The bright days soon passed, and Marusia began to grow worse again. She
now gazed indifferently with her large, fixed, darkening eyes at all
our cunning devices for her amusement, and it was long since we had
heard her laughter. I began to bring my playthings to the crypt, but
they only diverted her for a short time. I then decided to turn for
help to my sister Sonia.
Sonia had a large doll with magnificent long hair and cheeks painted
a brilliant red, a present from our mother. I had the greatest faith
in the powers of this doll, and therefore, calling my sister into a
distant part of the garden one day, I asked her to lend it to me. I
begged so earnestly and described the little suffering girl who had no
toys of her own so vividly that Sonia, who at first had only clasped
the doll more tightly to her breast, handed it to me and promised to
play with her other toys for two or three days and to forget the doll
entirely.
The effect produced on Marusia by this gaily dressed young lady with
the china face exceeded all my wildest hopes. The child, who had been
fading like a flower in Autumn, suddenly seemed to revive again. How
tightly she hugged me! How merrily she laughed as she chattered to
her new acquaintance! The doll almost worked a miracle. Marusia, who
had not left her bed for many days, began to toddle about, pulling her
fair-haired daughter after her, and even ran a few steps, dragging her
weak little feet across the floor as she had done in former days.
At the same time the doll gave me many an anxious moment. In the first
place, on my way to the hill with my prize under my coat, I had met
Yanush on the road, and the old man had followed me for a long time
with his eyes, and shaken his head. Then, two days later, our old nurse
had noticed the disappearance of the doll, and had begun poking her
nose into every corner in search of it. Sonia tried to appease her,
but the child’s artless assurances that she didn’t want the doll, that
the doll had gone out for a walk and would soon come back, only served
to create doubts in the minds of the servants, and to awaken their
suspicions that this might not simply be a question of loss. My father
knew nothing as yet, and though Yanush, who came to him again one day,
was sent away even more angrily than before, my father stopped me that
morning on the way to the garden gate and ordered me not to leave home.
The same thing happened on the following day, and only on the fourth
did I get up early and slip away over the fence while my father was
still asleep.
Things were still going badly on the hill. Marusia was in bed again and
was worse. Her face was strangely flushed, her fair curls were lying
disheveled on her pillow, and she recognised no one. Beside her lay the
disastrous doll with its pink cheeks and its stupid, staring eyes.
I told Valek of the danger I was running, and we both decided that
undoubtedly I ought to take the doll home, especially as Marusia would
not notice its absence. But we were mistaken! No sooner did I take the
doll out of the arms of the unconscious child than she opened her eyes,
stared vaguely about as if she did not see me and did not know what was
happening to her, and then suddenly began to cry very, very softly, but
oh, so piteously, while an expression of such deep sorrow swept across
her features under the veil of her delirium that, panic-stricken, I
immediately laid the doll back in its former place. The child smiled,
drew the doll to her breast, and grew calm again. I realised that I had
tried to deprive my little friend of the first and last pleasure of her
short life.
Valek looked shyly at me.
“What shall we do now?” he asked sadly.
Tiburtsi, who was sitting on a bench with his head sunk dejectedly on
his breast, also looked at me, with a question in his eyes. I therefore
tried to look as careless as possible, and said:
“Never mind; nurse has probably forgotten all about it by now.”
But the old woman had not forgotten. When I reached home that day I
again found Yanush at the garden gate. Sonia’s eyes were red with
weeping and our nurse threw me an angry, icy glance and muttered
something between her toothless gums.
My father asked me where I had been, and having listened attentively to
my usual answer, confined himself to telling me not to leave the house
without his permission under any circumstances whatsoever. This command
was categorical and absolutely peremptory. I dared not disobey it, and
at the same time I could not make up my mind to ask my father for leave
to go to my friends.
Four weary days passed. I spent my time roaming dejectedly about the
garden, gazing longingly in the direction of the hill, and waiting,
too, for the storm which I felt was gathering over my head. I had no
idea what the future might bring, but my heart was as heavy as lead.
No one had ever punished me in my life; my father had never so much as
laid a finger on me, and I had never heard a harsh word from his lips,
but I was suffering now from an oppressive sense of coming misfortune.
At last my father summoned me to his study. I opened the door and
stopped timidly on the threshold. The melancholy autumn sun was shining
in through the windows. My father was sitting in an arm chair before a
portrait of my mother, and did not turn to look at me as I came in. I
could hear the anxious beating of my own heart.
At last my father turned round; I raised my eyes and instantly dropped
them again. My father’s face looked terrible to me. Half a minute
passed, and I could feel his stern, fixed, withering gaze riveted upon
me.
“Did you take your sister’s doll?”
The words fell upon my ears so suddenly and sharply that I quivered.
“Yes,” I answered in a low voice.
“And do you know that that doll was a present from your mother, and
that you ought to have preserved it as something sacred? Did you steal
it?”
“No,” I answered, raising my head.
“How can you say no?” my father suddenly shouted. “You stole it and
took it away. Whom did you take it to? Speak!”
He strode swiftly toward me, and laid a heavy hand upon my shoulder.
I raised my head with an effort, and looked up. My father’s face
was pale. The frown of pain which had lain between his brows since
my mother’s death was still there, but now his eyes were flashing
with sombre wrath. I shrank away. I seemed to see madness--or was it
hatred?--glaring at me out of those eyes.
“Well, what did you do? Answer!” And the hand which was holding my
shoulder gripped it more tightly than before.
“I--I won’t tell you,” I answered in a low voice.
“Yes, you will tell me!” my father rapped out, and there was a threat
in his voice.
“I won’t tell you,” I whispered lower still.
“You will, you will!”
He repeated these words in a muffled voice as if they had burst from
him with a painful effort. I felt his hand trembling, and even seemed
to hear the rage boiling in his breast. My head sank lower and lower,
and tears began to drip slowly out of my eyes upon the floor, but I
still kept repeating almost inaudibly:
“No, I won’t tell; I’ll never, never tell.”
It was my father’s son speaking in me. He could never have succeeded
in extorting an answer from me, no, not by the fiercest tortures.
There welled up in my breast in response to his threats the almost
unconscious feeling of injury that comes to an ill-used child, and a
sort of burning love for those whose betrayal my father was demanding.
My father drew a deep breath. I shrank away still farther, and the
bitter tears scalded my cheeks. I waited.
It would be hard for me to describe my sensations at that moment. I
knew that his breast was seething with rage, and that at any moment my
body might be struggling helplessly in his strong, delirious arms.
What would he do to me? Would he hurl me from him? Would he crush me?
But I did not seem to dread that now. I even loved the man in that
moment of fear, but, at the same time, I felt instinctively that he was
about to shatter this love with one mad effort, and that for ever and
ever after I should carry the same little flame of hatred in my heart
which I had seen gleaming in his eyes.
I had lost all sense of fear. Instead, there had begun to throb in
my heart a feeling exasperating, bold, challenging; I seemed to be
waiting, and longing for the catastrophe to come at last.