"HALF-GODS GO"
Ivan made no mistake in these personal equations of his; but he managed
one very bad one when, in his heart, he thought of fate, or destiny, or
circumstance, as leaving all responsibility of decision to him, thus
shirking its generally acknowledged business. Had this chosen son
harbored no such audacity, perhaps the rearrangement of Ivan's life,
necessary though it had now become, might have been gradually wrought.
As it was, the fellow must be given a double lesson, and forced to learn
it well:--by heart, in all probability. Nor must it fail to stretch his
powers of apprehension to their fullest extent. Wherefore, in the early
autumn, the giant wheel that is not turned by chance, began to revolve
for Ivan, very slowly, without apparent aim in its pristine movements.
Summer was gone. The five great camps in the Empire had been broken a
fortnight before; and officers and men alike began to let their backs
relax a little, and were taking less notice of dust-flecks on their
uniforms. In the suburbs, at Tsarskoë-Selo, for instance, there were now
many villas whose eyes had closed for the night of winter--their
recently open windows and doors being dismally boarded over; while their
aristocratic owners were indulging in a last informal holiday at some
one of the foreign Spas, before the serious business of winter sleighing
and court balls should recommence. This year there was, however, less
flitting than usual; for men in high places had been made to understand
the full significance of an imperial whisper that the ministers and
their aides remain in close touch with Peterhof and the Hermitage.
Europe was under a tension of hope--and fear. And the Bear and the Lion
crouched face to face, every muscle rigid, eyes glued upon each other,
ears strained to catch every faintest echo from the booming of northern
guns in that far-off land where America lay, already torn and bleeding
with the first lacerations of her terrible inward strife.
In the first week of September, Lieutenant Gregoriev, returning from a
visit to his father in Moscow, rejoined Captain de Windt in their
apartment in the little Peréolouk.--Thus the court journal: whereby the
young man should have perceived himself to have ascended at least one
more round of the social ladder. If he did not realize this, however,
Ivan was still in a very excellent frame of mind. His stay with his
father had been pleasanter than he had hoped; for Prince Michael, who
began to see his every ambition realized in the probable future of his
son, had been more agreeable to him than ever before, and absolutely
magnificent in his generosity. Ivan felt a little thrill of amazement
every time he recalled the amount of money at his command. Moreover,
here was a new season coming on; and one that promised him delight
untold. For was it not to bring the début of his cousin Nathalie? She,
light of his dreams, no longer to be shut away from his eyes, or voice,
or even--speak of it reverently!--arms, perhaps--stood where he had
stood a year before: on the threshold of the ballroom of youth. The
world was to know her well; for her mother, always advocate of the
_dernier cri de la mode_, had decided, months before, that she, like a
dozen ladies of the highest Russian world, would adopt, for her
daughter, the English fashion; and actually allow her, before her
marriage, to face the living world of men and things. At the first court
ball of the season she should be presented to her sovereigns; after
which it would be understood that the charming child was in the
matrimonial market, ready to be knocked down to the highest bidder.
Had her cousin Ivan, who scarcely regarded her presentation in this
harsh and vulgar light, thrilled at the prospect of her first appearance
there, how much more must it mean to the damsel herself, who, in all her
girlish dreams of the freedom of womanhood, had never dared picture the
possibility of such liberty before the event of marriage? During the
coming season there were to be introduced half a dozen other young girls
of her own station, who had even been in her own class at the Institute.
And more than once this true daughter of the world had laughingly
reviewed her possible rivals, either to herself, or to her interested
maid. There were Mademoiselle Cherneskovsky, with her long, skinny neck;
and Alexandra Nikitenko, whose red face and fat figure could not
possibly be forgotten in the good-nature of her disposition, any more
than the immense wealth of the only daughter of the Shúlka-Mirskies
could compensate for her thin, colorless hair, and pale, red-rimmed eyes
with their invisible white lashes. Finally, there was Olga Tarentino,
whose blonde stateliness might prove dangerous, so long as she could
keep from a betrayal of her vixenish temper. But pretty Nathalie,
remembering the furious recklessness of this, laughed as she lifted her
golden-framed hand-glass, and accepted, complacently, the ready flattery
of smooth-tongued Antoinette.
Nor, seeing this young girl as she stood, surrounded by her mother, two
maids, and half a dozen adoring serfs, on the evening of November 12th,
in the year 1862, could any one have blamed her, very strongly, for her
gay vanity. Lovelier vision than this surely never graced the somewhat
bare corridors of the labyrinthine Hermitage! For this was the night of
her début, when Nathalie was to make her first courtesies to royalty.
She was dressed in the prescribed court costume--which was to prove so
trying to the objects of her naughty ridicule. Upon her, the high
kakoshnik, with its jewelled rim, and the floating veil that softened so
beautifully the great weight of her braids, proved startlingly
beautiful. And, with a neck like hers, what more desirable than the
daring décolletage of her white tulle gown, from the billowing skirts of
which her tiny waist sprang like the slender stem of a huge, white rose.
About her throat was clasped a double row of pearls--her father's gift
to her for the great occasion. And, in her arms,--last, daring touch of
her Countess-mother, who, in the matter of dress, was a consummate
artist,--Nathalie carried a great cluster of vivid crimson camellias,
that gave a perfect finish to a costume now relieved from any suspicion
of monotony, or too conventional simplicity. The red of the waxen
camellia, vividly transparent as it was, was scarce redder than the
unroughed cheeks and lips of their bearer. Nor was the brilliant
sparkling of the diamonds in the kakoshnik inadequately reproduced in
the light of those changing eyes, which, to-night, glowed large and dark
with steady, living fire.
Caroline, Countess Dravikine, gazing critically at her daughter's
finished figure, felt her heart glow within her. Who could reproach her
for exploiting such beauty before marriage? For at sight of Nathalie
to-night, an Emperor himself could scarce have reproached his son for
desiring the hand of so exquisite a creature. And, with her own great
skill as a firm basis for the girl's charming ingenuousness, reflected
her mother, what alliance would prove impossible to her now? For, even
in her mother-love, this odd woman was filled with the selfishness of a
very empty vanity. And it seemed now as if, with the death of her
unhappy sister, there had also died in Madame Dravikine the last vestige
of unworldliness.
The Hermitage that night proved a fitting field for her generalship. The
event so long dreaded by her as the seeming end of her own youth, was
suddenly turned into a double triumph. For, as Nathalie passed through
the long _salons_, she was followed by such a trail of whispers,
envious, malicious, amazed, from the women, universally applausive from
the men, that the Countess suddenly realized that she held in her hands
a new instrument of power; one greater than she had ever wielded before.
Moreover, before an hour was gone, she knew well that she had been
vindicated of any suggestion of mistake in having adopted the English
rather than the French form in introducing her daughter. For his Majesty
exclaimed, delightedly, as he personally lifted the débutante from her
third low and graceful courtesy; and the Empress, most charming, most
gentle, most refined of women, kissed the young girl on the cheek with a
compliment that made Princess Shúlka-Mirski scowl with displeasure--her
own daughter having received no more than the conventional
acknowledgment. Later, as Nathalie, her cheeks burning, her big eyes
cast down, backed slowly from the room, still prostrating herself at
intervals, every woman present _felt_ that little, insensible murmur of
applause that came from every member of the royal circle--the
grand-dukes indeed attempting no concealment of their admiration.
The great formality over, Mademoiselle Nathalie was bestowed upon her
own, voluntary subjects: a throng of brilliantly uniformed men, among
whom already--oh remarkable girlhood!--Nathalie's eyes were eagerly
searching, for a certain one. He was there; and presently, catching that
look, he came to her: the handsome, black-eyed cousin, whose heart was
throbbing for and with her. And her triumphant mother would have been
dismayed indeed had she known that all that evening, throughout her
unprecedented success, Nathalie had moved and spoken and blushed and
been still for one alone, whose eyes, from the moment of her entry into
the royal presence, she had felt upon her!
How this feeling had come, whence it sprang, whereon been nourished,
grown, who could say? Certainly not the maiden herself. Indeed, until
this night, she had not given Ivan his rightful place with her. But
henceforth she was to hold his image in her heart, and, sleeping and
waking, it was to be with her, her delight, her anguish, her wonderment.
Already she had given all that was in her to give. She was totally
inexperienced. But he had at last, and recently, tasted the forbidden
apple. And already there had risen in him such a host of fierce,
conflicting passions as left him half frightened at the forbidden
possibilities now thronging his heart. To-night, as he looked into the
eyes of this pure and exquisite girl, there rushed upon him all
suddenly, the real meaning of man-love; the fulness thereof; the fury of
perfected passion: the union of love and of desire.
Poor Ivan! The evening held things other than delight for him. As he sat
beside his cousin, talked to her, held her in his arms during one of the
wild, Russian mazurkas, he felt his body tremble with the terrible force
within him. And once the little form he held twisted, suddenly, in his
embrace. Nathalie cried out, and looked up at him; and he realized that
his strong clasp had hurt her. His look answered hers. Then the child
lowered her eyes, while a furious color dyed her cheeks and neck; and
Ivan could have shouted aloud at what he saw and knew. Confidently he
demanded of her more dances, and more and more. And she granted them
mechanically, neither thinking nor caring for appearances, nor for any
other person in those rooms. She was like one in a dream. Vladimir de
Windt, marvelling at the recklessness of the affair, came once to the
twain, thinking to expostulate with Ivan. But what he saw in the two
faces turned blankly upon him, filled him with such sudden perception
that he stumbled through an excuse, and went off to seek some spot where
he could think; saying to himself, as he went:
"Good God! Who would have believed he could love like that!--and she
also!"
But there were others in those rooms who had not his insight. And it
came finally to the remembrance of Madame Dravikine, in the midst of a
most amusing _tête-à-tête_, that she was no longer a free agent at
balls: that she was chaperoning a daughter who appeared to be alarmingly
unconventional. Leaning upon the arm of her titled companion, Madame
Dravikine went forth to fulfil the first scheme of Ivan's relentless
destiny.
Lieutenant Gregoriev and his cousin had finally retreated to a small and
empty antechamber, where the strains of the distant band came in a soft
echo to their ears. Ivan was leaning forward, in front of the girl,
whose eyes were lowered. A moment before his right hand had closed,
gently, over her own unresisting one; and the words he was speaking
would have been inaudible to any one two yards away. Nathalie was with
him in another world. At her feet, forgotten, lay the camellias, looking
like a splash of blood upon the slippery floor. Ivan's head was swimming
as he talked. But, in the midst of a sentence, he saw his companion give
a great start. Then she snatched her hand from his, pushed him aside,
and rose, unsteadily, her face deathly white. Ivan, noting the flowers,
stooped for them, and, ere he returned them to her, detached one, and
thrust it into the pocket of his uniform. Then he lifted his look to
meet the blazing eyes of his aunt, and the cynical smile of a tall,
gold-laced man, whose breast was covered with orders, and whose mustache
and imperial were known to and hated by all Petersburg; for Prince
Féodoreff was a person whose _penchant_ for feminine youth and beauty
had carried him into many walks of life.
The present little scene was interesting, but brief. Ivan never knew how
it was that Nathalie was presently disappearing through a doorway on the
arm of this man; her much-abused bouquet, held by one ribbon in her
listless right hand, trailing eloquently upon the ground; while he,
furious, but still dizzy from unwonted emotion, stood facing his aunt.
When her cold look had become intolerable to him, she added to it her
voice; saying, in a tone he had never heard from her:
"It is a pity I am forced to understand that my daughter is not to be
trusted with her cousin, even for one hour,--in a royal palace!"
With this she would have turned away. But something in Ivan's eyes
stopped her, despite her justified anger.
"Mademoiselle Nathalie Alexeiovna is to be trusted with any one,
anywhere, for any length of time. But with no one could she ever be
safer than with me, madame!" he said, passionately.
"Ah! And your method of taking care of her, is to manage so that she
shall be criticised, commented on, laughed at by the entire court during
the first hour of the first evening of her appearance in the
world!--Were you not a baby, Ivan, I should think you either mad or
dishonorable!--As it is, I am glad to have discovered what you are so
soon; though it will take months to regain for my unfortunate daughter
the position she has lost through your preposterous behavior. I shall
take good care, however, that she never again endangers her reputation
by receiving any sort of attention from you, in any place, at home or
abroad.--You will do well not to offer it, Ivan Mikhailovitch; for I
cannot have my daughter's name linked with that of a Gregoriev!" With
which brutal thrust this great lady turned coolly away, leaving Ivan,
stuttering with rage, behind her.
* * * * *
Thus, upon the first possible occasion, did Ivan ruin his winter. Nor
can it be said that he had not brought his punishment upon his own head,
by conduct so recklessly inconsiderate, that, considering the custom of
his country, it could scarcely be called that of a gentleman. Madame
Dravikine had been justified in the first part of her reproof; though
nothing, probably, could have excused the bitter insult of her final
taunt. For that, indeed, holding, as it did, a reproof of her dead
sister, her conscience pricked her more than once. But it had no effect
on the chaperonage now imposed by her upon her hapless daughter. Never,
perhaps, was heavier price paid by two offenders for the folly of a
single hour.
After the night of November 12th, any man in Petersburg could gain
audience of Mademoiselle Dravikine more easily than the one man whom
Mademoiselle Dravikine cared to see. Nathalie, indeed, made herself
miserable enough over the situation to have warmed Ivan's heart, could
he have known the fact. Her longed-for world--that wonder-land of which
she had dreamed so long, for which she had been so assiduously prepared,
was not wonderful to her now. To her eyes, the gilding over the iron
bars was very thin: the perfumed padding on the stone walls but a poor
disguise of their chill impenetrability. Nor could she find in her guide
and mentor--that mother, whom she so little knew,--either comfort or
refuge in her unhappiness. Madame Dravikine, indeed, was disgusted and
disappointed. The tale of Ivan's mad devotion and of her daughter's
imprudence, had spread through the city, losing nothing in the telling.
And Nathalie's open stubbornness and rebellion confirmed it only too
clearly. To her mother's mind, Nathalie was behaving in an imbecile
fashion. Suppose _she_ had acted in such a way, when, as Mademoiselle
Blashkov of Moscow, she had been besieged by a handsome, impecunious
young officer; and, instead of throwing him over for the wealthy young
Count Dravikine, had capped her sister's black marriage by one wildly
improvident? Besides, she was not without serious plans with regard to
her daughter, even in these first weeks of her first season. But no plan
seemed possible of fulfilment when, night after night, Nathalie would
make a dutiful, dejected appearance in some fashionable _salon_, and
would sit, drooping and visibly wretched, wherever she was put, unless,
by some unlucky chance, she caught a glimpse of the white and gold of
Ivan's uniform. Then her sudden wild vivacity would fill her mother with
helpless rage; and she would wait and watch, while a roomful smiled, and
the rows of diamond-laden dowagers shook their heads and lifted their
eyebrows solemnly towards the oblivious girl, whom no sarcastic comment,
no openly insulting interpretation of her open preference, could,
apparently, make her understand the importance of a union of family and
fortune in the bridegroom of Mademoiselle Dravikine. Moreover, it would
sound really incredible were one to make a positive statement of the
number of nights throughout which this silly child lay sobbing, in the
kindly darkness of her bedchamber, till the approach of late-rising dawn
brought a brief forgetfulness of her unquestionably ridiculous little
trial.
Perhaps, after all, it is rather pitiful that this calf-love, confidently
derided by omniscient, sensible middle-age, should be so tender and so
beautiful a thing. Once it is crushed out of us, we are not likely ever
again to be burdened with a feeling at all similar to it. Nor is it
often tough-fibred enough to weather the stress of the first years of
married life; and come through the equinoctials of the inevitable
adjustment unshattered and unwrecked. And yet--how much would not most
women give to feel once more the fine, ecstatic shiver of that first,
foolish kiss? And the dreams of this period--how fair, how delicate, how
fragile--how utterly impractical they are! What beauties are not
conjured up by the imagination, during those delicious, sleepless
nights; only to be dissipated into chilling mist by the stern realities
of the relentless morning?
There is a very old, very trite philosophy that can be made to replace
such a state of mind. Most young men of twenty-five are gloating over
it: feeling themselves sad cynics, suffering from a tragic past.
Unbearable to others this stage may be. But it is a pleasant haven to
the individual anchored there, safe from the recent storms of
disillusionment. By January, poor Vladimir de Windt began to long for
the first signs of this state in his companion. Ivan was, certainly, in
a preposterous mood; and had not even grace enough to appreciate the
long-suffering patience of his friend, who listened, with unfailing
courtesy, to his eternal ravings over the nameless but perfectly
well-known object of his undying adoration. There did, however, finally
come a day when Vladimir's despairing wishes met with a kind of
fulfilment.
About noon on January 16th, Ivan, returning from a morning at the
riding-school, passed the church of St. Simeon. Noting the effect of the
candle-flames on the velvet darkness of that part of the interior
visible through the open portals, and remembering that it was an
especial saint's day, he entered, thinking to kneel for a moment behind
the throng of men and women by whom the church was nearly filled.
Suddenly, before he had chosen his place, he was aware of an intense
emotion. Ere he had time to analyze it, there came a light touch on his
arm, and he turned to face his cousin, Nathalie, wrapped in the soft
sables that matched the momentary shade of her eyes. Behind her a young
serf, Anitchka, a foolish and romantic creature, bobbed and grinned with
pleased excitement.
Instantly Ivan saw his opportunity. A moment later Nathalie's attendant,
with a piece of gold in her hand, was forcing her way to a place near
the altar, whence prayers for her benefactor would presently rise.
Meantime Ivan had turned, eagerly, tremulously, to the young girl.
"Natusha!--The saints have heard me at last!--Oh Natusha,--Natusha!" It
seemed as if that endearing diminutive could not leave his lips, so did
he linger over it, while he pressed her small, gloved hands passionately
between his bare ones.
"Oh Ivan--I am glad!--But I am afraid, too! I must tell you--everything.
And then we will say good-bye!"
"No!" She started at the fierceness of that monosyllable. "Not
'good-bye.'--Not yet!--Not yet!"
"Yes, Ivan. I am too unhappy. I must--I have _got_ to stop thinking
about you.--It is too hard, too miserable, the other way.--And I know
they will never let you see me again."
Ivan's reply was a tightening of his clasp on her hands. Then he bent
his head, while his brows were knitted, anxiously. It seemed as if he
could not speak. And she had opened her lips to comfort him a little
when he burst forth, huskily:
"Nathalie, I love you better than life! Will you marry me?"
"Oh!--Ivan!" The child trembled. She would have drawn away, but that he
held her tightly and strove to look into her face. Then, suddenly, she
grew braver, and let her eyes meet his. In the rose-red of her fair
face he read, ecstatically, his answer. But he was to have yet more.
Unknowing that he had read her thought, she found her voice and
whispered: "Yes!"
And then, in a second, he had kissed her, upon the mouth, there in the
dusk of the little, empty chapel. Whereafter, indeed, she would have
torn herself from him, had he not drawn her arm through his, and started
forward, saying, in her ear:
"Come, my dear! We are betrothed. You belong to me, henceforth. And we
are in a church. Let us go and see if they will marry us, here, now.--I
believe God gave you to me just now for this very thing. And--"
But Ivan had at last got beyond her courage. It was a daring thing he
had proposed; and he had not paused to reflect that, considering the
laws of their stern faith, so hasty an affair would be impossible.
Perhaps, then, Ivan had some right to be bitterly disappointed at her
vehement protests. How could he understand that, even with her, the
signs and formalities, the insignia and paraphernalia of a fashionable
marriage, even more than marriage itself, form, in the mind of a young
girl, the grand aim, centre, end, even, of all life. And he was asking
her to forget all these!--Preposterous--love him though she did! No.
They were engaged. That she allowed. And was not that enough for one
day?--Ivan could not gainsay her.--Well, then, let him come at once to
her father. And perhaps on the morrow--the wonderful morrow--the court
journal would make formal announcement of their betrothal, and she would
be that most interesting (?) of feminine creatures, a girl engaged!
Thus she talked: thus dreamed. And Ivan, in a little paradise of his
own, was drawn, in spite of himself, into her spirit of enthusiasm. He
promised to go, that very evening, to his uncle. And so, at length, he
left her, half a block from the Dravikine house, and went his way
towards his apartment, already beginning on the fourth year of his
married life.
* * * * *
It was half-past eight o'clock that evening when Lieutenant Gregoriev,
shivering with something more than cold, stood at the door of the
Dravikine house. When it opened, he was informed at once that Monsieur
le Comte was at home; and the impenetrable butler, bursting with
interest, showed him solemnly to the library, on the threshold of which
stood Ivan's shadowy fate, black-robed. For five minutes the Lieutenant
waited, his heart in his mouth, his dry tongue vainly trying to repeat
that careful little speech, the original of which he had unfortunately
left on the bureau of his room in his own apartment.
In the small _salon_ of that apartment, meantime, sat Vladimir de Windt,
waiting, uneasily, and making futile attempts to read. For Ivan's sake
he was neglecting all his engagements for the evening and the night,
that he might be the first to congratulate his chum on his engagement.
The minutes passed. More than an hour, now, since Ivan had bidden him a
shaky good-night! And the longer the wait, the more hopeful things must
naturally look. An accepted man sits late with his _fiancée_, discussing
the most important question in the world, while the serfs group
themselves intelligently round the key-hole. And yet, as the clock
ticked off second after second, the faithful Vladimir grew unaccountably
fretful and restless. Time was, indeed, when the circumstances of this
wait had been more painful than now. For, in the early half of the
winter, the ingenuous Nathalie had made some little havoc with the
usually well-ordered mind and heart of Monsieur de Windt. But from the
first Ivan had confided in his friend. And that friend was an honorable
man. As the days of poor Ivan's exile passed, and his misery had grown,
de Windt found his sympathy gradually overcoming his sentiment.
Moreover, Nathalie's drooping young face, familiar to him through many
balls and receptions, showed the mind of the young girl too plainly for
mistake. In so far as in her lay, she returned her cousin's love. By
December, Captain de Windt had set himself seriously to subdue his
little _penchant_; and such was his success that, as he sat waiting here
to-night, his heart was sincerely with Ivan. Yet it was not so
unremarkable that when, at a little before eleven, he watched a sleigh
pull up at the door below and saw Ivan alight from it, Monsieur de Windt
should be glad of the three flights of stairs that would assure perfect
steadiness in the voice that must cry out the heartiest of
congratulations.
Even to de Windt, however, Ivan was a long time ascending those stairs.
Was this the manner of a man triumphant? Was the step, now audible--that
heavy, dragging step,--the pace of a happy man? De Windt's heart beat
slower. His face grew grave. And then,--the door opened; and Ivan came
into the room.
He walked very slowly to a sofa in the corner, and removed his outer
wrappings, piece by piece, flinging them down on floor or furniture.
Then he turned and came back to the hot porcelain stove by which de
Windt had been sitting, dropped into a chair, drooped his head for a
moment to his breast, but finally lifted his face and looked squarely at
his friend. Good Heaven!--Could calf-love do that to a boyish face?--Was
it really Ivan, this gray-hued, inexpressibly weary man, with the dull,
expressionless eyes, and the mouth drawn into so ugly a
line?--Calf-love?--Impossible!
The oppressive silence grew heavier and more heavy. Ivan continued to
stare; but it was into vacancy now. He was greatly startled when he felt
a hand touch his shoulder: a hand whose gentleness bespoke a sympathy
that was very deep. De Windt had certainly not foreseen the effect of
his involuntary act. At the gesture, Ivan started, as if he had been
shot. Then he drew himself away, violently, and sprang to his feet,
turning on his friend:
"Don't!--My God! Are you going to _show_ me your pity?--_Me?_--A
Gregoriev?--Humph!" He broke into an abominable little laugh. "_They_
didn't give me much, Vladimir Vassilyitch! I heard from them
all--Monsieur le Comte first; then my remarkable aunt; finally--finally
from Mademoiselle Dravikine herself. Yes. At the end she came:--not
alone! They led her in, you understand. She didn't look especially
pretty. Her eyes were ridiculously red. Her voice was very husky; but
she had got her part well, and she spoke it to me. Her expression might
have been better; but she'll improve with practice.--There may be other
fools in the world, you know, who haven't realized what a crime it is
not to have ten irreproachably noble grandfathers.
"She--Mademoiselle Dravikine--asked my pardon for her shocking behavior
of the morning. She had made a great mistake, she said. Upon due
consideration, she perceived how impossible it would be to avail herself
of my offer; because, to mention one of many reasons, of our near
relationship. Nevertheless, she thanked me for my generosity in
countenancing her most unwise action; trusted that the reversal of her
reply would cause me no inconvenience; _inconvenience_, Vladimir, do you
hear!--and so wished me good-night!--_That_ was my final
answer!--Afterwards, I had a few more words with the others; but I've
forgotten what they were.--_She_, who let me kiss her, this morning,
twice,--she spoke like _that_, to me!"
"Oh but Ivan,--my dear fellow, they evidently discovered your meeting
this morning, and made her do this--little fool!"
"Oh, they found out about it, certainly.--My aunt saw her come in
alone--without the serf. And it was she, of course--my aunt is a very
strong person, Vladimir--who arranged my charming reception. Dravikine
himself was quite civil to me. I could have stood his refusal of my
offer.--And he looked uncomfortable, too, afterwards, when--his
wife--came down and began to talk. It took her nearly an hour, I
believe, to explain the immensity of my presumption.--I'm so beneath
her, you know, her father being only my grandfather.--And, last of all,
she had the pleasure of showing me what she could do with my--with her
daughter."
"But--but--tell me, have they forbidden you the house?"
"She didn't say so."
"Oh well, then--it'll be easy! You must carry the girl off!"
Ivan gave a violent start; and, for one instant, the cruel mask dropped
from his face, leaving an expression wonderfully different. Then all the
gray bitterness closed in again. "That would be quite impossible.--Why
man, consider! She herself refused me!"
"Nothing of the sort! This morning she was herself. To-night, she was
repeating to you her mother's thoughts. They coerced her.--Be a man, my
boy; and I'll help you! You two love each other; and you've got to
marry. Do you think you owe _her_ nothing?"
"Vladimir--Vladimir--you want to be kind to me. But you don't
understand. You didn't hear--how that woman--insulted my race; my blood;
yes--even her own sister, my mother!--You can't ask me to overlook
that--even--for--Nathalie!"
And Ivan's deep groan touched the heart of the man that heard it.
Nevertheless, de Windt had been struck by the sudden thought he had as
suddenly expressed. Marriage with her daughter, would certainly be as
sure a thrust as could be given to the proud woman who had so
causelessly hurt her nephew. After a time the friend pressed this view
upon his companion, till Ivan, in spite of himself, joined in the
working out of a strange idea: an idea of the seventeenth, rather than
the nineteenth, century; but possible, feasible, for all that. So, in
the end, young Gregoriev sought his bed that night not in black
depression, but with his brain once more on fire with hope:--hope of an
incredibly swift fulfilment of his lately despaired-of heart's desire.
This sudden frame of mind lasted for three days. And during that length
of time Ivan went cheerfully about his daily tasks, meantime, in company
with de Windt, working out the details of their secret plan. It was in
pursuit of one of these that, on the afternoon of the fourth day, Ivan
stood once again on the door-step of the Dravikine house.
Even in his nervousness Ivan noticed, as he waited, the unusual fact
that the shades of the drawing-room were all pulled down. And it seemed
to him, too, that there was about the house an air of unwonted
desolation, which, as the minutes passed, certainly became intensified
in his mind. Once more he sounded the huge knocker; and yet again: this
time so vigorously that the door shook. His sense of calamity had grown
till it was a presentiment. Yet his heart rose as, after a long five
minutes, there came the sounds of fumbling key and grating lock; and
then the door swung open before him, and he stood facing--not the trimly
liveried butler, but the gaunt and stooping figure of Ekaterina, the old
serf, garbed in a soiled working-dress.
"Madame Dravikine--does she receive to-day?"
"Saints behold us, Lieutenant, she may, for all I know! She and my
little Natusha--who cried without ceasing for three days and three
nights--went away this morning, with all their luggage, to the foreign
land by the sea: to Germany, where it's warm, and where they will stay,
my lady said, till summer comes again, and they can all go to
Tsarskoë.--Saints!--You are sick too, young sir!"
But Ivan, refusing her suggestion of a glass of wine, made a few more
inquiries, found that the old woman had no idea of her mistress's real
destination (to the Russian poor all the world west of Russia is
"Germany"); and at last turned blindly away and began to walk in the
direction of the nearest "tea-house," where he could think, unmolested.
His aunt had, at least, paid him a compliment in this flight. Evidently
she was afraid of him--of his poor power!--And little Natusha had cried
for three days and three nights! At thought of this, all the love and
all the chivalry in him rose.--That she should be abused because of an
act of his!--He ground his heels into the rough, wooden floor of the
little _traktir_, and began to think more rapidly.--Yes, they should
have cause to fear him! Nathalie must be his, since she cared for him as
he for her. It was all very simple. He could find out, without great
difficulty, where they had gone. Then, at once, he would follow them,
and--people had eloped before now!--His father, he knew, would, not be
displeased with the marriage; for he knew Dravikine to be his superior
in rank. At least, there should be money enough, then, always, for his
wife.
"_Wife!_" The word made his pulses throb. There remained only to
discover his destination, and to get leave of absence from his Colonel.
The latter was a mere form, given daily to officers at this season. He
might as well obtain it at once.--So, paying his small score, he rose,
leaving his drink untouched, and started off in the direction of Colonel
Brodsky's dwelling.
It was a strange thing that Ivan, in his confidence of getting away
immediately, forgot that old, unpaid grudge of his superior officer.
Unhappily for him, when he made his request, eagerness was written in
every line of his face. Brodsky listened and looked; paused, smiled
maliciously, and then, with June in his memory, refused the leave as
curtly as possible. Ivan started with amazement. But it was in vain that
he argued, pleaded, raged, finally--imprudence of imprudence! even
hinted at possible recompense. Brodsky, delighting in the pain he knew
himself to be inflicting, became more and more inexorable, more and more
insulting, till Ivan, angered beyond control, hurled out one furious
epithet, and left the little room--heart-broken.
The ensuing weeks were ones that Vladimir de Windt, certainly, never
forgot. For forty-nine endless days, until April had once more broken
Russia's icy chains, no word came from the Dravikines; who were
employing their time in a highly interesting fashion at Nice and Monaco
with a party of friends; while Ivan dragged himself about Petersburg,
madly seeking some distraction, finding it never. Daily his companions
marvelled anew at the duration of what was, to them, the pettiest of
"affairs." But Ivan's nature was ridiculously intense; and calf-love had
become, in his eyes, the most serious thing in life. At last, when he
had borne all that it seemed to him he could endure, fate offered him
the relief of a sharp stab in the spot where the monotony of a
continuous, dull ache had become intolerable.
On the morning of April 7th the court journal--and several other
papers--contained the announcement that "a marriage had been arranged
and would immediately take place between Mademoiselle Nathalie
Dravikine, daughter of,--etc., and S. A. Alexander Gregory Boris, Prince
Féodoreff, sometime Gentleman of the Bedchamber to his Imperial Majesty
Nicholas I." Further down the column came another statement that, owing
to the delicate health of the bride-elect, the wedding would be a quiet
one, celebrated at Nice within the month; whereafter, during the summer,
the Prince and Princess Féodoreff would return to Russia by easy stages,
probably spending August at Tsarskoë-Selo with the parents of the bride,
where the Prince would have time to settle into the new relationship
between himself and a lady who had hitherto occupied towards him a
position very different from that of mother-in-law. The beginning of the
winter season would, however, see the Féodoreff residence in the
Fourchstadskaia open for the occupation of the young Princess.
Ivan himself discovered these somewhat startling items of intelligence.
Later he pursued all the feminine details that appeared concerning the
bride's beauty, the magnificence of her trousseau, the wealth and
station of the groom, and even a hint or two of the romantic affair of
the recent débutante with a cousin, during the past winter. For one week
Ivan endured his pain in silence. Then, upon a certain Saturday, he went
to Brodsky again, asking him for leave and a double passport. This time
the Colonel, studying his Lieutenant's face, saw fit to grant both the
leave and the second request. Ten minutes after he had entered the
official room, Ivan left it again, bearing with him the death-warrant of
his military career.
Returning to his apartment, the young man held a brief interview with de
Windt, who said little, but studied the boy's face anxiously; and,
though he attempted neither advice nor remonstrance, finally made a
tentative suggestion about accompanying his friend. He was not
astonished at the rejection of the proposition. But Ivan's ensuing
remark afterwards troubled him not a little.
"Don't worry, Vladimir Vassilyitch. I'm not going alone. There will be
some one who will take excellent care of me."
By an effort, de Windt refrained from questions. But as he watched his
comrade depart, an hour later, his light luggage strapped on the
droschky behind him, Vladimir's heart was heavy with foreboding. Could
he have seen Ivan's first destination he might, at last, have attempted
some active remonstrance; though it is doubtful if he could have made
any impression on Ivan's present mood. Lieutenant Gregoriev drove
straight to a house on Vassily Island: held there a brief but
interesting interview with a certain young woman; and, three hours
later, any one who cared to look might have seen Ivan Gregoriev and
Irina Petrovna, with luggage and passports which attempted no deception,
leaving Petersburg together on the evening train for Baden-Baden!
* * * * *
Just what Ivan's intention had been when, in his hour of madness, he
committed this irreparable and terrible mistake, no one, least of all
himself, could have said. Despair had driven him, for the moment, out of
his senses. He cared nothing whatever for himself or his reputation,
little for that of the woman he would have dragged down with him. In his
mind he had some dreary hope that Nathalie, the weak and faithless,
would learn of his wretched action and be hurt by it--a little as he had
been hurt by her.
Before the reckless twain had arrived at their all too public
destination, however, Ivan was in a fever of misery and shame. Well
enough to laugh and say that the thing he proposed to do was so common
as scarce to cause notice in the gay watering-place, always a rendezvous
for the high half-world. But Ivan was, even now, by no means of this
kind: the military members of the Yacht club, to whom such escapades
were afterwards proudly exploited among their friends. All night long,
as he sat upright in his place in the reserved carriage, sleepless,
watching the young woman who was reclining opposite him trustfully
unconscious, Ivan was aware of his mother's reproachful presence: and
heard again the voice that had rung so dreadfully in his boyish ears:
"Remember, Ivan, what I have suffered, through a man! Will you
remember?--Will you break the Gregoriev tradition towards women?"
Once again Sophia, gentle woman, did her work. Irina Petrovna opened her
eyes, next day, upon a different man.
Whether the girl were astonished, or pleased, or disappointed, by the
strangeness of her situation during the fortnight in Baden, Ivan could
not tell. He was perfectly well aware that it would be of no use to
explain their true position to any one he knew. Mockery at his faith in
their credulity at so preposterous a statement, would have been his only
reward. But it was none the less true that, so long as Irina remained
with him, she was treated with the punctilious courtesy that he should
have used towards her had she been what they pretended her to be: his
sister. He had taken three rooms--two bedrooms and a little _salon_--at
the hotel. And the very waiters winked, solemnly, outside the _salon_
door, as they served early coffee and, later, an elaborate _déjeuner_,
to the two within. But Ivan could meet any eye calmly. And if Irina
marvelled, she said nothing. Only, from this time forth, Ivan occupied,
in her secret soul, a niche of his own, far above that of any other man.
In later years, many candles burned before her shrine; and it served to
keep within her heart one spot inviolate. The thoughts, the prayers,
expended here without sense of conscious virtue, perhaps served her
unexpectedly in the end, when before her, hopeless one, a golden gate
swung slowly open, and she entered that land where the wretched deeds of
her later life could blacken her thoughts no more.--At the time,
certainly, she might have been impatient at the formality of her
companion's manner, his unfailing deference to her faintest wish. And
yet she was conscious that the days spent in this gay resort were happy:
happier than any she had ever known. And even Ivan, in the great anxiety
of his soul, found that a conscience unexpectedly clear can bring a
species of content less fleeting than any causeless light-heartedness.
He was giving little thought to others' thought of him. But Petersburg
was dull just now; and his behavior had been a godsend to the
_salons_.--Good Heavens--how they were using his name--and hers!
* * * * *
On the morning of April 30th, Petersburg was still a sea of mud: the
atmosphere still thick with rain. Spring was opening slowly. But the ice
had gone out of the Neva. Boats plied along the canals. And all the
world was packing away its furs. The day was intensely dreary. But the
heart of Vladimir de Windt, who was lounging idly about his desolate
apartment, was drearier still. How he missed that foolish Ivan, still
lost in the great unknown! How he railed at him, in secret, the while he
bravely defended him, single-handed, against the world; till the day
when he learned Ivan's prospect of utter calamity and took the knowledge
home with him to bear in solitude. It was a week, now, since the day of
his own interview with Brodsky. By this time the whole city knew
all!--Gregoriev's heart-history had been dragged gayly through the mud
of Petersburg society; and at last the curious world might write _finis_
upon a completed story--in which the lady was now safely married to
another; the man disgraced and degraded.--But the cause of this
disgrace, and its injustice, only de Windt knew or cared to know.
Even he could not guess, however, how Brodsky had discovered the
identity of Ivan's companion. But de Windt had borne the brunt of the
Colonel's rage when he learned it; and de Windt had endeavored to
obtain some sort of softening of the sentence pronounced upon the
unhappy boy.--It was vain. And even Vladimir, as he lay once more going
over the rapid events of the past weeks, never dreamed, in his heart,
that Ivan was not guilty in a certain way. Men must judge one another by
their own standards. De Windt had never thought Ivan effeminate--a
milk-sop; but, had he been made to believe the truth, it is probable that
one or the other of these epithets would then have expressed his opinion
of his friend.
The first charge made by Brodsky against his Lieutenant was that of
overstaying his leave--already for the length of seven days, and still
no prospect of return. The second charge, a far more serious one, was
that of conduct unbecoming an officer of the guard: conduct which,
though it might be laid to the door of almost any unmarried officer in
the service, nobody had ever before dreamed of forcing home for
judgment. But at last, it seemed, there was a man willing and ready, for
the sake of an old spite, to risk shattering his own glass house to
splinters for the sake of a revenge. Brodsky was determined, immediately
upon Ivan's return, to summon him to a court-martial; and, since he was
not a man to keep silence with regard to his plans, the tale, with its
piquant references to Brodsky's private malice, was in everybody's
mouth, and was found spicy enough to sting the palate of the most jaded
scandal-monger in the army--in comparison with which that of a woman of
fifty years' residence in India, is not to be compared. But by the end
of April even this affair had been served up often enough to have grown
slightly stale; and Petersburg was now on the _qui vive_ for a
dénouement.
It came, that dénouement--well-timed: just when the clubs were full to
the brim, the barracks crowded, the city overflowing with _ennuyée_ men
and women who were preparing for their summer flight. But the first
scene of the last act was not watched by the outer world.
It was eleven o'clock on the morning of the 30th. De Windt, grown
desperate under the weight of his thoughts, flung his yellow novel into
the empty stove, and had just lounged back to the sofa when--the door
opened, quietly, and Ivan came in: Ivan, rather pale, but very
dignified: his head held high.
Vladimir turned on him, opened his lips, closed them again and gazed,
silently, at his comrade. Ivan returned the look for a few
seconds,--stared--read--possibly understood. At all events his face
suddenly quivered, and then--he began to laugh! He passed from one
paroxysm to another, till de Windt, in a blind rage, took him by the
shoulders and shook him, violently, to silence. Then, under a swift
reaction, he stood before the prodigal drooping like a school-boy under
his master's frown. But Ivan felt, apparently, no resentment. Presently
he went to the side-table, poured himself out three fingers of cognac,
drank it, and then, as he began to remove his dripping outer garments,
asked, rather briskly than otherwise:
"Well, Vladimir--out with it! What are they going to do about me?"
And Vladimir, half-irritated, but driven, in any case, to speech, told,
briefly and baldly, all he had to tell. In ten minutes, Ivan stood
looking down upon the hopeless, crumbling ruin of his life.
* * * * *
In these sudden crises, there are few men philosophic enough, or wise
enough, to look, broadly, back, inward, and ahead, in a calm analysis of
cause, effect and reason. At this time, Ivan certainly knew--had known,
for months if not for years, that he was leading a life for which nature
had not fitted him: neglecting a career bestowed upon him by a higher
hand than often interferes in the destinies of man. There had been many
times when, his whole soul yearning over the work to which he could
devote so little of his best self, he had cried aloud to Heaven to
change his lot--to banish these half-gods that kept his true lord at
bay. And now these inarticulate prayers were fully answered:--and Ivan's
soul was writhing in rebellion at the injustice of that which had been
put upon him: the malicious revenge of a scoundrelly officer who, for
private reasons, had seen fit to punish him for an offence which was
daily winked at by the entire army! Indeed, Brodsky's action, which was
certainly justified by the letter but never by the spirit of the
military code, had caused the military world a quiver of apprehension.
They looked on, aghast, at proceedings which they were powerless to
stop. But it is safe to say that there was not a man in the
court-martial who did not blush as he admitted the justice of the
sentence finally passed upon the luckless prisoner. The proceedings
lasted, altogether, a fortnight; during which time all of Russia and a
great part of Europe rang with the scandal.--Ivan did not even attempt a
defence; though Irina, coming to him on the first evening, went down on
her knees in her plea to be allowed to save him. Even Ivan's lawyer
foresaw the reception of her unsupported statement as against the
testimony of the hotel clerks, boys and waiters brought from Baden by
Brodsky himself. In the end, Mademoiselle Petrovna was not permitted to
appear at all in court. Ivan's money kept her safely out of Russia,
after the second day of the trial. And, while the girl mourned for him,
she knew well that her own fortune in the half-world was made.--Such
advertising as this!--Who could compete with her? Had not the papers in
Europe published, twenty times, the picture of the beautiful heroine of
this unsavory romance?
In the mean time, in Moscow, the chief of the Third Section was aging a
year a day as he raved, helpless and mad with fury, at the folly of his
son and the treacherous villany of Brodsky. Privately, Russian
officialdom was shaken to its depths. But daily the masks were adjusted,
and the farce of virtue, within and without that court, went on; while
the people, even to the peasants, laughed at the mockery of it all. Some
sort of compensation, later on, Michael Gregoriev did obtain. In the
autumn of that year Fóma Vassilyitch Brodsky went to Siberia, as the
result of an examination of certain peculations, the charge of which,
together with overwhelming proof, was brought by Prince Gregoriev of
Moscow.
But that was a sorry triumph: the victor a broken man. For Michael
Gregoriev had lost his son; and, with him, all those great ambitions for
which he had toiled and cheated and blackmailed throughout a lifetime.
Finally, on the morning of May 17th, Ivan Gregoriev, degraded from his
rank, driven in disgrace from the army, sat alone in his bedroom conning
over the words of the telegram clutched in his listless hand: words
whereby he understood that he was no longer the son of his father, but
sat, a penniless outcast, alone in a pitiless, jeering world.