IV

It was about nine in the morning, and Dalsky, slowly pacing the front

room, "Quiz-Compend" in hand, was reviewing his lesson. He had a

certain dignity and nobleness of feature which consorted well with the

mysterious pallor of his oval face, and to which, by the way, his

moral complexion gave him perfect right. Then, too, his middle-sized

form was exceedingly well proportioned. But for the rest, his looks,

like everything else about him, presented nothing to produce an

impression.

Presently he deliberately closed the book, carefully placed it on his

whatnot, and, his eye falling upon the little flower-pot on the

window, he noiselessly stepped into the kitchen, where Tanya was

ironing some trifles on the dining-table.

"What are you looking for, Monsieur Dalsky?" she inquired amiably,

turning her flushed face to the boarder, who was then gazing about the

kitchen.

"Nothing--do not trouble yourself, Tatyana Markovna--I have got it,"

he answered politely, resting the soft look of his good gray eyes at

her, and showing the enameled cup which he was carrying to the

water-tap.

"It is high time to give my flower-pot its breakfast; it must have

grown hungry," he remarked unobtrusively, retracing his steps to the

front room, with the cup half filled with water.

"It gets good board with you, your little flower-pot," Tanya returned,

in her plaintive soprano, speaking through the open window, which

sometimes served to separate and sometimes to connect the kitchen and

the front room. "By the way, it is time for its master to have its

breakfast too. Shall I set the table, Monsieur Dalsky?"

"All rightissimo!" answered the student jestingly, with the remotest

suggestion of a chivalrous smile and a bow of his head.

As he ate, she made a playful attempt at reading the portly textbook,

which he had brought with him. Whenever she happened to mispronounce

an English word, he would set her right, in a matter-of-fact way;

whereupon she accepted his correction with a slight blush and a smile,

somewhat bashful and somewhat humorous.

Hardly a fortnight had elapsed since Dalsky had installed himself and

his scanty effects at the Luries', yet he seemed to have grown into

the family, and the three felt as if they had dwelt together all their

lives. His presence in the house produced a change that was at once

striking and imperceptible. When free from college and from teaching,

an hour or two in the morning and a few hours during the afternoon, he

would stay at home studying or reading, humming, between whiles, some

opera tune, or rolling up a cigarette and smoking it as he paced up

and down the floor--all of which he did softly, unobtrusively, with a

sort of pleasing fluency. Often he would bring from the street some

useful or decorative trifle--a match-box, a towel-ring, a bit of

bric-a-brac for the mantelpiece, a flower-pot. At supper he, Boris and

Tanya would have a friendly chat over the contents of the newspapers,

or the gossip of the colony, or some Russian book, although Boris was

apt to monopolize the time for his animadversions upon the occurrences

in the pearl-button shop, which both Tanya and Dalsky were beginning

to think rather too minute and uninteresting. "Poor fellow; the

pearl-button environment _has_ eaten him up," the medical student

would say to himself, with heartfelt commiseration. As to his own

college, he would scarcely ever refer to it. After supper he usually

left for his private lessons, after which he would perhaps drop in at

the Russian Students' Club; and altogether his presence did not in the

least encroach upon the privacy of the Luries' life, while, on the

other hand, it seemed to have breathed an easier and pleasanter

atmosphere into their home.

"Well, was there any ground for making so much ado?" Boris once said

triumphantly. "We are as much alone as ever, and you are not lonely

all day, into the bargain."

* * * * *

Dalsky had come to America with the definite purpose of studying and

then practicing medicine. He had landed penniless, yet in a little

over two years, and before his friends in the colony had noticed it,

he was in a position to pay his first year's tuition and to meet all

the other bills of his humble, but well ordered and, to him,

gratifying living.

He was a normally constituted and well-regulated young man of

twenty-five, a year or two Lurie's junior. There was nothing bright

nor deep about him, but he was seldom guilty of a gross want of tact.

He would be the last man to neglect his task on account of a ball or

an interesting book, yet he was never classed among the "grinds." He

was endowed with a light touch for things as well as for men, and with

that faculty for ranking high in his class, which, as we all know,

does not always precede distinction in the school of life. This sort

of people give the world very little, ask of it still less, but get

more than they give.

As he neither intruded too far into other people's souls, nor allowed

others too deep into his own confidence, he was at peace with himself

and everybody else in the colony.

V

Three months more had passed. The button factory was busy. Boris's

hard, uncongenial toil was deepening its impress upon him. When he

came from work he would be so completely fagged out that an English

grammar was out of the question.

He grew more morose every day.

Tanya was becoming irritable with him.

One afternoon after six she was pensively rocking and humming a

Russian folk-song, one of her little white hands resting on an open

Russian book in her lap. Dalsky was out, for it was one of those days

when he would stay at college until six and come home at about the

same time as Boris.

Presently she was awakened from her reverie by the sound of footsteps.

The door opened before she had time to make out whose they were, and

as her eye fell upon Boris, a shadow of disappointment flitted across

her brow.

Still, at the sight of his overworked face, her heart was wrung with

pity, and she greeted him with a commiserating, nervous, exaggerated

sort of cordiality.

After a little he took to expounding a plan, bearing upon their

affairs, which he had conceived while at work. She started to listen

with real interest, but her attention soon wandered away, and as he

went on she gazed at him blankly and nodded irrelevant assent.

"What is the use of talking, since you are not listening anyway?" he

said, mildly.

She was about to say softly, "Excuse me, Borya, say it again, I'll

listen," but she said resentfully, "Suit yourself!"

His countenance fell.

"Any letters from home?" he demanded, after a while, to break an

awkward stillness.

"No," she replied, with an impatient jerk of her shoulder.

He gave a perplexed shrug, and took up his grammar.

When Dalsky came he found them plainly out of sorts with each other.

Tanya returned his "Good health to you," only partly relaxing the

frown on her face. Boris raised his black head from his book; his

brusque "Good health, Dalsky!" had scarcely left his lips when his

short-sighted eyes again nearly touched the open grammar.

"You must excuse me; I am really sorry to have kept you waiting," the

boarder apologized, methodically taking off his overcoat and gently

brushing its velvet collar before hanging it up, "but I was

unavoidably detained at the lecture, and then I met Stern, and you

know how hard it is to shake oneself free from him."

"It is not late at all," Tanya observed, unnecessarily retaining a

vestige of the cloud upon her countenance. "What does he want, Stern?

Some new scheme again?"

"You hit it there, Tatyana Markovna; and, by the way, you two are to

play first violin in it."

"I?" asked Tanya, her countenance suddenly blazing up with confused

animation. "What is it?" Boris laid down his book and pricked up his

ears.

"He has unearthed some remarkable dialogue in Little Russian,--you

know everything Stern comes across is remarkable. Well, and he wants

the two of you to recite it or act it--that's your business--at the

New Year's gathering."

"What an idiotic plan!" was Boris's verdict, which his countenance

belied unceremoniously.

"Who else is going to participate?" inquired Tanya.

Fixing his mild gray eyes on his youthful landlady, Dalsky proceeded

to describe the prospective entertainment in detail. Presently he grew

absent-minded and lost the thread of a sentence. He noticed that, as

his listener's eyes met his, her gaze became unsteady, wandering, as

though she were looked out of countenance.

She confusedly transferred her glance to his fresh, clean-shaven face

and then to his neatly tied scarf and immaculate shirt front.

Boris wore a blue flannel shirt, and, as usual in the middle of the

week, his face was overgrown with what he jocosely called underbrush.

As he had warmed up to Dalsky's subject and rose to his feet to ply

him with questions, the contrast which the broad, leaf-shaped gas

flame illuminated was striking. It was one between a worn, wretched

workingman and a trim, fresh-looking college student.

Supper passed in animated conversation, as usual. When it was over and

the boarder was gone to his pupils, Boris, reclining on the lounge,

took up his "Dombey and Son" and Alexandroff's Dictionary. In a

quarter of an hour he was fast asleep and snoring. It attracted the

attention of Tanya, who sat near by, reading her Russian novel. She

let the book rest on her lap and fell to contemplating her husband.

His sprawling posture and his snores at once revolted her and filled

her with pity. She looked at the scar over his eyebrow, and it pained

her; and yet, somehow, she could not divert her eyes from it. At the

same time she felt a vague reminiscence stirring in her mind. What was

it? She seemed to have seen or heard or read something somewhere which

had a certain bearing upon the painful feeling which she was now

nursing, in spite of herself, as she was eyeing the scar over Boris's

eyebrow. What could it be?

A strenuous mental effort brought to her mind the passage in Tolstoi's

novel where Anna Karenina, after having fallen under Vronsky's charm,

is met by her husband upon her return to St. Petersburg, whereupon the

first thing that strikes her about him is the uncouth hugeness of his

ears.

It was not the first time her thoughts had run in this direction. She

had repeatedly caught herself dwelling upon such apparently silly

subjects as the graceful trick which Dalsky had in knocking off the

ashes of his cigarette, or the way he would look about the cupboard

for the cup with which he watered his plant, or, again, the soft ring

of his voice as he said, "Tatyana Markovna!"--the thoroughly Russian

form of address, not much in vogue in the colony. Once, upon touching

his flower on the window sill, she became conscious of a thrill,

deliciously disquieting and as if whispering something to her. And

yet, as the case of Anna Karenina now came to her mind, as an

illustration of her own position, it smote her consciousness as a

startling discovery.

"And so I am a married woman in love with another man!" was her first

thought; and with her soul divided between a benumbing terror and the

sweet titillation produced by a sense of tasting forbidden fruit, she

involuntarily repeated the mental exclamation:--

"Yes, I am a married woman in love with another man!"

And with a painful, savage sort of relish she went on staring at her

husband's scar and listening to his fatigued breathing. There was a

moment when a wave of sympathy suddenly surged to her heart and nearly

moved her to tears; but at the next moment it came back to her that it

was at Boris's insistence, and in spite of her sobs, that the boarder

had been taken into the house; whereupon her heart swelled with a

furious sense of revenge. The image of Dalsky floated past her mental

vision and agitated her soul with a novel feeling. When a moment or

two after she threw a glance at the looking-glass she seemed a

stranger to herself.

"Is this Tanya? Is this the respectable, decorous young woman that she

has been?" she seemed to soliloquize. "What nonsense; why not? What

have I done? Dalsky himself does not even suspect anything." It seemed

as if she were listening to the depth of her own soul for a favorable

answer to her question, and as if the favorable answer did not come.

She became fearful of herself, and, with another sudden flow of

affection for her husband, she stepped up to his side to wake him; but

as she came into close contact with him, the wave of tenderness ebbed

away and she left the room.

"It _is_ nonsense," she decided; "still, I must invent some pretext

for insisting upon his removal. Then I'll forget him, anyway."

Whether she would have had the courage to carry out her resolve or

not, is not known, for the task soon became superfluous.

A few days later, as Dalsky was drawing on his overcoat to leave for

his lessons, he said, rather awkwardly, addressing himself to both,

while looking at Boris:--

"By the way, I have to tell you something. I am afraid that devilish

college will make it impossible for me to live downtown."

Both Boris and Tanya grew pale.

"You see," Dalsky pursued, "the lectures and the work in the

dissecting-room are so scattered throughout the day that I don't see

my way out unless I get a room in the neighborhood of the college."

And to talk himself out of the embarrassing position, he went on to

explain college affairs with unnecessary detail.

As a matter of fact, however, his whole explanation, although not

based on an untruth, was not the real cause of his determination to

leave the Luries. He had known Boris in his better days, and now

sympathized with him and Tanya keenly. The frequent outbreaks of

temper between husband and wife, and the cloud which now almost

constantly hung over the house, heavily bore down upon him as a

friend, and made his life there extremely uncomfortable. At last he

had perceived the roving, nonplussed look in her eyes as their

glances met. Once become observant in this direction, he noticed a

thousand and one other little things which seemed to confirm his

suspicion. "Can it be that she is interested in me?" he said to

himself. For a moment the thought caressed his vanity and conjured up

the image of Tanya in a novel aspect, which lured him and spoke of the

possibility of reciprocating her feeling--of an adventure.

It was on the very next day that he announced his intention to move.