When Kranitski entered his own lodgings, after passing the night
with Maryan, and after the long conversation with Malvina, old
widow Clemens looked at him from behind her great spectacles, and
dropped her hands:
"Are you sick, or what? Arabian adventure! Ah, what a look you
have! What has happened? Maybe those pains have come; you have
had them a number of times already. Why not take off your fur?
Wait! I will help you this minute. Oh, you will be sick in
addition to everything else."
She was a squatty woman, heavy, with a striped kerchief on her
shoulders, and wearing a short skirt, from under which appeared
flat feet in tattered overshoes. She was seventy years old, at
least; her large, sallow face was much withered. Bordered by gray
hair and a white cap that face was bright with the gleam of dark
eyes, still fiery, and quickly glancing from under a wrinkled,
high forehead. Her whole figure had in it something of the
fields, something primitive, which seemed not to have the least
relation to that little drawing-room and its owner. That room
contained everything which is found usually in such apartments,
therefore: a sofa, armchairs, a table, a mirror with a console, a
low and broad ottoman with cushions in Oriental fashion,
porcelain figures on the console, old-fashioned shelves with
books in nice bindings, a few oil paintings, small but neat, on
the walls, a number of photographs, tastefully grouped above the
ottoman, a large album on the table before the sofa. But all this
was a collection brought together at various seasons, and injured
by time. The covering of the cushions had faded, the gilding on
the mirror frame was worn here and there, the leather covering on
the furniture was worn and showed through cracks the stuffing
within, the album was torn, the porcelain base of the lamp was
broken. At the first cast of the eye the little drawing-room
seemed elegant, but after a while, through spots and rents mended
carefully, want was observed creeping forth. This want was hidden
chiefly by perfect and minute cleanliness, in which one could
recognize active, careful hands, industrious, untiring sweeping
out, rubbing out, sewing, mending--those were the lean, aged
hands, with broad palms and short fingers, which were now helping
Kranitski to remove his fur coat. Meanwhile, a scolding, harsh
voice, with tenderness at the base of it, continued:
"Again a night passed away from home. Surely off there with
cards, or with madams of some sort! Oi, an offense against God!
And this time you come home sick. I see that you are sick, your
whole face is covered with red spots, you are hardly able to
stand on your feet. Arabian adventure!"
"Give me rest!" answered Kranitski in a complaining voice. "I am
sick, the most wretched of men. Everything is past for me--I beg
you to look to the door, so that no one may enter; I am suffering
too much to let in impertinent people."
There were tears in his eyes, and his appearance was wretched. No
one was looking at him then, except his old servant, who was as
faithful as a dog, so he let the fetters of artificial youth and
elegance drop from him. His shoulders were bent, his cheeks
pendant, above his brows were red spots and thick wrinkles. He
vanished then beyond the half-closed door of his bedroom, and
widow Clemens went back to the work interrupted by his coming. In
the middle of the drawing-room, on an open card-table, lay,
spread out, a dressing gown of Turkish stuff. That gown,
beautiful on a time, was then faded; moreover, its lining was
torn. Widow Clemens while repairing that lining and patching it
had been interrupted by Kranitski's return; and now, wearing
great steel-rimmed glasses, and with a brass thimble on her
middle finger, she sat down again. She examined a rent through
which wadding peeped out on the world, cautiously. But in spite
of her attention fixed on the work she whispered, or rather
talked on in a low and monotonous mutter:
"'Look to the door, let no one in!' As if anyone ever comes here.
Long ago, comrades and various protectors used to come; they came
often at first, afterward very seldom; but now it is perhaps two
years since even a dog has looked in here. He could not bear
impertinent people. Oh, yes! they come here, many of them,
princes, counts, various rich persons. Oh, yes! while he was a
novelty and brilliant they amused themselves with him as they
would with a shining button, but when the button was rubbed and
dull they threw it into a corner. The relations, the friends, the
companions! Arabian adventure! Oh, this society!"
She was silent a while, put a piece of carefully fitted material
on the rent, raised her hand a number of times with the long
thread, and again muttered:
"But is that society? It is sin, not society! Roll in sin, like
the devil in pitch, and then scream that it burns! Oi, Oi!"
Silence reigned in the room; only the clock, that unavoidable
dweller in all houses, that comrade of all people, ticked
monotonously on the shelf, beneath the mirror, among the
porcelain figures. Widow Clemens, while sewing, industriously,
muttered on. Her unbroken loneliness, the store of thoughts put
away in her old head, and the care in her heart had given her the
habit of soliloquy.
"And it will be worse yet. He has debts beyond calculation. He
will die on a litter of straw, or in a hospital. Oh, if his dead
mother could see this! Arabian adventure! Unless Stefanek and I
drag him out of this pit!"
She stopped sewing and raised her spectacles to her forehead,
their glass eyes gleamed above her gray brows, and she fell into
deep thought. She moved her lips from time to time, but did not
mutter. By this movement of the lips, and by her wrinkles, it
could be seen that she was forming some plan, that she was
imagining. Just then Kranitski's voice was heard from the
bedroom.
She sprang up with the liveliness of twenty years, and, with a
loud clattering of old overshoes, ran to the door.
"Give me the dressing-gown, mother; I am not well; I will not go
anywhere to-day."
"Here is the dressing-gown; but if the lining is torn?"
"Torn or not, give it here, and my slippers, too; for I am not
well."
"Here they are! Not well? I have said not well! O beloved God,
what will come of this?"
But, while helping him to put on the dressing-gown, she inquired,
with incredulity:
"Is it true, or a joke, that you will not leave the house
to-day?"
"A joke!" answered he in bitterness. "If you knew what a joke
this is! I will not leave the house to-day, or to-morrow, or
perhaps ever. I will lie here and grieve till I grieve to death.
Oh, that it might be very soon!"
"Arabian adventure! Never has it been like this! It is easy to
see that the pitch has burnt!" whispered widow Clemens to
herself. But aloud she said:
"Before you grieve to death we must get you some dinner. I will
run to the town for meat. I will lock the door outside, so that
impertinent counts, and various barons should not burst in,"
added she, ironically.
Kranitski, left alone, locked up in his lodgings, robed in his
dressing-gown, once costly, now faded, its sleeves tattered at
the wrists, lay on the long-chair in front of his collection of
pipes, arranged on the wall cunningly. In the society in which he
moved collecting was universal. They collected pictures,
miniatures, engravings, autographs, porcelain, old books, old
spoons, old stuffs. Kranitski collected pipes. Some he had
bought, but the greater number, by far, he had received on
anniversaries of his name's-day, in proof of friendly
recollection, and as keepsakes after a journey. During years many
were collected, about a hundred; among them some were valuable,
some poor but original, some even ridiculous, some immense in
size, some small, some bright colored, some almost black; they
were arranged on shelves at the wall with taste, and effectively.
Besides these pipes there were in the bed-room other objects of
value: a writing-desk of peculiar wood, a porcelain frame, with
Cupids at the top, surrounding an oval mirror, at which were
bottles, vials, toilet boxes, and a rather long cigarette-case of
pure gold, which Kranitski kept with him at all times, and which,
as he lay now in the long-chair, he turned in his fingers,
mechanically. This cigarette-case was a precious memento. He had
received it soon after his arrival in the city, twenty and some
years before, from Countess Eugenia, his mother's aunt. Prom
their first meeting the countess was simply wild about him.
Society even insisted, notwithstanding her more than ripe years,
that she was madly in love with that uncommonly beautiful and
blooming young man, who had been reared by his mother with
immense care, and trained to appear successfully in that society
to which she had been born. Kranitski's mother, through various
causes, had become the victim of a mesalliance; she grieved out,
and wept away secretly; her life, in a village corner, after
marrying a noble who was perfectly honorable, but neither a man
of the world, nor the owner of much property. She desired for her
only son a better fate than she herself had had, and prepared him
for it long beforehand. He spoke French with a Parisian accent,
and English quite well; he was versed in the literatures of
Western Europe; he was a famous dancer; he was obliging; he had
an inborn instinct of kindness toward people; he was popular,
sought after, petted; when the money with which his mother
furnished him proved insufficient he obtained a small office,
through the influence of wealthy relatives, which, besides
increasing his revenue, gave him a certain independent aspect. He
passed whole days in great and wealthy houses, where he read
books, aloud, to old princesses and countesses, and for young
princesses and countesses; he held skeins of silk on his opened
hands. He carried out commissions and various small affairs; at
balls he led dances; he amused himself; fell in love, was loved
in return; he passed evenings and nights in clubs, and in private
rooms at restaurants, at theatres, and behind the scenes in
theatres, where he paid homage to famous actresses of various
degrees and qualities. Those were times truly joyous and golden.
At that period he was served not by widow Clemens, but by a man;
he dined--if not with friends or relatives--at the best
restaurants. At that time, too, he did something magnanimous,
which brought reward in the form of great mental profit: He
passed a whole year in Italy with Count Alfred, his relative, who
was suffering from consumption; Kranitski nursed, amused, and
comforted his cousin with patience, attachment, and tenderness
which were perfectly sincere, and which came from a heart
inclined to warm, almost submissive feelings. In return that year
gave him skill in the use of Italian, and a wide acquaintance
with the achievements and the schools of art, of which he was an
enthusiastic worshipper. Soon after he went with Prince Zeno to
Paris, learned France and its capital well, and on his return
remained for some time as a reader with the prince, whose eyes
were affected. His power of beautiful reading in many languages
brought him a wide reputation; he was distinguished in
drawing-rooms by the ease of his speech and manners; to some he
became a valued assistant in entertaining guests, and a pleasant
companion in hours of loneliness; to others he was a master in
the domain of amusements, and elegance in the arts of politeness
and pleasure. At this period also he made the acquaintance of
Darvid, and met his wife, whom he had known from childhood, and
who had been his earliest ideal of womanhood. Thenceforth, his
relations with other houses were relaxed considerably, for he
gave himself to the Darvid house soul and body. Though Malvina's
children had many tutors, he taught one of her daughters Italian,
and the other English; he did this with devotion, with delight;
and, therefore, that house became, as it were, his own, and was
ever open to him. Moreover, during the last ten years great
changes had happened in that society of which he was the adopted
child, and so long the favorite.
Countess Eugenia had given her daughter in marriage to a French
count, and resided in Paris; Count Alfred was dead; dead, also,
was that dear, kindly Baroness Blauendorf from whom he had
received as a gift that mirror with porcelain frame and Cupids.
Others, too, were dead, or were living elsewhere. Only Prince
Zeno remained, but he had cooled toward his former reader,
notably because of the princess, who could not forgive Kranitski;
since, as was too well known by all, he was occupied with the
wife of that millionaire--the eternally absent.
There were still many acquaintances, and more recent relations,
but these had neither the charm nor the certainty of those which
time had in various ways broken, brought to an end, or relaxed.
His mother, the foundress of his destiny, had ceased to live some
time before that.
"Pauvre maman! pauvre maman!"
How tenderly and unboundedly he had loved her. How long he had
hesitated and fought with himself before he left at her
persuasion, the house in which she had given birth to him. He
regretted immensely the village, the freedom, and that
bright-haired maiden in the neighborhood. But the wide world and
the great city took on, in his mother's narrative, the outlines
of paradise, and his worthy relatives, the forms of demi-gods.
When at last, after long hesitation and struggles, he resolved to
go away, how many were the kisses and embraces of his mother! how
many were her maxims and advices; how many her predictions of
happiness. He began to look at his own form in the mirrors, and
to feel in his own person the movement of desires, hopes,
ambitions. Once he caught himself bowing and making gestures,
almost involuntarily, before the mirrors. He laughed aloud, his
mother laughed also, for she had caught him in the act
red-handed.
"Pauvre maman! pauvre, chere maman!"
And on the background of that domestic gladness, of those
wonderful hopes, only one person by her conduct had raised a
cloud on that heaven, beaming serenely. That was widow Clemens,
an old servant of the house, and once his nurse, not young even
at that time, and a childless widow.
She was morose, grumbling, peevish, but for a long time she said
nothing; she did not hinder the thin, gray-haired mother, nor the
youth, beautiful as a dream, from rejoicing and imagining; till
at last she spoke when alone with the petted stripling. It was
the end of an autumn day, twilight had begun to come down on the
yard in Lipovka, and the linden grove, in a black line, cut
through the evening ruddiness glowing in the western heavens.
Widow Clemens, with her eyes fixed on the grove and the red of
evening, said:
"Oi! Tulek, Tulek! how will this be? You will go away; you will
take up and go away; but the sun will rise and set; the grove
will rustle; the wheat will ripen; and the snow will fall when
you are gone."
He sat on the bench of the piazza, and said nothing. But in the
distant fields, in the growing darkness, a shepherd's whistle
gave out clear tones, simple, monotonous, they flew along the
field like the weeping of space.
"Why go; do you know why--God alone knows. What are you throwing
away? The beauties of God. What will you bring back? Perhaps the
mud people cast at you."
A cow bellowed in the stable; a belated working-woman muttered a
song somewhere behind in the garden. The evening red was
quenched; and above the roof the crescent of the moon came out,
thin and like silver.
Widow Clemens whispered:
"Ill-fated! ill-fated boy!"
He was immensely far from considering himself ill fated, but
something in his heart felt pain at leaving that village where he
was born, at leaving Malvina, and it seemed to him that he ought
to stay.
But he went. The Argonaut, of twenty and some years of age, went
out into the world, slender, adroit, with eyes dark and fiery as
youth, with cheeks shapely and fresh as peaches, with a forehead
as white and pure as the petal of a lily; he went for a wife with
a fortune, for the pleasures of the world--for the golden fleece.
Now he wrapped himself closely in the skirt of his faded
dressing-gown, and let his head droop so low that the bald spot
seemed white on the top of it; his lower lip dropped; the red
spots came out over his dark brows on his wrinkled forehead. In
his hand he held the cigarette-case presented by Countess
Eugenia, now living in Paris, and at times he turned it in his
fingers, with an unconscious movement, and that glittering object
cast on the tattered sleeve of his dressing-gown, on his
suffering face, on his long, thin fingers, its bright, golden
reflection.
Meanwhile widow Clemens had returned to the kitchen, and there,
not without a loud clattering of overshoes, had begun to cook the
dinner. But Kranitski neither heard nor saw anything. From time
to time the head, with its great cap, looked in through the
kitchen door, gazed on him unquietly and pushed back to look in
again soon.
"Will you have dinner now?" inquired she at last. "It is ready."
In a low voice he asked for dinner, but he ate almost nothing;
the woman had never yet seen him so broken, still she made no
inquiry. When the moment came he would tell all himself. He was
not of those who bear secrets to the grave with them. She waited
on the man, gave him food, brought tea, cleared the table in
silence. Once she fell into trouble: Passing hurriedly through
the room she lost one of the overshoes which she had on her feet:
"Ah! may thou be!--they fall off every moment!" grumbled she, and
for some minutes she struggled with that overshoe, which,
dropping from her foot, slipped along the floor noisily.
Kranitski raised his head:
"What is that?" inquired he.
She made no answer, but when she was near the kitchen door, he
cried:
"What have you on your feet that clatter so? It is irritating!"
She stopped at the door:
"What have I on my feet? Well, your old overshoes! Am I to wear
out shoes every day, and then buy new ones? 'Irritating!' Arabian
adventure! God grant that you never have worse irritation than
overshoes clattering on the floor!"
And she grumbled on in the kitchen while going with an empty
glass to the samovar:
"You wouldn't have a pinch of tea in the house if I went around
in new shoes all my time!"
Darkness came down. Kranitski smoked cigarettes one after
another, and was so sunk in thought that he trembled throughout
his body. When widow Clemens brought in a lamp, with a
milk-colored globe, which filled the room with a white, mild
light, Kranitski looked at the head of the old woman in the white
lamp-light, and, for the first time in a number of hours, he
spoke:
"Come, mother, come nearer!" said he.
When she came he seized her rude fist in both his hands and shook
it vigorously.
"What could I do; what would happen to me now, if you were not
with me? No living soul of my own here! Alone, alone, as in a
desert."
The onrush of tenderness burst through all obstructions.
Confidences flowed on. He had loved for the last time in life, le
dernier amour, and all had ended. She had forbidden him to see
her. That decision of hers had been ripening for a long time.
Reproaches of conscience, shame, despair as to her children. One
daughter knew everything; the other might know it any day. She
had let out of her hands the rudder of those hearts and
consciences, for when she was talking with them her own fault
closed her lips, like a red-hot seal. She thought herself the
most pitiful of creatures. She did not wish to make further use
of her husband's wealth, or the position which it give her in
society. She wished to go away, to settle down in some silent
corner, vanish from the eyes of people.
Kranitski was so excited that he almost sobbed; here his speech
was interrupted by a rough, sarcastic voice:
"It is well that she came to her senses at last--"
"What senses? What are you weaving, mother? You know nothing.
Love is never an offense. Ils ont peche, mais le ceil est un
don."
"You are mad, Tulek! Am I some madam that you must speak French
to me?" Still he finished:
"Ils ont souffert, c'est le sceau du pardon. I will translate
this for thee: They have sinned, but heaven is a gift-----They
have suffered; suffering is the seal of pardon."
"Tulek, let heaven alone! To mix up such things with
heaven--Arabian adventure!"
"Are you a priest, mother? I tell you of my own suffering and the
suffering of that noble, sweet being--" In the antechamber, the
door of which widow Clemens, in returning from the city, had not
locked, was heard stamping, and the youthful voice of a man
called:
"Is your master at home?"
"Arabian adventure!" muttered widow Clemens.
"Maryan!" exclaimed Kranitski with delight, and he answered
aloud:
"I am at home, at home!"
"An event worthy of record in universal history," answered the
voice of a man speaking somewhat through his nose and teeth.
"And the baron!" cried Kranitski; then he whispered:
"Close the drawing-room door, mother; I must freshen up a
little," and from behind the closed door he spoke to those who
were in the drawing-room:
"In a moment, my dears, in a moment I shall be at your service."
In the light of the lamp, placed by widow Clemens in the
drawing-room, he appeared, indeed, after a few minutes, dressed,
his hair arranged, perfumed, elegant with springy movements and
an unconstrained smile on his lips. Only his lids were reddened,
and on his forehead were many wrinkles which would not be
smoothed away.
"A comedian! There is a comedian!" grumbled widow Clemens,
returning to the kitchen, with a terrible clatter of overshoes.
The two young men pressed his hand in friendship. It was clear
that they liked him.
"Why did you avoid us all day?" inquired Baron Emil. "We waited
for you at Borel's--he gave us an excellent dinner. But maybe you
are fasting?"
"Let him alone, he has his suffering," put in Maryan. "I am so
sorry, mon bon vieux (my good old man), that I have persuaded the
baron to join me in taking you out. I cannot, of course, leave
you a victim to melancholy."
Kranitski was moved; gratitude and tenderness were gazing out of
his eyes.
"Thanks, thanks! You touch me."
He pressed the hands of both in turn, holding Maryan's hand
longer than the baron's, with the words:
"My dear-dear--dear."
The young man smiled.
"Do not grow so tender," said he, "for that injures the interior.
You are, however, a son of that generation which possesses an
antidote for melancholy."
"What is it?"
"Well, faith, hope, charity, with resignation and--other painted
pots. We haven't them, so we go to Tron-tron's, where Lili Kerth
sings. We are to give her a supper tonight at Borel's. Borel has
promised me everything which the five parts of the world can
give."
"As to the problematic nature of that Lili," remarked the baron,
"there are moments in which she takes on the superhuman ideal."
"What an idea, dear baron!" burst out Kranitski. "Lili and
superhumanity, the ideal! Why, she is a little beast that sings
abject things marvellously."
"That is it, that is it!" said the baron, defending his position,
"a little beast in the guise of an angel--the singing of
chansonettes with such a devil in the body--and at the same time
a complexion, a look, a smile, which scatters a kind of mystic,
lily perfume. This is precisely that dissonance, that snap, that
mystery with which she has conquered Europe. This rouses
curiosity; it excites; it is opposed to rules, to harmony--do you
understand?"
"Stop, Emil!" cried Maryan, laughing. "You are speaking to the
guardian of tombs. He worships harmony yet."
Kranitski seemed humiliated somewhat. He passed his palm over his
hair, and began timidly:
"But that is true, my dears; I see myself that I am becoming
old-fashioned. Men of my time, and I, called a cat a cat, a rogue
a rogue. If a Lili like yours put on the airs of an angel we
said: 'Oh, she is a rogue!' And we knew what to think of the
matter. But this confounding of profane with sacred, of the
rudest carnalism with a mystic tendency--"
The baron and Maryan laughed.
"For you this is all Greek, and will remain Greek. You wore born
in the age of harmony, you will remain on the side of harmony.
But a truce to talk. Let us go. Come, you will hear Lili Kerth;
we shall sup together."
"Come, we have a place in the carriage for you," said the baron,
supporting young Darvid's invitation.
Kranitski grew as radiant as if a sun-ray had fallen on his face.
"Very well, my dears, very well, I will go with you; it will
distract me, freshen me. A little while only; will you permit?"
"Of course. Willingly. We will wait." He hurried to his bedroom,
and closed the door behind him. In his head whirled pictures and
expressions: the theatre, songs, amusement, supper, conversation,
the bright light--everything, in a word, to which he had grown
accustomed, and with which he had lived for many years. The
foretaste of delight penetrated through his grievous sorrows.
After the bitter mixture he felt the taste of caramels in his
mouth. He ran toward his dressing-table, but in the middle of the
room he stood as if fixed to the floor. His eye met a beautiful
heliotype, standing on the bureau in the light of the lamp; from
the middle of the room, in a motionless posture, Kranitski gazed
at the face of the woman, which was enclosed in an ornamented
frame.
"Poor, dear soul! Noble creature!" whispered he, and his lips
quivered, and on his forehead appeared the red spots. Maryan
called from beyond the door:
"Hurry, old man! We shall be late!"
A few minutes afterward Kranitski entered the drawing-room. His
shoulders were bent; his lids redder than before.
"I cannot--as I love you, I cannot go with you! I feel ill."
"Indeed, he must be ill!" cried Maryan. "See, Emil, how our old
man looks! He is changed, is he not?"
"But a moment ago you looked well!" blurted out Emil, and added:
"Do not become wearisome, do not get sick. Sick people are
fertilizers on the field of death--and sickness is annoying!"
"Splendidly said!" exclaimed Maryan.
"No, no," answered Kranitski, "this is not important, it is an
old trouble of the liver. Returned only to-day--you must go
without me."
He straightened himself, smiled, tried to move without
constraint, but unconquerable suffering was evident on his
features and in the expression of his eyes.
"May we send the doctor?" asked Maryan.
"No, no," protested Kranitski, and the baron took him by the arm
and turned him toward the bedroom. Though Kranitski's shoulders
were bent at that moment, his form was shapely and imposing; the
baron, holding his arm, seemed small and frail; he made one think
of a fly. In the bedroom he said, with a low voice:
"It is reported in the city that papa Darvid is opposed to my
plans concerning Panna Irene. Do you know of this?"
For some months the baron had spoken frequently with Kranitski
about his plans, taking counsel with him even at times, and
begging for indications. Was he not the most intimate friend of
that house, and surely an adviser of the family? Kranitski did
not think, or even speak, of Baron Emil otherwise than:
"Ce brave garcon has the best heart in the world; he is very
highly developed and intelligent; yes, very intelligent; and his
mother, that dear, angelic baroness, was one of the most
beautiful stars among those which have lighted my life."
So through the man's innate inclination to an optimistic view of
mankind, and his grateful memory of "one of the most beautiful
stars," he was always very friendly to the baron and favorable to
his plan touching Irene; all the more since he noted in her an
inclination toward the baron. So, usually, he gave the young man
counsel and answers willingly and exhaustively. This time,
however, an expression of constraint and of suffering fell on his
face.
"I know not, dear baron; indeed, I can do nothing, for to
tell--for I--" A number of drops of perspiration came out on his
forehead, and he added, with difficulty:
"It seems that Panna Irene--"
"Panna Irene," interrupted the baron, without noticing
Kranitski's emotion, "is a sonnet from Baudelaire's Les fleurs du
mal (The flowers of evil). There is in her something undefined,
something contradictory--"
Kranitski made a quick movement.
"My baron--"
"But do you not understand me, dear Pan Arthur? I have no
intention of speaking ill of Panna Irene. In my mouth the
epithets which I have used are the highest praise. Panna Irene is
interesting precisely for this reason, that she is indefinite and
complicated. She is a disenchanted woman. She possesses that
universal irony which is the stamp of higher natures. Oh, Panna
Irene is not a violet unless from the hot-house of Baudelaire!
But, just for that reason she rouses curiosity, irritates, une
desabusee--une vierge desabusee. Do you understand? There is in
this the odor of mystery--a new quiver. But with natures of this
sort nothing can ever be certain--"
"Hers is a noble nature!" cried Kranitski, with enthusiasm.
"You divide natures into noble and not noble," said the baron,
with a smile; "but I, into annoying and interesting."
Beyond the door the loud voice of Maryan was heard:
"Emil, I will leave you and go to Tron-tron's. I will tell Lili
Kerth that you remained for the night to nurse a sick friend."
These words seemed to them so amusing that they laughed, from
both sides of the closed door, simultaneously.
"Good!" cried the baron. "You will create for me the fame of a
good Christian. As the Brandenburger fears only God, I fear only
the ridiculous, and go."
A few minutes later the two friends were no longer in the
dwelling of Kranitski, who was sitting on his long chair again,
with drooping head, turning in his fingers the golden
cigarette-case. The street outside the window was lonely enough,
so the rumble of the departing carriage was audible. Kranitski
followed it with his ear, and when it was silent he regretted
passionately for a moment that he had not gone to where people
were singing and jesting, and eating, and drinking in bright
light, in waves of laughter. But, straightway, he felt an
invincible distaste for all that. He was so sad, crushed, sick.
Why had not those two young friends of his remained longer? He
had rendered them the most varied services frequently, he had
simply been at their service always, and had loved them;
especially Maryan, the dear child--and many others. How many
times had he nursed them, also, in sickness, consoled them,
rescued them, amused them. Now, when he cannot run after them, as
a dog after its mistress, his only comrades are darkness and
silence.
Darkness reigned in the little drawing-room, silence of the grave
in the whole dwelling. A clatter of overshoes broke this silence;
widow Clemens stood in the kitchen door. On her high forehead,
above her gray eyebrows, shone the glass eyes of her spectacles;
her left hand was covered with a man's sock which she was
darning. She stood in the door and looked at Kranitski, bent,
grown old, buried in gloomy silence, and shook her head. Then, as
quietly as ever was possible for her, she approached the
long-chair, sat on a stool which was near it, and asked:
"Well, why are you silent, and chewing sorrow alone? Talk with
me, you will feel easier."
As he gazed at her silently, she asked in a still lower tone:
"Well, the woman? Did she love you greatly? Was her love real?
How did you and she come to your senses?"
After a few minutes' hesitation, or thought, Kranitski, with his
elbows on the edge of the chair, and his forehead on his palms,
said:
"I can tell all, mother, for you are not of our society, and you
are noble, faithful; the only one on earth who remains with me."
Throughout the silent chamber was heard, as it were, the sound of
a trumpet: that sound was made by widow Clemens, who had drawn
from her pocket a coarse handkerchief and held it to her nose.
Her eyes were moist. Kranitski quivered and squirmed, but
continued:
"When we met the first time after parting, the spring season was
around us. You know that we parted only because I had too little
fortune to marry a portionless maiden, and my mother would not
hear of my marrying a governess. Soon after, that rich man
married her. Fiu! fiu! what became of that governess, that girl
more timid than a violet? She became a society lady, full of
life, elegance, style--but springtime breathed around us,
memories of the village, of the flowers, of the fields, of our
earliest, heartfelt emotions. Did she love her husband? Poor,
dear, soul! It seems that at first she was attached to him, but
he left her, neglected her, grasped after millions throughout the
whole world. He was strong, unbending--she was ever alone. Alone
in society! Alone in the house--for the children were small yet,
and she so sensitive and weak, needing friendship and the
fondling of a devoted heart. I fell on my knees in spirit before
her--she felt that. He, when going away, left me near her as an
adviser, a guardian for the time, even a protector, yes, a
pro-tec-tor--the parvenu! the idiot! So wise, yet so stupid--ha!
ha! ha!"
Sneering, vengeful laughter contorted Kranitski's face, the red
spots spread over his brows and covered half of his forehead,
which was drawn now into thick wrinkles.
"Do not vex yourself, Tulek, do not vex yourself, you will be
ill," urged widow Clemens; but once his confessions were begun he
went on with them.
"For a year or more there was nothing between us. We were
friends, but she held me at a distance; she struggled. You,
mother, know if I had success with women--"
"You had, to your eternal ruin, you had!" blurted out widow
Clemens.
"From youth I had the gift of reading; I owe much to it."
"Ei! you owe much to it! What do you owe to it? Your sin against
God, and the waste of your life!" said the widow, ready for a
dispute, but he went on without noting that.
"Once she was weak after a violent attack of neuralgia; it was
late in the evening, the great house was empty and dark, the
children were sleeping--I gave her the attention that a brother
or a mother would give; I was careful; I hid what was happening
within me; I acted as though I were watching over a sick child
which was dear to me. I entertained her with conversation; I
spoke in a low voice; I gave her medicine and confectionery.
Afterward I began to read. More than once she had said that my
reading was music. I was reading Musset. You do not know, mother,
who Musset is. He is the poet of love--of that love exactly which
the world calls forbidden. She wanted something from the
neighboring chamber; I went for it. When I returned our eyes met,
and--well, I read no more that evening."
He was barely able to utter the last words; he covered his face
with his handkerchief, rested his head on the arm of the
long-chair, was motionless; wept, perhaps. Widow Clemens bent
down, the corner of her coarse handkerchief came from her pocket,
and through the chamber that sound of a trumpet was heard for the
second time. Then she drew her bench up still nearer, and, with
her hand in the stocking-foot, touched Kranitski's arm, and
whispered:
"Say no more, Tulek; despair not! Let God up there judge her and
you. He is a strict judge, but merciful! I am sorry for you, but
also for her, poor thing! What is to be done? The heart is not
stone, man is not an angel! Only drive off despair! Everything
passes-, and your sorrow also will pass. You may be better off in
the world than you now are. You may yet enjoy pleasant quiet in
Lipovka, in your own cottage. Stefanek and I may think out
something, so that you will escape from the mud of this city."
Kranitski made no answer; the woman spoke on:
"I have had another letter from Stefanek."
"What does that honest man write?" asked Kranitski.
The widow flushed up in anger:
"It is true that he is honest, and there is no need to call him
that--as if through favor, or sneering. Arabian adventure! He is
only my godson, but better than men of high birth. He writes that
management in Lipovka goes well; that again he has set out a
hundred fruit-trees in the garden; that in four weeks he will
come and bring a little money."
"Money!" whispered Kranitski; "but that is well!"
"It is surely well, for that Jew would have taken your furniture
if I had not pushed him down the steps, and a second time begged
him to wait." She laughed. "To push him down was easier than to
beg, for I am strong, and he is as small as a fly. Well I almost
kissed his hands, and he promised to wait. 'For widow Clemens I
will do this,' said he, 'because she is a servant who is like a
mother.' Indeed, I am like a mother! I have no children, I have
no one of my own in the world--I have only you."
Kranitski looked at her and began to shake his head with a slow
movement. She, too, fixing her fiery and gloomy eyes on his eyes,
shook slowly her head, which was covered with a great cap.
The lamp burning on the bureau threw its white light on those two
heads, which, discoursing sadly, continued their melancholy
converse without words; it shone also on the varied collection of
pipes at the wall, and cast passing gleams on the golden
cigarette-case which Kranitski turned in his hand.