There was no reason to delay our marriage, and neither he nor I desired
to do so. It is true that Macha longed to go to Moscow to order my
trousseau, and Sergius' mother considered it incumbent upon him before
marrying to buy a new carriage and more furniture and have the whole
house renovated, but we both insisted that this could all be done quite
as well afterwards, and that we would be married at the end of the
fortnight succeeding my birthday, without trousseau, parade, guests,
groomsmen, supper, champagne, or any of the traditional attributes of a
wedding. He told me that his mother was unwilling to have the great
event take place without the music, the avalanche of trunks, the
refurnished house, which, at a cost of thirty thousand roubles, had
accompanied her own marriage; and how, without his knowledge, she had
ransacked for treasures all the chests in the lumber rooms, and held
sober consultations with Mariouchka, the housekeeper, on the subject of
certain new carpets and curtains, quite indispensable to our happiness.
On our side, Macha was similarly employed, with my maid Kouzminicha. She
could not be laughed out of this; being firmly persuaded that when
Sergius and I ought to have been discussing our future arrangements, we
wasted our time in soft speeches (as was perhaps natural in our
position); while of course, in fact, the very substance of our future
happiness was dependent upon the cut and embroidery of my dresses, and
the straight hems on our table-cloths and napkins. Between Pokrovski and
Nikolski, every day and several times a day, mysterious communications
were exchanged as to the progressing preparations; and though apparently
Macha and the bridegroom's mother were upon the tenderest terms, one
felt sure of the constant passage of shafts of keen and hostile
diplomacy between the two powers.
Tatiana Semenovna, his mother, with whom I now became more fully
acquainted, was a woman of the old school, starched and stiff, and a
severe mistress. Sergius loved her, not only from duty as a son, but
also with the sentiment of a man who saw in her the best, the most
intelligent, the tenderest, and the most amiable woman in the world.
Tatiana had always been cordial and kind to us, particularly to me, and
she was delighted that her son should marry; but as soon as I became
betrothed to him it appeared to me that she wished to make me feel that
he might have made a better match, and that I ought never to forget the
fact. I perfectly understood her, and was entirely of her opinion.
During these last two weeks, Sergius and I saw each other every day; he
always dined with us and remained until midnight; but, though he often
told me--and I knew he was telling the truth--that he could not now live
without me, yet he never spent the whole day with me, and even, after a
fashion, continued to attend to his business matters. Our outward
relations, up to the very time of our marriage, were exactly what they
had been; we still said "_you_" to each other, he did not even kiss my
hand, and not only did he not seek, but he actually avoided occasions of
finding himself alone with me, as if he feared giving himself up too
much to the great and dangerous love he bore in his heart.
All these days the weather was bad, and we spent most of them in the
drawing-room; our conversations being held in the corner between the
piano and the window.
"Do you know that there is one thing I have been wishing to say to you
for a long time?" he said, late one evening, when we were alone in our
corner. "I have been thinking of it, all the time you have been at the
piano."
"Tell me nothing, I know all," I replied.
"Well then, we will say no more about it."
"Oh, yes, indeed, tell me; what is it?" I asked.
"It is this. You remember me telling you that story about A. and B.?"
"As if I could help remembering that foolish story! How lucky that it
has ended so...."
"A little more, and I would have destroyed my happiness with my own
hand; you saved me; but the thing is, that I was not truthful with you,
then; it has been on my conscience, and now I wish to tell you all."
"Ah, please do not!"
"Do not be afraid," he said, smiling, "it is only that I must justify
myself. When I began to talk to you, I wished to debate the question."
"Why debate?" said I, "that is never necessary."
He looked at me in silence, then went on.
"In regard to the end of that story,--what I said to you, then, was not
nonsense; clearly there was something to fear, and I was right to fear
it. To receive everything from you, and give you so little! You are yet
a child, yet an unexpanded flower, you love for the first time, while
I...."
"Oh, yes, tell me the truth!" I exclaimed. But all at once I was afraid
of his answer. "No, do not tell me!" I added.
"Whether I have loved before? is that it?" he said, instantly divining
my thought. "It is easy to tell you that. No, I have not loved. Never
has such a feeling.... So, do you not see how imperative it was for me
to reflect, before telling you that I loved you? What am I giving you?
Love, it is true...."
"Is that so little?" I asked, looking into his face.
"Yes, that is little, my darling, little for you. You have beauty and
youth. Often, at night, I cannot sleep for happiness; I am incessantly
thinking how we are going to live together. I have already lived much,
yet it seems to me that I have but just now come to the knowledge of
what makes happiness. A sweet, tranquil life, in our retired corner,
with the possibility of doing good to those to whom it is so easy to do
it, and who, nevertheless, are so little used to it; then work,--work,
whence, you know, some profit always springs; recreation, also, nature,
books, music, the affection of some congenial friend; there is my
happiness, a happiness higher than I ever dreamed of. And beyond all
that, a loved one like you, perhaps a family; in one word, all that a
man can desire in this world!"
"Yes," said I.
"For me, whose youth is done, yes; but for you ..." he continued. "You
have not yet lived; perhaps you might have wished to pursue your
happiness in some other path, and in some other path perhaps you might
have found it. At present it seems to you that what I speak of is indeed
happiness, because you love me...."
"No, I have never desired nor liked any but this sweet home life. And
you have just said precisely what I think, myself."
He smiled.
"It seems so to you, my darling. But that is little for you. You have
beauty and youth," he repeated, thoughtfully.
I was beginning to feel provoked at seeing that he would not believe me,
and that in a certain way he was reproaching me with my beauty and my
youth.
"Come now, why do you love me?" I asked, rather hotly: "for my youth or
for myself?"
"I do not know, but I do love," he replied, fixing upon me an observant
look, full of alluring sweetness.
I made no response, but involuntarily met his eyes. All at once, a
strange thing happened to me. I ceased to see what was around me, his
face itself disappeared from before me, and I could distinguish nothing
but the fire of the eyes exactly opposite mine; then it seemed to me
that these eyes themselves were piercing into me, then all became
confused, I could no longer see anything at all, and I was obliged to
half close my eyelids to free myself from the mingled sensation of joy
and terror produced by this look.
Towards evening of the day previous to that appointed for our marriage,
the weather cleared. After the heavy continuous rains of the summer we
had the first brilliant autumnal sunset. The sky was pure, rigid, and
pale. I went to sleep, happy in the thought that the next day would be
bright, for our wedding. I woke in the morning with the sun upon me, and
with the thought that here already was the day ... as if it astonished
and frightened me. I went to the garden. The sun had just risen, and was
shining through the linden-trees, whose yellow leaves were floating down
and strewing the paths. There was not one cloud to be seen in the cold
serene sky.
"Is it possible that it is to-day?" I asked myself, not venturing to
believe in my own happiness. "Is it possible that to-morrow I shall not
wake here, that I shall open my eyes in that house of Nikolski, with its
columns, in a place now all strange to me! Is it possible that
henceforward I shall not be expecting him, shall not be going to meet
him, shall not talk about him any more in the evenings, with Macha?
Shall I no longer sit at the piano in our drawing-room at Pokrovski,
with him beside me? Shall I no longer see him go away, and tremble with
fear for him because the night is dark?" But I remembered that he had
told me, the night before, that it was his last visit; and, besides,
Macha had made me try on my wedding-dress. So that, by moments, I would
believe, and then doubt again. Was it really true that this very day I
was to begin to live with a mother-in-law, without Nadine, without old
Gregory, without Macha? That at night I would not embrace my old nurse,
and hear her say, making the sign of the cross, as she always did;
"Good-night, my young lady?" That I would no longer hear Sonia's
lessons, or play with her, or rap on the partition wall in the morning
and hear her gay laugh? Was it possible that it was really to-day that I
was to become, in a measure, an alien to myself, and that a new life,
realizing my hopes and my wishes, was opening before me? And was it
possible that this new life, just beginning, was to be for ever? I
waited impatiently for Sergius, so hard it was for me to remain alone
with these thoughts. He came early, and it was only when he was actually
there that I was sure that to-day I was really going to be his wife, and
no longer felt frightened at the thought.
Before dinner we went to church, to hear the service for the dead, in
commemoration of my father.
"Oh, if he were still in this world!" thought I, as I was returning
home, leaning silently on the arm of the man who had been his dearest
friend. While the prayers were being read, kneeling with my brow pressed
upon the cold flag-stones of the chapel floor, my father had been so
vividly brought before my mind, that I could not help believing that he
comprehended me and blessed my choice, and I imagined that, at the
moment, his soul was hovering above us, and that his benediction rested
upon me. These remembrances, these hopes, my happiness and my regrets,
blended within me into a feeling at once solemn and sweet, which seemed,
as it were, to be set in a frame of clear quiet air, stillness, bare
fields, pale heavens whose brilliant but enfeebled rays vainly strove to
bring the color to my cheek. I persuaded myself that my companion was
understanding and sharing my feelings. He walked with slow steps, in
silence, and his face, which I glanced into from time to time, bore the
impress of that intense state of the soul, which is neither sadness nor
joy, and which perfectly harmonized with surrounding nature and with my
heart.
All at once, he turned towards me, and I saw that he had something to
say to me. What if he were not going to speak of what was in my
thoughts? But without even naming him he spoke of my father, and added:
"One day he happened to say to me, laughingly, 'You will marry my little
Katia!'"
"How glad he would have been, to-day," I responded, pressing closer to
the arm on which I leaned.
"Yes, you were then but a child," he went on, looking deep into my eyes;
"I kissed those eyes and loved them simply because they were so like
his, and I was far from thinking that one day they would be so dear to
me in themselves."
We were still walking slowly along the field-path, scarcely traceable
among the trodden and scattered stubble, and heard no sound save our own
footsteps and voices. The sun poured down floods of light that gave no
warmth. When we spoke, our voices seemed to resound and hang suspended
above our heads in the motionless atmosphere. We might have thought we
two were alone upon the earth, alone beneath that blue vault vibrating
with cold scintillations from the sun.
When we arrived at the house, we found his mother already there, with
the few guests whom we had felt obliged to invite, and I was not again
alone with him until we had left the church and were in the carriage on
our way to Nikolski.
The church had been almost empty. At one glance I had seen his mother,
standing near the choir; Macha, with her wet cheeks and lilac
cap-ribbons; and two or three _droroviés_, who were gazing at me with
curious eyes. I heard the prayers, I repeated them, but they had no
meaning for me. I could not pray, myself, I only kept looking stupidly
at the images, the wax tapers, the cross embroidered on the chasuble the
priest had on, the iconostase, the church windows, but did not seem able
to understand anything at all; I only felt that something very
extraordinary was being done to me. When the priest turned towards us
with the cross, when he gave us his congratulations, and said that he
had baptized me and that now God had permitted him also to marry me;
when Macha and Sergius' mother embraced us, when I heard Gregory's voice
calling the carriage, I was astonished and frightened at the thought
that all was finished, though no marvellous change, corresponding with
the sacrament which had just been performed over me, had taken place in
my soul. We kissed each other, and this kiss appeared to me so odd, so
out of keeping with ourselves, that I could not help thinking: "It is
only _that_?" We went out upon the parvise, the noise of the wheels
echoed loudly within the arch of the church; I felt the fresh air upon
my face, and was conscious that, Sergius with his hat under his arm, had
assisted me into the carriage. Through the window I saw that the moon
was shining in her place in the frosty sky. He took his seat beside me,
and shut the door. Something, at this moment, seemed to strike through
my heart, as if the assurance with which he did this had given me a
wound. The wheels glanced against a stone, then began to revolve upon
the smooth road, and we were gone. Drawn back into a corner of the
carriage, I watched the fields flooded with light, and the flying road.
Nevertheless, without looking at him, I was feeling that there he was,
beside me. "Here, then, is all that this first moment from which I have
expected so much, brings me?" I thought, and all at once I had a sense
of humiliation and offence at finding myself seated thus alone with him
and so close to him. I turned towards him, intending to say something,
no matter what. But no word would come from my lips; one would have said
that no trace of my former tenderness lingered within my heart, but that
it was entirely replaced by this impression of alarm and offence.
"Up to this moment, I still dared not believe that this might be!" he
softly responded to my glance.
"And I ... I am afraid ... I know not why!"
"Afraid of me, Katia?" he said, taking my hand, and bending his head
over it.
My hand rested within his, lifeless; my heart stopped beating.
"Yes," I murmured.
But, at the same moment, my heart suddenly began to beat again, my hand
trembled and clasped his, warmth returned to me; my eyes, in the dim
light, sought his eyes, and I felt, all at once, that I was no longer
afraid of him; that this terror had been but a new love, yet more tender
and strong than the old. I knew that I was wholly his, and that I was
happy to be wholly in his power.