between us, and we shall never see
one another again.”
“Now, I understand a little, for the first time, but still not
everything,” said Tushin, sighing bitterly. “I thought you had been
vulgarly betrayed, and, since you called me to your help, I imagined
that the time had come for the Bear to do his duty. I was on the point
of rendering you the service of a Bear, and it was for that reason that
I permitted myself to ask boldly for the man’s name. Forgive me, and now
tell me why you have revealed the story to me.”
“Because I was not willing that you should think better of me than I
deserve, and esteem me....”
“But how would you accomplish that? I shall not cease to think of you as
I have always thought of you, and I cannot do otherwise than respect
you.”
A gleam of pleasure lighted her eyes, only to be immediately
extinguished. “You want to restore my self-esteem,” she said, “because
you are good and generous. You are sorry for a poor unfortunate girl and
want to raise her up again. I understand your generosity, Ivan Ivanovich,
but I will have none of it.”
“Vera Vassilievna,” he said, kissing her hand. “I could not esteem
anybody under compulsion. If I give anyone a greeting in the street, he
has my esteem; if he has not my esteem, I pass him by. I greet you as
before, and because you are unhappy my love for you is greater than
before. You are enduring a great sorrow, as I am. You have lost your
hopes of happiness,” he added in a low, melancholy tone. “If you had
kept your secret from me and I had heard it by chance, even so my esteem
for you could not have been diminished. For there is no duty laid on you
to reveal a secret which belongs to you alone. No one has the right to
judge you.” The last words were spoken in a trembling voice which made
it clear that he also was oppressed by the secret, the weight of which
he desired to lighten for Vera.
“I had to tell you to-day when you made your declaration to me. I felt
it was impossible to leave you in ignorance.”
“You might very well have answered me with a categorical ‘No.’ But since
you do me the honour, Vera Vassilievna, of bestowing your particular
friendship on me, you might have gilded your ‘No’ by saying that you
loved another. That would have been sufficient for me, for I should
never have asked you who, and your secret would, without doubt, have
remained your own.” He pointed to the precipice, and collecting his
whole strength whispered, “A misfortune....” Although he tried with all
his might not to let her see how disturbed he was, he was hardly able to
speak clearly. “A misfortune,” he repeated. “You say that he has
justification, that the guilt is yours; if that is so, where does
justice lie?”
“I told you, Ivan Ivanovich, that my confession was not necessary for
your sake, but for mine. You know how I esteem your friendship, and it
would have caused me unspeakable pain to deceive you. Even now, when I
have hidden nothing from you, I cannot look you in the eyes.” Tears
stifled her voice, and it was with difficulty that Tushin held back his
own tears; he stooped and kissed her hand once more.
“Thanks, a thousand thanks, Vera Vassilievna. I see that an affection
for another has no power to lessen your friendship for me, and that is a
wonderful consolation.”
“Ivan Ivanovich, if I could only cut this year out of my life.”
“A speedy forgetfulness,” he said, “comes to the same thing.”
“How can I forget, and where can I find the strength to endure its
memory?”
“You will find strength in friendship, and I am one of your friends.”
She breathed another air for the moment, conscious that there was beside
her a tower of strength, under whose shadow her passion and her pain
were alleviated. “I believe in your friendship, Ivan Ivanovich, and
thank you for it,” she said, drying her tears. “I already feel calmer,
and should feel still calmer if Grandmother....”
“She does not yet know anything of this?” he asked, but broke off
immediately in the consciousness that his question involved a reproach.
“She has guests to-day and could not possibly be told, but to-morrow she
shall learn all. Farewell, Ivan Ivanovich, my head aches, and I am going
back to the house to lie down.” Tushin looked at Vera, asking himself
how any man could be such a blind fool as Volokov. Or is he merely a
beast, he thought to himself in impotent rage. He pulled himself
together, however, and asked her if she had any instructions for him.
“Please ask Natasha,” she said, “to come over to me to-morrow or the
next day.”
“And may I come one day next week to inquire whether you are better?”
“Do not be anxious, Ivan Ivanovich. And now good-bye, for I can hardly
stand.”
When he left her, he drove his horses so wildly down the steep hill that
he himself was in danger of being hurled to the bottom of the precipice.
When he put his hand out as usual for his whip, it was not there, and he
remembered that he had broken it, and threw away the useless pieces on
the road. In spite of his mad haste he reached the Volga too late for
the ferry. He had to stay in the town with a friend, and drove next
morning to his home in the forest.