Vera rose the next morning pale and exhausted, but without any fever.
She had wept out her malady on her grandmother’s breast. The doctor
professed himself satisfied, and said she should stay in her room for a
few days. Everything in the house went on as before. There were no
festivities in honour of Vera’s name day, as she had expressed a wish
that there should be none. Neither Marfinka nor the Vikentevs came; a
messenger was sent to Kolchino with the announcement that Vera
Vassilievna was unwell and was keeping her room. Tushin sent his
congratulations in a respectful note, asking for permission to come and
see her. Her reply was that he should wait a little until she was better.
Under the pretext of Vera’s illness, callers who came from the town to
present their congratulations were not admitted. Only the servants
celebrated the occasion in their own way; the maids appeared in their
gay dresses, and the coachmen and the lackeys got drunk.
Vera and her aunt developed a new relationship. Tatiana Markovna’s
consideration for Vera was by no means assumed, but her kindness did not
make Vera’s heart lighter. What she had expected and wished was severe
judgment, a penance, perhaps exile for half a year or a year to Tatiana
Markovna’s distant estate, where she would gradually win back her peace
of mind or at any rate forget, if it was true, as Raisky said, that time
extinguishes all impressions. “I see,” thought Vera, “that Grandmother
suffers inexpressibly. Grief has changed her altogether; her figure is
bowed and her face more deeply furrowed. Perhaps she is only sparing me
now because her heart has opened itself to pity. She cannot bear to
punish me, now that I am ill and repentant.” Vera had lost her pride,
her self-respect and her dignity, and if once these flowers are taken
out of the crown which adorns the head of man, his doom is at hand. She
tried to pray and could not, for she had nothing to pray for, and could
only bow her head in humility.
Raisky came into much closer relation with his aunt and Vera. His
naturalness and genuine affection, the friendly intimacy of his
conversation, his straightforwardness, his talkative humour, and the
gleaming play of his fancy were a distraction and a consolation to both
of them. He often drew a laugh from them, but he tried in vain to
distract them from the grief which hung like a cloud over them both and
over the whole house. He himself was sad when he saw that neither his
esteem nor Tatiana Markovna’s kindness could give back to poor Vera her
courage, her pride, her confidence and her strength of will.
Tatiana Markovna spent the nights in the old house on the divan opposite
Vera’s bed and watched her sleep. But it nearly always happened that
they were both observing one another, so that neither of them found
refreshing sleep. On the morning after a sleepless night of this kind,
Tatiana Markovna sent for Tiet Nikonich. He came gladly, plainly
delighted that the illness which threatened Vera Vassilievna had blown
over, and bringing with him a water melon of extraordinary size and a
pineapple for a present. But a glance at his old friend was enough to
make him change colour. Tatiana Markovna hastily put on her fur-trimmed
cloak, threw a scarf over her head, and signed to him to follow her as
she led the way into the garden. They sat for two hours on Vera’s bench.
Then she went back to the house with bowed head, while he drove home,
overcome with grief, ordered his servants to pack, sent for post horses,
and drove to his estate, to which he had not been for many years.
Raisky, who had gone to see him, heard the news with astonishment. He
questioned his aunt, who told him that some disturbance had broken out
on Tiet Nikonich’s estate. Vera was sadder than ever. Lines began to
appear on her forehead, which would one day become furrows. Sometimes
she would approach the table on which the unopened blue letter lay and
then turn away. Where should she flee, where conceal herself from the
world? When night fell, she lay down, put out the light, and stared
wide-eyed in front of her. She wanted to forget, to sleep, but sleep
would not come. Dark spots, blacker than night, danced before her eyes,
shadows moved up and down with a wave-like motion in the glimmer of
light that lay around the window. But she felt no fear, she would not
have died of terror if there had risen suddenly out of the corner a
ghost, a thief or a murderer; she would not have felt any fear if she
had been told that her last hour was come. She looked out unceasingly
into the darkness, at the waving shadows, at the flitting specks which
stood out the more clearly in the blackness of the night, at the rings
of changing colour which whirled shimmering round her.
Slowly and quietly the door opened. Vera propped herself on her elbow
and saw a hand carrying a lamp carefully shaded. Tatiana Markovna
dropped her cloak from her shoulder on to a chair and approached the bed,
looking not unlike a ghost in her white dressing-gown. Vera had laid her
head back on the pillow and pretended to sleep. Tatiana Markovna put the
lamp on the table behind the bed-head, and sat down carefully and
quietly on the divan with her head leaning on her hand. She did not take
her eyes from Vera, and when Vera opened her own an hour later Tatiana
Markovna was still looking fixedly at her. “Can’t you sleep, Vera?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Why do you punish me in the night too, Grandmother?” asked Vera in a
low tone. The two women looked at one another and both seemed to
understand the speech in their eyes. “You are killing me with sympathy,
Grandmother,” Vera went on. “It would be better to drive me from your
sight. But it is very hard for me to bear when you measure out your
scorn drop by drop. Either forgive me or, if that is impossible, bury me
alive. Why are you silent? What is in your mind? Your silence tortures
me; it seems to say something, and yet never says it.”
“It is so hard, Vera, to speak. Pray, and understand your Grandmother
even when she is silent.”
“I have tried to pray, and cannot. What have I to pray for, except that
I should die the sooner. I shall die I know; only let it come quickly,
for like this it is impossible to live.”
“It is possible,” said Tatiana Markovna, drawing a deep sigh.
“After ... that?”
“After _that_,” replied her grandmother.
“You don’t know, Grandmother,” said Vera with a hopeless sigh. “You have
not been a woman like me.”
Tatiana Markovna stooped down to Vera, and whispered in a hardy audible
voice, “A woman like you.”
Vera looked at her in amazement, then let her head fall back on the
pillow and said wearily, “You were never in my position. You are a
saint.”
“A sinner,” rejoined Tatiana Markovna.
“We are all sinners, but not a sinner of that kind.”
“Of that kind.”
Vera seized Tatiana Markovna’s dress with both hands, and pressed her
face to hers. The words that came from her troubled breast sounded like
hisses. “Why do you slander yourself? Is it in order to calm and help me?
Grandmother, do not lie!”
“I never lie and you know it, and how should I begin to do so now. I am
a sinner, and myself need forgiveness,” she said, throwing herself on
her knees and bowing her grey head.
“Why do you say these things to me?” said Vera, staring at the kneeling
woman, and pressing her head to her breast. “Take your words back again.
I have not heard them or will forget them; will regard them as the
product of a dream. Do not torture yourself for my sake. Rise,
Grandmother.” Tatiana Markovna lay on her breast, sobbing like a child.
“Why did you tell me this?” said Vera.
“It was God’s wish that I should humble myself to ask you, my child, for
forgiveness. If you grant me your forgiveness, Vera, I, too, can forgive
you. I had hoped to keep my secret until I died, and now my sin has
plunged you into ruin.”
“You rescue me, Grandmother, from despair.”
“And myself, Vera. God forgives, but he demands cleansing. I thought my
sin was forgotten and forgiven. Because of my silence I seemed to men to
be virtuous, but my virtue was a lie. God has punished my sin. Forgive
me from your heart.”
“Does one forgive one’s Mother? You are a saint, a Mother without a peer
in the whole wide world. If I had known you, as you really are, how
could I have acted contrary to your will?”
“That is my second terrible sin. I was silent, and did not tell you to
beware of the precipice. Your dead Mother will call me to account for my
failure, I know. She comes to me in my dreams, and is now here between
us. Do you also forgive me, Departed One,” she cried wildly, stretching
out her arms in supplication.
Vera shuddered.
“Forgive me, Vera. I ask forgiveness of you both. We will pray.”
Vera tried to raise her to her feet, and Tatiana Markovna raised herself
with difficulty, and sat down on the divan.
Vera bathed her temples with eau de Cologne, and gave her a sedative;
then she kneeled down before her and covered her hand with kisses.
“What is hidden must be revealed,” began Tatiana Markovna, when she had
recovered a little. “For forty-five years only two human beings beside
myself have known it, _he_ and Vassilissa, and I thought the secret
would die with me. And now it is made public. My God!” she cried, wildly,
stretching her folded arms to the picture of the Christ. “Had I known
that this stroke would ever fall on another, on _my_ child, I would
have confessed my sin there and then to the all world in the Cathedral
square.”
Vera still hesitated to believe what she heard. Was it a heroic measure,
a generous invention to rescue and restore her own self-respect? But her
aunt’s prayers, her tears, her appeal to Vera’s dead mother, no actress
would have dared to use such devices, and her aunt was the soul of truth
and honour.
Warm life pulsed in Vera’s heart, and her heart was lightened. She felt
as if life was streaming through her veins after an evil dream. Peace
tapped at the door of her soul, the dark forsaken temple, which was now
gaily lighted once more and a home of prayer. She felt that Tatiana
Markovna and she were inseparable sisters, and she even began
involuntarily to address her as “thou,” as she had done Raisky when her
heart responded to his kindness. As these thoughts whirled in her head,
she had a sensation of lightness and freedom, like a prisoner whose
fetters have been removed.
“Grandmother,” she said, rising, “you have forgiven me, and you love me
more than you do any of the others, more than Marfinka, that I realise.
But do you know and understand my love for you? I should not have
suffered as I did, but for my love for you. How long we have been
strangers!”
“I will tell you all, Vera, and you must hear my confession. Judge me
severely, but pardon me, and God will pardon us both.”
“I will not, I ought not, I may not,” cried Vera. “To what end should I
hear it?”
“So that I may suffer once more, as I suffered five-and-forty years ago.
You know my sin, and Boris shall know it. He may laugh at the grey hairs
of old Kunigunde.”
As she strode up and down, shaking her head in her fanatical seriousness,
with sorrow and triumphant dignity in her face, her resemblance to the
old family portrait in the gallery was very marked.
Beside her Vera felt like a small and pitiful child as she gazed timidly
into her aunt’s eyes; she measured her own young strength by the
strength of this old woman who had ripened and remained unbroken in the
long struggle of life.
“My whole life can never repay what you have done for me, Grandmother.
Let this be the end of your penance, and tell me no more. If you are
determined that Boris shall know, I will whisper a word about your past
to him. Since I have seen your anguish, why should you suffer a longer
martyrdom? I will not listen. It is not my place to sit in judgment on
you. Let me hold your grey hairs sacred.”
Tatiana Markovna sighed, and embraced Vera.
“As you will. Your will is like God’s forgiveness to me, and I am
grateful to you for sparing my grey hairs.”
“Now,” said Vera, “let us go across to your house, where we can both
rest.”
Tatiana Markovna almost carried her across to the new house, laid her on
her own bed, and lay down beside her.
When Vera had fallen peacefully asleep, her aunt rose cautiously, and,
in the light of the lamp, watched the marble beauty of her forehead, her
closed eyes, all sculptured pure and delicate as if by a master hand,
and at the expression of deep peace that lay on her face. She made the
sign of the cross over Vera as she slept, touched her forehead with her
lips, and sank on her knees in prayer.
“Have mercy on her!” she breathed. “If Thy anger is not yet appeased,
turn it from her and strike my grey head.”
Presently she lay down beside Vera, with her arm around her neck. Vera
woke occasionally, opened her eyes, and closed them again. She pressed
closer and closer to Tatiana Markovna as if no harm could befall her
within the circle of those faithful arms.