CHAPTER XXIII
In the evening the house was aglow with light. Tatiana Markovna couldnot do enough in honour of her guest and future connexion. She had agreat bed put up in the guest-chamber, that nearly reached to theceiling and resembled a catafalque. Marfinka and Vikentev gave full reinto their gay humour, as they played and sang. Only Raisky's windows weredark. He had gone out immediately after dinner and had not returned totea.
The moon illuminated the new house but left the old house in shadow.There was bustle in the yard, in the kitchen, and in the servants' rooms,where Marfa Egorovna's coachman and servants were being entertained.
From seven o'clock onwards Vera had sat idle in the dusk by the feeblelight of a candle, her head supported on her hand, leaning over thetable, while with her other hand she turned over the leaves of a book atwhich she hardly glanced. She was protected from the cold autumn airfrom the open window, by a big white woollen shawl thrown round hershoulders. She stood up after a time, laid the book on the table, andwent to the window. She looked towards the sky, and then at thegaily-lighted house opposite. She shivered, and was about to shut thewindow when the report of a gun rolled up from the park through thequiet dusk.
She shuddered, and seemed to have lost the use of her limbs, then sankinto a chair and bowed her head. When she rose and looked wildly round,her face had changed. Sheer fright and distress looked from her eyes.Again and again she passed her hand over her forehead, and sat down atthe table, only to jump up again. She tore the shawl from her shouldersand threw it on the bed; then with nervous haste she opened and shut thecupboard; she looked on the divan, on the chairs, for something sheapparently could not find, and then collapsed wearily on her chair.
On the back of the chair hung a wrap, a gift from Tiet Nikonich. Sheseized it and threw it over her head, rushed to the wardrobe, hunted init with feverish haste, taking out first one coat, then another, untilshe had nearly emptied the cupboard and dresses and cloaks lay in a heapon the floor. At last she found something warm and dark, put out thelight, and went noiselessly down the steps into the open. She crossedthe yard, hidden in the shadows, and took her way along the dark avenue.She did not walk, she flew; and when she crossed the open light patchesher shadow was hardly visible for a moment, as if the moon had not timeto catch the flying figure.
When she reached the end of the avenue, by the ditch which divided thegarden from the park, she stopped a moment to get her breath. Then shecrossed the park, hurried through the bushes, past her favourite bench,and reached the precipice. She picked up her skirts for the descent,when suddenly, as if he had risen out of the ground, Raisky stoodbetween her and her goal.
"Where are you going, Vera?"
There was no answer.
"Go back," he said, offering his hand, but she tried to push past him."Vera, where are you going?"
"It is for the last time." she said in a pleading, shamed whisper. "Imust say good-bye. Make way for me, Cousin! I will return in a moment.Wait for me here, on this bench."
Without replying, he took her firmly by the hand, and she struggled invain to free herself.
"Let me go! You are hurting me!"
But he did not give way, and the struggle proceeded.
"You will not hold me by force," she cried, and with unnatural strengthfreed herself, and sought to dash past him.
But he put his arm round her waist, took her to the bench, and sat downbeside her.
"How rough and rude!" she cried.
"I cannot hold you back by force, Vera. I may be saving you from ruin."
"Can I be ruined against my own will?"
"It is against your will; yet you go to your ruin."
"There is no question of ruin. We must see one another again in order toseparate."
"It is not necessary to see one another in order to separate."
"I must, and will. An hour or a day later, it is all the same. You maycall the servants, the whole town, a file of soldiers, but no power willkeep me back."
A second shot resounded.
She pulled herself up, but was pressed down on the bench with the weightof Raisky's hands. She shook her head wildly in powerless rage.
"What reward do you hope from me for this virtuous deed?" she hissed.
He said nothing, but kept a watchful eye on her movements. After a timeshe besought him gently: "Let me go, Cousin," but he refused.
"Cousin," she said, laying her hand gently on his shoulder. "Imaginethat you sat upon hot coals, and were dying every minute of terror, andof wild impatience, that happiness rose before you, stretching outenticing arms, only to vanish, that your whole being rose to meet it;imagine that you saw before you a last hope, a last glimmer. That is howit is with me at this moment. The moment will be lost, and with iteverything else."
"Think, Vera, if in the hot thirst of fever you ask for ice, it isdenied you. In your soberer moments yesterday you pointed out to me thepractical means of rescue, you said I was not to let you go, and I willnot."
She fell on her knees before him, and wrung her hands.
"I should curse you my whole life long for your violence. Give way.Perhaps it is my destiny that calls me."
"I was a witness yesterday, Vera, of where you seek your fate. Youbelieve in a Providence, and there is no other destiny."
"Yes," she answered submissively. "I do believe. There before the sacredpicture I sought for a spark to lighten my path, but in vain. What shallI do?" she said, rising.
"Do not go, Vera."
"Perhaps it is my destiny that sends me there, there where my presencemay be needed. Don't try any longer to keep me, for I have made up mymind. My weakness is gone, and I have recovered control of myself andfeel I am strong. It is not my destiny alone, but the destiny of anotherhuman being that is to be decided down there. Between me and him you aredigging an abyss, and the responsibility will rest upon you. I shallnever be consoled, and shall accuse you of having destroyed ourhappiness. Do not hold me back. You can only do it out of egoism, out ofjealousy. You lied when you spoke to me of freedom."
"I hear the voice of passion, Vera, with all its sophistry and itsdeviations. You are practising the arts of a Jesuit. Remember that youyourself bade me, only yesterday, not to leave you. Will you curse mefor not yielding to you? On whom does the responsibility rest? Tell mewho the man is?"
"If I tell you will you promise not to keep me back?" she said quickly.
"I don't know. Perhaps."
"Give me your word not to keep me any longer, and I give the name."
Another shot rang out.
She sprang to one side, before he had time to take her by the hand.
"Go to Grandmother," he commanded, adding gently, "Tell her yourtrouble."
"For Christ's sake let me go. I ask for alms like a beggar. I must befree! I take him to whom I prayed yesterday to witness that I am goingfor the last time. Do you hear? I will not break my oath. Wait here forme. I will return immediately, will only say farewell to the 'Wolf,'will hear a word from him, and perhaps he will yield!" She rushedforward, fell to the ground in her haste, and tried in vain to rise. Tomby an unutterable pity, Raisky took no heed of his own suffering, butraised her in his arms and bore her down the precipice.
"The path is so steep here that you would fall again," he whispered.Presently he set her down on the path, and she stooped to kiss his hand.
"You are generous, Cousin. Vera will not forget."
With that she hurried into the thicket, jubilant as a bird set free fromhis cage.
Raisky heard the rustle of the bushes as she pushed them aside, and thecrackle of the dry twigs.
In the half-ruined arbour waited Mark, with gun and cap laid upon thetable. He walked up and down on the shaky floor, and whenever he trod onone end of a board the other rose in the air, and then fell clatteringback again.
"The devil's music!" he murmured angrily, sat down on a bench near thetable, and pushed his hands through his thick hair. He smoked onecigarette after another, the burni
ng match lighting up his pale,agitated face for a moment. After each shot he listened for a fewminutes, went out on the steps, and looked out into the bushes. When hereturned he walked up and down, raising the "devil's music" once more,threw himself on the bench, and ran his hands through his hair. Afterthe third shot he listened long and earnestly. As he heard nothing hewas on the point of going away. To relieve his gloomy feelings hemurmured a curse between his teeth, took the gun and prepared to descendthe path. He hesitated a few moments longer, then walked off withdecision. Suddenly he met Vera.
She stood still, breathing with difficulty, and laid her hand on herheart. As soon as he took her hand she was calm. Mark could not concealhis joy, but his words of greeting did not betray it.
"You used to be punctual, Vera," he said, "and I used not to have towaste three shots."
"A reproach instead of a welcome!" she said, drawing her hand away.
"It's only by way of beginning a conversation Happiness makes a fool ofme, like Raisky."
"If happiness gleamed before us, we should not be meeting in secret bythis precipice," she said, drawing a long breath.
"We should be sitting at your Grandmother's tea-table, and waiting tillsomeone arranged our betrothal. Why dream of these impossible things.Your Grandmother would not give you to me."
"She would. She does what I wish. That is not the hindrance."
"You are starting on this endless polemic again, Vera. We are meetingfor the last time, as you determined we should. Let us make an end ofthis torture."
"I took an oath never to come here again."
"Meanwhile, the time is precious. We are parting for ever, if stupiditycommands, if your Grandmother's antiquated convictions separate us. Ileave here a week from now. As you know the document assuring my freedomhas arrived. Let us be together, and not be separated again."
"Never?"
"Never!" he repeated angrily, with a gesture of impatience. "What lyingwords those are, 'never' and 'always.' Of course 'never.' Does not ayear, perhaps two, three years, mean never? You want a never endingtenderness. Does such a thing exist?"
"Enough, Mark! I have heard enough of this temporary affection. Ah! I amvery unhappy. The separation from you is not the only cloud over my soul.For a year now I have been hiding myself from my Grandmother, whichoppresses me, and her still more. I hoped that in these days my troublewould end; we should put our thoughts, our hopes, our intentions on aclear footing. Then I would go to Grandmother and say: 'This is what Ihave chosen for my whole life.' But it is not to be, and we are topart?" she asked sadly.
"If I conceived myself to be an angel," said Mark, "I might say 'for ourwhole lives,' and you would be justified. That gray-headed dreamer,Raisky, also thinks that women are created for a higher purpose."
"They are created above all for the family. They are not angels, neitherare they, most certainly, mere animals. I am no wolf's mate, Mark, but awoman."
"For the family, yes. But is that any hindrance for us. You wantdraperies, for fine feeling, sympathies and the rest of the stuff arenothing but draperies, like those famous leaves with which, it is said,human beings covered themselves in Paradise."
"Yes, Mark, human beings!"
Mark smiled sarcastically, and shrugged his shoulders.
"They may be draperies," continued Vera, "but they also, according toyour own teaching, are given by nature. What, I ask, is it that attachesyou to me? You say you love me. You have altered, grown thinner. Is itnot, by your conception of love, a matter of indifference whether youchoose a companion in me, or from the poor quarter of our town, or froma village on the Volga. What has induced you to come down here for awhole year?"
"Examine your own fallacy, Vera," he said, looking at her gloomily."Love is not a concept merely, but a driving force, a necessity, andtherefore is mostly blind. But I am not blindly chained to you. Yourextraordinary beauty, your intellect and your free outlook hold melonger in thrall than would be possible with any other woman."
"Very flattering!" she said in a low, pained voice.
"These ideas of yours, Vera, will bring us to disaster. But for them weshould for long have been united and happy."
"Happy for a time. And then a new driving force will appear on the scene,the stage will be cleared, and so on."
"The responsibility is not ours. Nature has ordered it so, and rightly.Can we alter Nature, in order to live on concepts?"
"These concepts are essential principles. You have said yourself thatNature has her laws, and human beings their principles."
"That is where the germ of disintegration lies, in that men want toformulate principles from the driving force of Nature, and thus tohamper themselves hand and foot. Love is happiness, which Nature hasconferred on man. That is my view."
"The happiness of which you speak," said Vera, rising, "has as itscomplement, duty. That is my view."
"How fantastic! Forget your duty, Vera, and acquiesce in the fact thatlove is a driving force of Nature, often an uncontrollable one." Thenstanding up to her embraced her, saying, "Is that not so, you mostobstinate, beautiful and wisest of women?"
"Yes, duty," she said haughtily, disengaging herself. "For the years ofhappiness retribution will be exacted."
"How? In making soup, nursing one another, looking at one another andpretending, in harping on principles, as we ourselves fade? If one halffalls ill and retrogresses, shall the other who is strong, who hears thecall of life, allow himself to be held back by duty?"
"Yes. In that case he must not listen to the calls that come to him; hemust, to use Grandmother's expression, avoid the voice as he would thebrandy bottle. That is how I understand happiness."
"Your case must be a bad one if it has to be bolstered up by quotationsfrom your Grandmother's wisdom. Tell me how firmly your principles arerooted."
"I will go to her to-day direct from here."
"To tell her what?"
"To tell her what there is between us, all that she does not know," shesaid, sitting down on the bench again.
"Why?"
"You don't understand, because you don't know what duty means. I havebeen guilty before her for a long time."
"That is the morality which smothers life with mould and dulness. Vera,Vera, you don't love, you do not know how!"
"You ought not to speak like that, unless you wish to drive me todespair. Am I to think that there is deception in your past, that youwant to ruin me when you do not love me?"
"No, no, Vera," he said, rising hastily to his feet. "If I had wanted todeceive you I could have done so long ago."
"What a desperate war you wage against yourself, Mark, and how you ruinyour own life!" she cried, wringing her hands.
"Let us cease to quarrel, Vera. Your Grandmother speaks through you, butwith another voice. That was all very well once, but now we are in theflood of another life where neither authority nor preconceived ideaswill help us, where truth alone asserts her power."
"Where is truth?"
"In happiness, in the joy of love. And I love you. Why do you torture me.Why do you fight against me and against yourself, and make two victims?"
"It is a strange reproach. Look at me. It is only a few days since wesaw one another, and have I not changed?"
"I see that you suffer, and that makes it the more senseless. Now, I tooask what has induced you to come down here for all this time?"
"Because I had not earlier realised the horror of my position, you willsay," she said, with a look that was almost hostile. "We might haveasked one another this question, and made this reproach, long ago, andmight have ceased to meet here. Better late than never! To-day we mustanswer the question, What is it that we wanted and expected from oneanother?"
"Here is my irrefragable opinion--I want your love, and I give you mine.In love I recognise solely the principle of reciprocation, as it obtainsin Nature. The law that I acknowledge is to follow unfettered our strongimpression, to exchange happiness for happiness. This answers yourquestion of why I came her
e. Is sacrifice necessary? Call it what youwill there is no sacrifice in my scheme of life. I will no longer wanderin this morass, and don't understand how I have wasted my strength solong, certainly not for your sake, but essentially for my own. Here Iwill stay so long as I am happy, so long as I love. If my love growscold, I shall tell you so, and go wherever Life leads me, without takingany baggage of duties and privileges with me; those I leave here in thedepths below the precipice. You see, Vera, I don't deceive you, butspeak frankly. Naturally you possess the same rights as I. The mob abovethere lies to itself and others, and calls these his principles. But insecret and by cunning it acts in the same way, and only lays its ban onthe women. Between us there must be equality. Is that fair or not?"
"Sophistry!" she said, shaking her head. "You know my principles, Mark."
"To hang like stones round one another's necks."
"Love imposes duties, just as life demands them. If you had an old,blind mother you would maintain and support her, would remain by her. Anhonourable man holds it to be his duty and his pleasure too."
"You philosophise, Vera, but you do not love."
"You avoid my argument, Mark. I speak my opinion plainly, for I am awoman, not an animal, or a machine."
"Your love is the fantastic, elaborate type described in novels. Is whatyou ask of me honourable? Against my convictions I am to go into achurch, to submit to a ceremony which has no meaning for me. I don'tbelieve any of it and can't endure the parson. Should I be actinglogically or honourably?"
Vera hastily wrapped herself in her mantilla, and stood up to go.
"We met, Mark, to remove all the obstacles that stand in the way of ourhappiness, but instead of that we are increasing them. You handleroughly things that are sacred to me. Why did you call me here? Ithought you had surrendered, that we should take one another's hands forever. Every time I have taken the path down the cliff it has been inthis hope, and in the end I am disappointed. Do you know, Mark, wheretrue life lies?"
"Where?"
"In the heart of a loving woman. To be the friend of such a woman...."
Tears stifled her voice, but through her sobs she whispered: "I cannot,Mark. Neither my intellect nor my strength are sufficient to disputewith you. My weapon is weak, and has no value except that I have drawnit from the armoury of a quiet life, not from books or hearsay. I hadthought to conquer you with other weapons. Do you remember how all thisbegan?" she said, sitting down once more. "At first I was sorry for you.You were here alone, with no one to understand you, and everyone fled atthe sight of you. I was drawn to you by sympathy, and saw somethingstrange and undisciplined in you. You had no care for propriety, youwere incautious in speech, you played rashly with life, cared for nohuman being, had no faith of your own, and sought to win disciples. Fromcuriosity I followed your steps, allowed you to meet me, took books fromyou. I recognised in you intellect and strength, but strangely mixed anddirected away from life. Then, to my sorrow, I imagined that I couldteach you to value life, I wanted you to live so that you should behigher and better than anyone else, I quarrelled with you over yourundisciplined way of living. You submitted to my influence, and Isubmitted to yours, to your intellect, your audacity, and even adoptedpart of your sophistry."
"But you soon," put in Mark, "retraced your steps, and were seized withfear of your Grandmother. Why did you not leave me when you first becameaware of my sophistry? Sophistry!"
"It was too late, for I had already taken your fate too intimately toheart. I believed with all possible ardour that you would for my sakecomprehend life, that you would cease to wander about to your own injuryand without advantage to anyone else, that you would accept asubstantial position of some kind...."
"Vice-governor, Councillor or something of the kind," he mocked.
"What's in the name? Yes, I thought that you would show yourself a manof action in a wide sphere of influence."
"As a well-disposed subject and as jack of all trades, and what else?"
"My lifelong friend. I let my hopes of you take hold on me, and wascarried away by them, and what are my gains in the terrible conflict?One only, that you flee from love, from happiness, from life, and fromyour Vera." She drew closer to him and touched his shoulder. "Don't flyfrom us, Mark. Look in my eyes, listen to my voice, which speaks withthe voice of truth. Let us go to-morrow up the hill into the garden, andto-morrow there will be no happier pair than we are. You love me, Mark.Mark, do you hear? Look at me."
She stooped, and looked into his eyes.
He got sharply to his feet, and shook his mass of hair.
Vera took up her black mantilla once more, but her hands refused to obeyher, and the mantilla fell on the floor. She took a step towards thedoor, but sank down again on the bench. Where could she find strength tohold him, when she had not even strength to leave the arbour, shewondered. And even if she could hold him, what would be the consequences?Not one life, but two separate lives, two prisons, divided by a grating.
"We are both brusque and strong, Vera; that is why we torture oneanother, why we are separating."
"If I were strong, you would not leave Malinovka; you would ascend thehill with me, not clandestinely, but boldly by my side. Come and sharelife and happiness with me. It is impossible that you should not trustme, impossible that you are insincere, for that would be a crime. Whatshall I do? How shall I bring home to you the truth?"
"You would have to be stronger than I, but we are of equal strength.That is why we dispute and are not of one mind. We must separate withoutbringing our struggle to an issue, one must submit to the other. I couldtake forcible possession of you as I could of any other woman. But whatin another woman is prudery, or petty fear, or stupidity, is in youstrength and womanly determination. The mist that divided us isdispersed; we have made our position clear. Nature has endued you with apowerful weapon, Vera. The antiquated ideas, morality, duty, principles,and faiths that do not exist for me are firmly established with you. Youare not easily carried away, you put up a desperate fight and will onlyconfess yourself conquered under terms of equality with your opponent.You are wrong, for it is a kind of theft. You ask to be conquered, andto carry off all the spoils! I, Vera, cannot give everything, but Irespect you."
Vera gave him a glance in which there was a trace of pride, but herheart beat with the pain of parting. His words were a model of what afarewell should be.
"We have gone to the bottom of the matter," said Mark dully, "and Ileave the decision in your hands." He went to the other side of thearbour, keeping his eyes fixed upon her. "I am not deceiving you evennow, in this decisive moment, when my head is giddy--I cannot. I do notpromise you an unending love, because I do not believe in such a thing.I will not be your betrothed. But I love you more than anything else inthe world. If, after all I have told you, you come to my arms, it meansthat you love me, that you are mine."
She looked across at him with wide open eyes, and felt that her wholebody was trembling. A doubt shot through her mind. Was he a Jesuit, orwas the man who brought her into this dangerous dilemma in reality ofunbending honour?
"Yours for ever?" she said in a low voice. If he said, "yes," it would,she knew, be a bridge for the moment to help her over the abyss thatdivided them, but that afterwards she would be plunged into the abyss.She was afraid of him.
Mark was painfully agitated, but he answered in a subdued tone, "I donot know. I only know what I am doing now, and do not see even into thenear future. Neither can you. Let us give love for love, and I remainhere, quieter than the waters of the pool, humbler than grass. I will dowhat you will, and what do you ask more. Or," he added suddenly, comingnearer, "we will leave this place altogether...."
In a lightning flash the wide world seemed to smile before her, as ifthe gates of Paradise were open. She threw herself in Mark's arms andlaid her hand on his shoulder. If she went away into the far distancewith him, she thought, he could not tear himself from her, and oncealone with her he must realise that life was only life in her presence.
"Will you decide!" he asked seriously. She said nothing, but bowed herhead. "Or do you fear your Grandmother?"
The last words brought her to her senses, and she stepped back.
"If I do not decide," she whispered, "it is only because I fear her."
"The old lady would not let you go."
"She would let me go, and would give me her blessing, but she herselfwould die of grief. That is what I fear. To go away together," she saiddreamily, "and what then?" She looked up at him searchingly.
"And then? How can I know, Vera?"
"You will suddenly be driven from me; you will go and leave me, as if Iwere merely a log?"
"Why a log? We could separate as friends."
"Separation! Do the ideas of love and separation exist side by side inyour mind? They are extremes which should never meet. Separation mustonly come with death. Farewell, Mark! You can never promise me thehappiness that I seek. All is at an end. Farewell!"
"Farewell, Vera!" he said in a voice quite unlike his own.
Both were pale, and avoided one another's eyes. In the white moonlightthat gleamed through the trees Vera sought her mantilla, and grasped thegun instead. At last she found the mantilla, but could not put it on hershoulders. Mark helped her mechanically, but left his own belongingsbehind. They went silently up the path, with slow and hesitating steps,as if each expected something from the other, both of them occupied withthe same mental effort to find a pretext for delay. They came at last tothe spot where Mark's way lay across a low fence, and hers by thewinding path through the bushes up to the park.
Vera stood still. She seemed to see the events of her whole life passbefore her in quick succession, but saw none filled with bitterness likethe present. Her eyes filled with tears. She felt a violent impulse tolook round once more, to see him once more, to measure with her eyes theextent of her loss, and then to hurry on again. But however great hersorrow for her wrecked happiness she dare not look round, for she knewit would be equivalent to saying Yes to destiny. She took a few steps upthe path.
Mark strode fiercely away towards the hedge, like a wild beast baulkedof his prey. He had not lied when he said that he esteemed Vera, but itwas an esteem wrung from him against his will, the esteem of the soldierfor a brave enemy. He cursed the old-fashioned ideas which had enchainedher free and vivacious spirit. His suffering was the suffering ofdespair; he was in the mood of a madman who would shatter a treasure ofwhich the possession was denied him, in order that no one else mightpossess it. He was ready to spring, and could hardly restrain himselffrom laying violent hands on Vera. By his own confession to her he wouldhave treated any other woman so, but not Vera. Then the convictiongnawed at his heart that for the sake of the woman who was now escapinghim he was neglecting his "mission." His pride suffered unspeakably bythe confession of his own powerlessness. He admitted that the beautifulstatue filled with the breath of life had character; she acted inaccordance with her own proud will, not by the influence of outsidesuggestion. His new conception of truth did not subdue her strong,healthy temperament; it rather induced her to submit it to a minuteanalysis and to stick closer to her own conception of the truth. And nowshe was going, and as the traces of her footsteps would vanish, so allthat had passed between them would be lost. And with her went all thecharm and glory of life, never to return.
He stamped his feet with rage and swung himself on to the fence. Hewould cast one glance in her direction to see if the haughty creaturewas really going.
"One more glance," thought Vera. She turned, and shuddered to see Marksitting on the fence and gazing at her.
"Farewell, Mark," she cried, in a voice trembling with despair.
From his throat there issued a low, wild cry of triumph. In a moment hewas by her side, with victory and the conviction of her surrender in hisheart.
"Vera!"
"You have come back, for always? You have at last understood. Whathappiness! God forgive...."
She did not complete her sentence, for she lay wrapt in his embrace, hersobs quenched by his kisses. He raised her in his arms, and like a wildanimal carrying off his prey, ran with her back to the arbour.
God forgive her for having turned back.
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