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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35396-8.txt b/35396-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dcb1cf3 --- /dev/null +++ b/35396-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6805 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Asbeïn, by Ossip Schubin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Asbeïn + From the Life of a Virtuoso + +Author: Ossip Schubin + +Translator: Êlise L. Lathrop + +Release Date: February 25, 2011 [EBook #35396] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASBEÏN *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive. + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + 1. Page scan source: + http://www.archive.org/details/asbeinfromlifeof00schuiala + + + + + + + +[Illustration: With hands lightly folded in her lap and head leaned +back against her chair, Natalie has listened. In the beginning she had +been carried out of herself by a feeling of painfully sweet happiness, +but now she felt strangely oppressed. _p. 36_.] + + + + + + + ASBEÏN + + FROM THE LIFE OF A VIRTUOSO + + + + BY + OSSIP SCHUBIN + + + + _TRANSLATED BY ÉLISE L. LATHROP_ + + + + + NEW YORK + WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY + 1890 + + + + + + + Copyright, 1890, by + WORTHINGTON CO. + + + + + + + Press of J.J. Little & Co., + Astor Place, New York. + + + + + + + ASBEÏN.[1] + + + + + + FIRST BOOK. + + +"But--do you really not recognize me?" With these words, and with +friendly, outstretched hands, a young lady hastened toward a man who, +with gloomily contracted brow, wrapped in thought, went on his way +without noticing either her or his surroundings. He was foolish, for +his surroundings were picturesque--Rome, near the Fontana di Trevi, on +a bright March afternoon. And the young lady--she was charming. + +Although she had called to him in French, something about her--one +could scarcely have told what--betrayed the Russian; everything, the +pampered woman from the highest circles of society. + +The young man whose attention she had sought to attract in such a +violent and unconventional manner was just as evidently a Russian, but +of quite a different condition. One could hardly decide to what fixed +sphere of society he belonged, but one perceived immediately that his +manners had never been improved, polished, softened by society +discipline, that he was no man of the world. He was, evidently, a man +who was apart from the rank and file, a man who stood far out from the +conventional frame, a man whom no one could pass without twice looking +after him. His form was large and somewhat heavy; his face, framed by +dark, half-curled hair, in spite of the blunt profile, reminded one of +Napoleon Bonaparte, but Bonaparte in the first romantic period of his +life, before he had become fat and accustomed to pose for the classic +head of Cæsar. + +She was the Princess Natalie Alexandrovna Assanow; he the fêted violin +virtuoso and well-known composer, Boris Lensky. + +She had run herself quite out of breath to catch up with him; twice she +had called to him before he heard her; then he looked around and lifted +his hat. + +"Boris Nikolaivitch, do you not really recognize me?" said she, now in +Russian, laughing and breathless. + +"You here, Princess! Since when? Why have you given me no sign of your +existence?" and he took both the slender girlish hands, still +outstretched to him, in his. + +"We only arrived here yesterday from Naples." + +"Ah! and I go there to-day." His long-drawn words betrayed very +significantly a certain vexation. + +"Yes, to give three concerts there. I know; it was in the newspapers," +she nodded earnestly, and sighed. + +"Hm!" he began; "then--" he hesitated. + +"Then you do not understand why I did not wait for the concerts?" said +she, gayly; "it was impossible." + +"Impossible?" said he with a short, defiant motion of the head, the +motion of a too-tightly checked race-horse who impatiently jerks at the +bridle. "How so impossible? What word is that from the mouth of a young +lady who has nothing else in the world to do but amuse herself?" + +"As if I were independent!" she sighed, with comic despair. "First, +mamma could not leave Naples--hm--for family reasons. My sister is +married there, you know. Then--then--" + +"Do not trouble yourself with polite excuses," he interrupted her. "I +see that you are no longer interested in my music;" and, half-jesting, +half-vexed, shrugging his shoulders, he added, "What of it? One must +put up with one's destiny!" + +"I am no longer interested in your music!" said she, angrily; "and you +venture to say that to me, even after I have run after you--yes, really +run after you, which is not proper--only to----" + +She stopped, her face wore a vexed, indignant expression. "Why did you +do it?" said he, roughly; "it is not becoming." + +Instead of losing her self-possession, she laughed heartily. "But, +Boris Nikolaivitch," said she, "you speak as if you were a true man of +the world. However, as you please, I thank you for the lecture. Adieu!" + +And nodding her head quite arrogantly, she was about to turn on her +heel, when her look met his. She saw that she had vexed him, remained +standing, blushed, and lowered her eyes. + +The waters of the Acqua Nigo foamed and sparkled gayly between the +edges of the stone basin which Nicolo Salvi had made for them; the +noonday church-bells mingled their deep, solemn voices with the +caressing rippling of the waves; the sun shone full from the deep-blue, +ice-cold heaven, a glaring, unpleasant March sun, which was light +without warming, like the condescending smile of a great man, and +Natalie's maid who, grumbling and bored, stood a step behind her young +mistress, opened a round, green fan to shield her eyes, and at the same +time stamped her feet from the cold. Around, the Roman life went on in +its usual lazy way. Before a small, loaded cart stood a mule with a +number of red and blue tassels about its ears and on its forehead hung +a brass image of the Virgin. In the door of a vegetable shop, from +which came a strong smell of herbs, crouched a black-eyed, white Spitz +dog, that twitched its right ear uneasily. A fat, smooth-headed +Capuchin passed by, then came two shabbily dressed young people. The +Capuchin stopped to scratch the mule's head, the young people nudged +each other, and said in an undertone, while they pointed to the +virtuoso: "_E Borisso Lensky_." + +"There you have it," said the princess, shaking off her vexation +with a charming, pleasant smile, and her head bent one side. "Great +man that you are, and still you take it amiss in me." She said +nothing more, only raised her great blue eyes and gave him a look, a +never-to-be-forgotten look, behind whose roguishness a riddle was +concealed. + +"I take nothing amiss in you," said he, earnestly. + +"Really nothing? Now, then, I can tell you how much, oh! how much, I +have longed to hear you play again, that I, _coûte qu'il coûte_, seized +the opportunity to ask you to stop in Rome on your return from Naples +only to--" She hesitated, as if she were suddenly afraid of being +indiscreet. + +"Only to play something for the Princess Natalie Alexandrovna Assanow," +he completed her sentence, laughing. "Good. I will come, Natalie +Alexandrovna; in two weeks I am there. But if you are then in Florence +or Nice----" + +She was about to make a very positive assertion, when a slender, +fashionably dressed man, with a very high hat and faultless gloves, +passed by them, greeted the princess respectfully, and, with a slight +squint, measured Lensky from head to foot. Lensky recognized in him an +officer of the guard, Count Konstantin Paulovitch Pachotin, and +remembered last winter, during the season in St. Petersburg, he paid +court to Natalie. The scrutinizing look of the young man vexed him +beyond bounds; everything looked red before him. "Ah! he here?" he +asked the young princess with mocking emphasis. "May one congratulate +you?" + +She frowned and turned away her head. "No!" murmured she. Then raising +her wonderful eyes to him again: "So, farewell for two weeks!" + +"Perhaps." + +"Say positively, I beg you, and throw the traditional soldo in the +fountain." + +"With the best of intentions, I cannot do that; I have none with me," +he laughed, now involuntarily. + +She was charming. She wore a brown velvet bonnet that was fastened +under the chin with broad ribbons. She had pushed back her veil, and +the transparent brown gauze shining in the sun formed a golden +background for her pretty, pale face. It was cold, although the +beginning of March, and therefore her tall figure was wrapped to the +feet in a sable-trimmed velvet cloak, beneath which a scarcely visible +silk dress rustled very melodramatically. A delicate perfume of amber +and fresh violets exhaled from her. + +"You have no soldo?" said she; "then I will lend you one." She +earnestly sought in her portemonnaie, whereupon she handed him the +coin. He threw it in the basin of the noisy, rippling Fontana di Trevi. +The water sparkled golden for a moment, when the coin sank, and tried +to form circles, but the spouting gayety of the cascade obliterated +them. + +"You will come!" said Natalie, laughing gayly. + +"Yes, I will come," said he, not gayly as she, but gloomily, even +grumbling. "But if you are not there," he added, "or----" + +She had already turned to go, and without replying anything to his last +words, she called to him over her shoulder: + +"_Via Giulia Palazzo Morsini!_" + +He looked after her for a long time. The fashionable dress at that time +was very ugly. This little scene took place in the fifties, when the +Empress Eugenie had again brought into favor the hoop-skirt which had +disappeared quite a half-century before. But still Natalie Alexandrovna +was charming. How peculiar her walk was, so light and still a little +dragging, dreamily gliding, withal not weary, but with a peculiar +certain characteristic rhythm. He thoughtfully hummed a melody to it. + +Yes, he would come back. Whether he would have come back if the glance +of the officer of the guard had not angered him? He must see, must +teach this dandy! + + * * * * * + +"You speak just as if you were a true man of the world," the princess +had replied to his--as he angrily told himself--highly unsuitable and +tasteless advice. Now it might perhaps be small; yes, certainly it was +small, but sometimes, sometimes he would secretly have preferred to be +a true man of the world instead of being--a celebrity. + +"She ran after me!" he said to himself again. "Why did she run after +me? It was charming in her she would not have done it for any one else! +Bah! She is still only like all the others!" And the great artist, +whose life resembled a continual triumphal procession, of whom already +a finger-thick biography with glaringly false dates had appeared, and +concerning whom the papers every day reported something remarkable, +suddenly felt a kind of envy of Count Konstantin Paulovitch Pachotin, a +St. Petersburg dandy, whose name had never been in the papers, and whom +he despised for his narrow-mindedness. + +He was a great genius, but, like many other great geniuses, he was of +quite obscure parentage. Some asserted he came from that horrible +citadel of the poor in Moscow where misery intrenches itself against +progress, in filth, stupidity, and vice; others said he had been found, +a scarcely week-old child, wrapped in rags, before the door of the +Conservatory in St. Petersburg. There were really all kinds of accounts +in the papers. This one said that he was the son of a princess of the +blood and a gypsy; that one, that he descended from an old princely +family of the Czechs, and many other such romantic inventions. He +shrugged his shoulders scornfully at all such improvisations, without +refuting them by accurate personal accounts. How did the cold, hungry, +maltreated sadness of his first youth concern the world? Now he was +Boris Lensky, one of the first musicians of his time. Everything else +could be indifferent to the man. It was indifferent to them; it was +quite indifferent to them all, only not to him. The wounds which the +tormenting martyrdom of his childhood had torn in his heart had never +quite healed; therefore he showed a sensitiveness and irritability +which even the most sympathetic person could scarcely comprehend. + +But now he fared very well in the world. No one was so pampered, so +caressed as he. + +His playing exercised such a penetrating, sense-ensnaring charm that +his listeners, transported in a kind of musical intoxication, lost +their capability of judging, and even the most well-bred women crowded +around him with allegiance so exaggerated that it tore down the +boundary of every customary demeanor. + +Another would have enjoyed this allegiance without thinking further of +it; but for Lensky, on the contrary, it had a repellent effect. Child +of the people to the finger-tips, totally unused to the customs of +fashionable circles, his feeling of propriety was as wounded by what he +plainly called insolent shamelessness as that of a peasant who for the +first time sees a woman with bare shoulders. + +Besides his sense of propriety, there was another that was wounded by +the lack of reserve which great ladies showed him, and that was his +pride. Not only gifted with musical genius, but with a very clear head, +he soon perceived that if the ladies of the great world permitted +themselves freer manners with him than did women of a more modest +sphere of life, they still took liberties with him of which they would +have been ashamed in association with companions of their own rank. +"_Mon dieu, avec un virtuose, cela ne tire pas à consequence_," he once +heard an elegant little St. Petersburg woman say. He never forgot the +words, and in consequence received all the feminine allegiance of good +society with hostile distrust. + +He usually excused the tactless exuberance of a poorly cared for, badly +brought up woman of the Conservatory. In society of this kind, of +saddened womanly existence, incessantly touched with pity, he showed +kindness to the sad enthusiasts wherever he could, and laughed at their +tasteless animation. But for the great ladies, who should have known +better, who thought that they alone held the monopoly of good form, and +who still pursued a man like wild beasts--for these he had no +consideration. His roughness in intercourse with them had become almost +as proverbial as the success which he attained with them. + +Still, in his home he quite unconsciously accustomed himself to an +aristocratic atmosphere, and, with the refined sense of a true artist +nature, susceptible to all beauty and distinction, in association with +great ladies he felt a mixture of irritation and pleasure, while +pleasure gradually won the upper hand; and in foreign countries, where +he was received only exceptionally and with official solemnity, and +really had intimate access to salons of the second rank only, he +renounced intercourse with that refined world which he abused, like so +many others, without being able to escape its perfidious charm, and +felt, every time that he met one of his despised pretty St. Petersburg +or Moscow enthusiasts, an unmistakable joy. + +Two weeks after his meeting with Natalie at the Fontana di Trevi, +Lensky appeared for the first time in the Palazzo Morsini. From a very +large staircase, whose beauties he must admire by the light of the wax +matches which he had brought in his pocket, he stumbled into a large +vestibule, from which the servant conducted him through a heavy +portière, painted with coats of arms as high as a man, into an immense +drawing-room with soiled and faded yellow damask hangings and +furniture. + +"Monsieur Lensky!" announced the servant. + +The virtuoso was accustomed to a universal exclamation following the +announcement of his name, and the looks of the whole assembly should be +directed to him. + +Nothing of the sort this time. Natalie sat near an old French lady, +Marquise de C., whose knitting she kindly helped to arrange, and as the +young Russian introduced the virtuoso to her, she raised her lorgnette +and said: "Monsieur Lensky--ah! _vraiment_, that is very interesting!" +whereupon, without further troubling herself about him, she continued +to speak to Natalie of all kinds of social affairs, the marriage of +Marie X., the debts of Alexander T., the trousseau of Aurelie Z., and +the boldness of that parvenu A. + +For the present he could not approach the hostess. She warded him +off with a nod from the distance, for she was engaged in a very +exciting occupation. Although the universal interest for spiritualistic +table-tapping and moving was already quite over, the repetition of this +experiment, which strangely enough often succeeded in the Palazzo +Morsini, was one of the favorite pastimes of Natalie's mother, the +Princess Irina Dimitrievna Assanow. She now sat at a table in the +middle of the drawing-room between many others, most of them old +Russians, men and women; opposite her a thin, very young man with long, +straight, blond hair, a well-known magnetizer. + +It seemed to Lensky as if he had never seen anything more laughable +than these half-dozen almost exclusively gray-haired people who sat +with solemn bearing and attentive faces around a table whose edge they +could just surround with hands stretched out as far as possible. + +Those present who did not directly participate in the attempt to +bewitch the table, stood around observing the interesting round +surface. + +But the table continued in a state of desperately exciting passivity. + +Lensky, usually specially invited to soirées, of which he formed the +centre of attraction, felt humiliated by the four-legged wooden rival, +who, to-day, took all the attention away from him. + +At last the old French woman turned to the observation of the table, +which permitted the young girl to devote herself a little to Lensky, +rapidly becoming more gloomy; then the door opened and the butler +announced Count Pachotin. The virtuoso felt not at all pleasantly +toward the young dandy when he asked him unusually kindly and +sympathetically whether he was contented with the result of his last +concert tour. + +After Pachotin had fulfilled the condescension, which as a finely +cultivated nobleman he thought he owed to an artistic star he turned to +Natalie and from then ignored Lensky as completely as the Marquise de +C. had done. Lensky meanwhile morosely pulled long horse-hairs from the +holes in the thread-bare arms of the damask chair. He was very helpless +in spite of his already great renown. His actions in society were +solely confined to playing and permitting the ladies to rave over him. +He did not understand how to take an inconspicuous part in the +conversation, and to cross the room for any other purpose than to take +up his violin made him quite giddy. + +The table meanwhile still refused to move. The excitement became +general. + +"_Voyons_, M. Lensky," called the Marquise de C., suddenly turning to +the young artist, lorgnette at her eyes; "if you should give us a +little music perhaps it would act upon the legs of this stiff-necked +table." + +A man quick at repartee would have answered the silly remark with a gay +jest. But Lensky grew deathly pale, sprang up; in that moment the +resisting sacrifice of magnetism began to totter and tremble. + +Even Pachotin left his place near Natalie in order to watch closely the +interesting spectacle. The magnetizers rose and, with earnest, +triumphant faces, accompanied the table, which now seemed to have +entered into the spirit of the affair and took the most remarkable +steps with its wooden legs. + +"_Vous partez déjà_?" asked Natalie, coming up to the virtuoso. + +"I am no longer needed," said Lensky, with a glance at the table, and +bowed without touching the outstretched hand of the young girl. + +Without, in the vestibule just as he was about to put his arms in the +overcoat which the servant held out to him, he saw the princess, who +had hastened after him. + +[Illustration: "I cannot let you go away angry," said she. _p. 23_.] + +"I cannot let you go away angry," said she. "Come to-morrow to lunch. +We never receive in the morning, but you will be welcome." + +This time he took her hand in his, and looked in her eyes with a +peculiar mixture of anger and tenderness. + +"You know I do everything that you wish," murmured he; "but----" + +"Well?" She smiled pleasantly and encouragingly. He turned away his +head and went. + +"Perhaps in reality she is only like the others, but still she is +bewitching!" he murmured, as he stumbled down the old marble steps of +the palace in the darkness. + + * * * * * + +Yes, she was bewitching. Many still remember how charming she was at +that time. She was from Moscow, and a true Moscow woman; that is to +say, deeper, more polished, more intellectual, than the average St. +Petersburg woman, whom a pert Frenchman has described as "_Parisiennes +à la sauce tartare_." Lensky had met her the former year at her +relatives' in Petersburg, where they had sent her for the ball season, +perhaps with the idea that she would make a good match. + +Her domestic circumstances were quite disturbed. Her mother, a former +beauty, and who in her youth had been much admired at the court of +Alexander I., could not adapt herself to her poverty--that is to say, +she absolutely could not exist on the very moderate remains of a +splendid property which her husband had squandered. She never +complained; she only never kept within her means. She was always +planning new reforms, but her most saving plans always proved costly +when carried out. + +When she summoned Natalie home from St. Petersburg the former May she +had just formed a quite special resolution: she would travel to a +foreign country, in order, as she expressed it, to be unconstrainedly +shabby and economical. Her unconstrained shabbiness in Rome consisted +in living in a very picturesque _palazzo_ with two maids brought with +her from Russia, a male factotum, and a number of Italian assistants; +by day, clad in a faded sky-blue _peignoir_, stretched on a lounge, +alternately reading French novels and playing patience; in the evening, +receiving an amusing assembly of _gens du monde_ and celebrities, among +whom the already mentioned magnetizer enjoyed her especial sympathy, at +dinner or tea. Her economy culminated in locking up the most trifling +articles with great punctiliousness and never being able to find the +keys; for which reason the locksmith must be frequently summoned. + +The Russian maids naturally never moved their hands, the Italian +assistants wiped the dust from one piece of furniture to another, and +so the household would really have made quite an impression of having +come down in the world if the butler, whom they had brought with them +had not saved it by his aristocratic prestige. A Frenchman and valet of +the deceased prince, Monsieur Baptiste was not only outwardly +decorative, but of a useful nature. His principal occupation consisted +in sitting in the vestibule, with finely-shaved upper lip and imposing +side-whiskers, intrenched behind a newspaper, and overpowering the +creditors if they ventured to present their unpaid bills. + + * * * * * + +Lensky had resolved to leave Rome the next day, and to ignore the +invitation of the princess. Returned to the hotel, he immediately set +about packing; that is to say, he in all haste wrapped and squeezed his +effects together in any manner and threw them in his trunk as one +throws potatoes in a sack. Then he ordered his bill from the waiter and +a carriage for the next morning. When the waiter at the appointed hour +presented the bill and announced the carriage he showed him out. From +ten o'clock on he drew out his chronometer every quarter of an hour; at +twelve he appeared in the Palazzo Morsini. + +"You are punctual," said the princess, stretching out her hand to him; +"that is nice of you. I was terribly afraid that you would not come. We +are quite among ourselves; only mamma and we two. Does that suit you?" + +Again she bent her head to one side and looked at him with that +peculiar glance, behind whose roguishness a riddle was concealed. What +was it? Something sweet, perhaps something tender, earnest--or only a +gay triumph or planned conquest? + +Meanwhile it cost him the greatest self-restraint not to fall at her +feet immediately, so charming and beautiful was she. Everything about +her was beautiful: her tall but beautifully rounded figure; her pale +oval face, framed in dark hair; her remarkable eyes, usually dreamily +half closed, and then suddenly looking at one so large and full; her +long small hands and her little feet. No Andalusian had a smaller, +slenderer, more finely-arched foot than Natalie. He had scarcely time +to reply to her amiability, when the butler announced that luncheon was +served, and they went into the dining-room. + +It was a peculiar luncheon. The old princess presided in a wrapper. The +lukewarm dishes--brought every day from a restaurant in a tin box, +which Lensky had met on the steps were served by Monsieur Baptiste on +the largely shattered remnants of a Florentine faïence service with +noticeable correctness. A broad golden sunbeam lay on the table between +Lensky and Natalie and gave the most extravagantly unsuitable colors to +the flowers which shed their fragrance from a low Japanese porcelain +bowl in the middle of the table, and over these flowers, sparkling like +diamonds, he looked at her. + +She ate little and talked a great deal, told all kinds of droll +stories; one witty anecdote followed the other. He could not weary of +listening to her. Yes, even if what she said had not interested him, he +would not tire of hearing her. The sweet, somewhat veiled tone of her +voice seemed like a caress to his sensitive ear. + + * * * * * + +"I would like to ask you something, Boris Nikolaivitch," said the old +princess later, while they were taking coffee, in the drawing-room. + +"I am at your disposition entirely, Princess," Lensky hastened to +assure her. + +"It is about my violins," she began, in a drawling, whining voice, +which was her manner, and meant nothing. + +"But, mamma," Natalie hastily interrupted her, "this is not the +moment----" + +"Pray, permit me," said Lensky; and turning to the princess, "so it is +about your violins?" + +"Yes. My husband--you know what an excellent player he was," continued +the old lady, "has left three violins. People have always told me they +were worth a small fortune, but I did not wish to part with them at any +price. I ask you--a souvenir. But finally--times are hard, and one must +not be too hard on the peasants, and, besides, as none of my children +play the violin, however musical they are--well, I would be very glad +if you would try the instruments and incidentally value them. + +"You could perhaps advise me--yes---- What is the matter, Natascha?" + +For Natalie had blushed to the roots of her hair. Tears stood in her +eyes. + +Boris guessed that she feared he would look upon the explanation of her +mother as a bid. + +"I remember the violins very well," he hastened to assure her; +"especially one of them excited my envy. It would please me very much +to try them again." + +The servant brought the violins and at the same time a pile of hastily +snatched-up violin music, smelling of dust, dampness, and camphor. The +wonderfully beautiful instruments were in a pitiable condition--half of +the strings were gone, those that remained were brittle and dry. But +still there was a small stock of them. After Boris, with the loving +patience and surgical skill with which only a true violinist handles an +Amati, had put it in a suitable condition and then tuned it, he drew +the bow softly across it. A strangely sweet, tender, sad sound vibrated +through the great empty room. It seemed as if the violin awoke with a +sigh from an enchanted sleep. A pleasant shudder passed over Natalie. + +Lensky bent his cheek to the splendid instrument like a lover. "Shall +we try something?" said he, and took from the pile of notes a nocturne +of Chopin, transposed for the violin, opened the piano, the only good +and costly piece of furniture in the room, and laid the notes on the +music-rack. "Now, Natalie Alexandrovna, may I beg you?" + +Quite frightened by his artistic greatness--yes, trembling from +charming embarrassment--she sat down at the piano. + +His violin began to sing; how full and soft, so delightfully +languishing, and also somewhat veiled, as is usually the case with an +instrument unused for years. + +"How beautiful!" murmured Natalie, with eyes sparkling with animation. + +"Yes, it is a splendid instrument," replied Lensky. "You cannot imagine +what it is to play on an instrument which understands one. It is still +only a little bit sleepy, but we will awaken it." + +He placed a sonata of Beethoven before Natalie. They were alone. After +the first bar of the nocturne the princess had fallen asleep, at the +last she had waked, and had retired, with the remark that she could +hear much better in the adjoining room. + +"Will you really tolerate my accompaniment?" murmured the young girl. + +"And do you wish to hear again, vain little princess, what I already +told you in St. Petersburg, that I have seldom found a more sympathetic +accompaniment than yours?" he replied. + +She was an uncommonly good pianist, and with an unusually fine +divination followed all the shades of his art. One piece followed the +other. After awhile a certain relaxation was perceptible in her. + +"You are tired," said he, breaking off in the middle of the first +phrase of Mendelssohn's G-minor concerto. "I should not have given you +so much to do. Pardon me." + +"Oh, what does that matter," said she, while she let her hands slide +from the keys. "It was splendid, only, do you see, I feel as if I am a +dragging-shoe for you. I would like to have a wish, a great immoderate +wish. I would like to hear you once alone, without accompaniment, from +your heart. Give me one glance into your soul, make your musical +confession to me!" + +He felt a peculiar twitching and burning in his finger-tips. He would +rather have killed himself than let her glance into his inmost soul, as +the condition of that soul had been until then. + +"Do not ask that of me," said he, hoarsely. + +"It was very immodest in me, excuse me," said she hastily and confused. + +"Oh, that is nothing," he assured her. "Do you think that I will spare +the little bit of pleasure that I can perhaps give you, only--but if +you really wish it--as far as I am concerned----" + +He took up the violin. + +It was a different affair now. Dragging-shoe or not in any case her +accompaniment had had a calming and perhaps purifying effect on his +musical instincts. With her he had played as a wonderfully deeply +sensitive and technically cultivated virtuoso; in spite of all the +heartfelt fulness of tone and vibrating passion, he had scarcely passed +the boundary of musical conventionality. It had been the highest +possibility of a quiet, artistic performance; but what Natalie now +heard was no longer art, but something at once splendid and fearful. It +was also no longer a violin on which he played, but a strange, +enchanted instrument that she had never known formerly and that he +himself had invented; an instrument from which everything that sounds +the sweetest and saddest on earth vibrated, from the low voice of a +woman to the soft, complaining sigh of the waves dying on the shore. A +depth of genial musical eloquence burst forth under his bow. +Inconsolable pain--dry, hard, cutting; tender teasing, winning grace, +mad rejoicing, a wild confusion of passion and music, the height and +depth of neck-breaking technical extravagance. + +But what was most peculiar about his playing, and had the most magical +effect, was neither the mad bravura nor the flattering grace, but +something oppressive, mysterious, that crept maliciously into the heart +and veins, ensnaring and paralyzing--a thing of itself, a strange +horror. Again and again, like a mysterious call, appeared in his +improvisation the same bewitching, exciting succession of tones, taken +from the Arabian folk-songs, the devil's music. + +Suddenly he seemed to be beside himself; he drew the bow across the +violin as if beset by an untamable, passionate excitement. It was no +longer one violin which one heard; it was twenty violins, or, rather, +twenty demons, who howled and cried together. + +With hands lightly folded in her lap, and head leaned back against her +chair, Natalie had listened. In the beginning she had been carried out +of herself by a feeling of painfully sweet happiness. But now she felt +strangely oppressed. It seemed to her as if something pulled at every +fibre, every nerve, as if her heart was bursting. She would have liked +to cry out and hold her ears, and still did not move, but listened +eagerly to that piercing, wild, passionate tone. Never had she felt +within her such hot, beating, intense life as in this hour. Her whole +past existence now seemed to her like a long, stupid lethargy, from +which she had at last been awakened. Tears flowed from her eyes. Then +his look met hers. A kind of shame at his brutality overcame him, and +his playing died away in sad, sweet, anguished tenderness. With +contracted brows and trembling hands, he laid down the violin. "You +wished it!" said he. "You should not have asked it of me. I can refuse +you nothing. God! how pale you are! I have made you ill!" + +She smiled at his anxious exaggeration, then murmured softly, as if +in a dream: "It was wonderfully beautiful, and I shall never forget +it--never forget it, only----" + +"What have you to object?" + +"Shall I really tell you?" + +"Certainly; I beg you to." + +"Well," she began, hesitatingly, with a somewhat uneasy smile, as if +she was afraid of wounding his irritable artistic sensibility, "I ask +myself how one can abuse an instrument from which one can charm such +bewitching harmonies, and which one loves as you love your violin, as +you have just now abused it?" + +He was silent for a moment, surprised, looked at the violin with a +loving, compassionate glance, as if it were a living being. Then he +passed his hand across his forehead. + +"I do not know how it is," said he, confusedly. "Sometimes something +comes over me. Ah! if you knew what it is to have, all one's life, such +a sultry, sneaking thunderstorm in one's veins as I have. Sometimes it +bursts forth; it must have vent. I cannot rule myself. Teach me how!" + +He said that, so naïvely ashamed, quite pleadingly, like a great child; +he had strangely warm, touching tones in his deep, rough voice. + + * * * * * + +When Lensky presented himself again, the next day, in the Palazzo +Morsini, and, indeed, this time to arrange the purchase of the +wonderful violin, the princess called out gayly to him: + +"The violins are no longer to be had. I have bought all three. I gave +all my savings for them. If you wish to play on them, you must come +here. But you may come as often as you wish!" + +"For how long?" asked he, with a peculiar tremble in his voice. + +She turned away her head. After awhile she said, apparently +irrelevantly, with her gay, ingenuous smile, that still never quite +banished the sadness from her pale face: "Do you know that we are +really as poor as church mice? It is comical. Mamma consoles herself +with the thought that I will make a good match. If she should be +mistaken, what a tragedy!" + +She laughed merrily. What did she mean by that? + + * * * * * + +He came oftener and oftener to the old palace in the Via Giulia; came +every day, indeed. + +Formerly intercourse with women of rank had always formed only a short +parenthesis in his otherwise dissolute life. Now the couple of hours, +or sometimes they were only minutes, which he daily passed with the +Assanows were the key-note of all the rest of his existence. How happy +he felt with them! + +If elsewhere the great society ladies had raved over the artist Lensky +to an immoderate extent, they had quite ignored the man. But with the +Assanows it was different, or at least it seemed so. His fame was not +put forward from morning to night. There were days in which his +violin-playing was not even mentioned. The artist stopped in the +background, and in association with Natalie and her mother he was no +star, no lion, only a very wise, peculiar, sympathetic man, who pleased +quite aside from his artistic gifts. Besides, with them he appeared +differently than with any one else in the world. + +His petulant defiance disappeared, as well as the helplessness for +which it was a shield. + +He was completely uncultivated from the foundation. Grown up among +ignorant men who profited by his early unfolding talent, and misused it +in order to earn money thereby; sentenced consequently as a child to +just as many hours of hard musical practice as his poor still +undeveloped body could endure, he had, at fourteen years of age, when +he could barely read and write, not even the consciousness of his lack +of knowledge. That came later, came when great people began to be +interested in him. But then it was painful and humiliating beyond +measure. + +Whatever one can acquire in later years he acquired. Another would have +made a show of the astonishing amount of reading which he had +accomplished in the course of years, but he never learned to display +his lately won intellectual riches with grace. He had not the frivolity +of superficial men. Much too clever not to be conscious that his little +bit of supplementary cultivation was still only patchwork, even if made +of very noble, large patches, he confined his remarks in society, if +the conversation was upon anything but music, to a few heavy +commonplaces. + +With Natalie and her mother it was quite different. He never, indeed, +spoke very much, but everything that he said was characteristic, +stimulating, interesting, and as, in spite of his sad lack of +education, he was free from narrow provincialisms and affectations, and +with the capability of assimilation of all barbarians, understood +exactly Natalie's pure and poetic being, he never wounded her by a +coarse lack of tact, but attracted her doubly by the austere +unconventionality of his manner. + +Every day he became more sympathetic to her; she had long been +indispensable to him. + +He was suddenly struck with horror of his past. It seemed to him as if +everything that was beautiful in his life had just begun when her pure +bright apparition had entered it. She had brought a cooling, healing +element to his sultry existence. It was as if one had opened a window +in a room full of oppressive vapor--a great breath of sweet, spicy air +had purified the atmosphere. + +A large part of his intellectual self which had formerly lain fallow, +now grew and blossomed. Often, in the morning, he accompanied the +ladies to some art collection. Very frequently he occupied a place in +the carriage which the princess had hired for their drives. + +Every one looked after the carriage, and observed with the same +interest the wonderfully beautiful girl, and the great artist, who was +not handsome, but whose face once seen could never be forgotten. + +What was most remarkable about it was the difference between the +expression of his eyes and that of his mouth, a difference which +betrayed the entire quality of his inner nature. While his eyes had a +spying, at times quite enthusiastic, expression, around the mouth was a +trace of intense earthly thirst for enjoyment. + +This mingling predestinated him to that eternal discontent of certain +great natures who can just as little accustom themselves, on the earth, +to a condition of bloodless asceticism as to one of mindless +materialism. The first desires no enjoyment of the world, the second +pleases itself with whatever is to be had in the world. Those men only +who seek the heavenly spark in earthly joys remain forever deceived +here. He was destined never to cease to seek it. Even in gray old age, +when his finely cut lips were satiated with enjoyment, and were fixed +in a grimace of incessant, sad disgust, his eyes still sought it. + + * * * * * + +His colleagues in St. Petersburg asked each other what kept him so long +in Rome. He wrote one of them that he was working, and indeed he did +work. Through his soul vibrated melodies full of bewitching sad +loveliness, full of the rejoicing and complaint of a longing which +could not yet attain the longed-for happiness. + +And there in Rome, in those mild fragrant spring nights, he wrote a +cyclus of songs which might rank at the side of the most beautiful +musical lyrics ever written. + +In spite of their full richness of melody, his earlier compositions had +something too glaring, overladen, and trivially pleasing; they were too +much influenced by his virtuosity to please for themselves. In his +Roman cyclus of songs he showed himself for the first time a great +musician. And as until then he had distrusted his talent as composer, +he was pleasantly astonished over his own achievement. + +He always worked at night. His writing-table stood in front of the +window of his room which looked out on the Piazza di Spagna. Very often +his glance wandered there. A dark-blue heaven lighted by thousands of +stars arched above the broad, irregular place, over the antique +columns, from whose height a modern art nonentity looks down on Rome. + +All was silent, only the water, the resonant soul of Rome, tittered and +sobbed in the basins and fountains, and spouted up jubilantly in damp +silver streams, greeting from afar the unattainable heavens, and all +the tittering, sobbing, and rejoicing united in a long vibrating broken +chord. + +Still vibrating in every fibre at the recollection of Natalie's +farewell smile, he sat at his shaky table and wrote. The mild night +wind, fragrant with the kisses which it had stolen from the magnolia +and orange blossoms, crept in to him and caressed his hot cheeks. He +inhaled it eagerly. He had often been warned of the Roman night air, +but he did not think of the warning, and if he had--? He was in that +happy mood in which man no longer believes in sickness and death. + +The hateful melancholy which as he said often pressed him down to the +ground, and tormented him with predictions of his final annihilation, +was gone. He no longer saw, as formerly, an open grave at his feet. +Heaven had opened to him. An indescribable, light, elevating feeling +had overpowered him; he no longer felt the weight of his body. Had his +wings, then, grown in Rome? + + * * * * * + +He did not think what would come of all this. He did not wish to think +of it; did not wish to see clearly. With closed eyes he walked through +life--the angels led him. + + * * * * * + +It was the beginning of May, and he had finished his cyclus of songs. +With a beating heart he entered the Palazzo Morsini to ask Natalie +whether he might dedicate it to her. + +The young princess was not at home, but her mother would be very happy +to see him, they told him. + +It was very hot, the blinds were all lowered. The princess lay on a +lounge and fanned herself with a peacock feather fan. + +After she had complained of the heat, she began to speak to him of all +kinds of family affairs. Her son had the best of opportunities to make +a career for himself, said she; her eldest daughter, who was far less +pretty than Natalie, added the princess, had married very well; her +husband was indeed a wealthy diplomat. "_Mois, je suis pauvre_," +concluded the old lady; "but I could live quite without care, if +Natalie were only married. But she will hear nothing of that. She lets +the best years of her life pass, and if you only knew what good matches +she has refused. Pachotin has already offered himself twice to her, and +if you please----" + +Just then a gay voice interrupted the inconsolable elegy. "Mamma, how +can any one boast so?" Natalie had entered, a large black hat on her +head, in her arms a huge bunch of flowers. + +"I did not boast--I complained," replied the old woman, sighing. + +After Natalie had greeted Lensky with her usual friendliness, she laid +the flowers on the table and arranged them in the vases which an +Italian chambermaid had brought her. + +"Ah, Natalie, why will you have none of them?" sighed the princess. + +"Little mother, I can love but once," replied Natalie, bending her +brown head over the flowers. "I have told you I will not marry until I +have found some one quite extraordinary--a hero or a genius." + +"Am I dreaming, or did she look at me with those words?" Lensky asked +himself. "But why did she turn her eyes away so quickly when they met +mine?" + +Meanwhile the princess said: "Yes, if all girls wished to wait thus!" + +"I am not like all girls," said Natalie, laughing. "Most girls have +hearts like hand-organs, which every one can play; others have hearts +like Æolian harps, on which no one can play, and still they always +vibrate so sympathetically for the world; and still other girls--" she +interrupted herself to break a superfluous leaf from a magnolia twig. + +The princess, who seemed to lay little weight on Natalie's naïve +comparisons, fanned herself indifferently with her peacock fan, but +Lensky repeated, "Well, Natalie Alexandrovna, other girls----" + +"Other girls have hearts like Amati violins; if a bungler touches them +there is a horrible discord; but if a true artist comes who understands +it, then----" + +This exaggerated remark she had made in a voice trembling between +mockery and tenderness, and incessantly occupied with the arrangement +of her flowers. + +Without ending the last sentence, she broke off, and bent her head to +the right to observe a combination of white roses and heliotrope with a +thoughtful look. + +The princess yawned from heat and discontent. "Leave me in peace from +your musical comparisons, Natascha," said she. "Besides, I can assure +you that no one spoils a fine instrument quicker than one of your great +virtuosos. When I think how Franz Liszt ruined our Pleyel in a single +evening; it was no longer fit even for a conservatory." + +"Violins are not ruined as quickly as pianos," said Natalie, laughing; +then, still speaking to the flowers, she said: "Don't you think, little +mother, that if such a piano had a soul, a mind, it would rather +rejoice to really live for once under the hands of a great master, +and even if it were to die of the joy, than merely to exist for a +half-century in a noble, charming room, as a carefully preserved +showpiece?" + +Again it seemed to Lensky that she looked at him, and again she +turned away her head when their looks met. "You are astonished at this +great expenditure for flowers?" she remarked. "We expect guests this +evening--my cousins from St. Petersburg, the Jeliagins. You know them, +and I shall try to draw their critical looks away from the holes in the +furniture covering to these beautiful color effects. So! Now I have +finished; here are a few May-bells left for your button-hole. Ah! +really, you never wear flowers!" + +"Give them to me," said he, contracting his brows gloomily. She smiled +at him without saying anything. Then something scratched at the door. + +"Please open it, Boris Nikolaivitch," she asked. + +He did so; her large dog, a gigantic Scotch greyhound, came in, and +immediately springing up on his beautiful mistress, he laid both front +paws on her shoulders. She took his heavy head between her slender +hands, and murmuring tender, caressing words to him, she kissed him +twice, three times, on the forehead. + +Lensky took leave soon after without having mentioned his song cyclus. +His mind was in an uproar. "Is she only coquetting with me?" he asked +himself, "or--or--" A passionate joy throbbed in his veins, then +suddenly an icy shudder ran over him. "And if she is only like all the +others!" + +At his departure Natalie had said to him: "You will come this evening, +Boris Nikolaivitch, in spite of this boring Petersburg invasion? I beg +you will, _vous serez le coin bleu de mon ciel!_" + + * * * * * + +The evening came. + +A Roman sirocco evening, with an approaching thunderstorm that hung +heavily around the horizon and would not lift. + +The heavily perfumed sultry air penetrated through the drawn curtains +into the Assanows' drawing-room. The Jeliagins had brought a couple of +Parisian friends with them, and naturally Pachotin was not missing. A +deathly _ennui_ reigned. They spoke of Parisian fashions, of the +Empress Eugenie's new court; they complained of the new cook in the +Hotel de l'Europe, and of the heat. + +Then they spoke of national dances. The Jeliagins had recently +travelled in Spain and were enthusiastic about the fandango. The +Parisians had heard there was nothing more graceful than a well-danced +Polish mazurka; could none of the Russian ladies dance one for them?--a +very bold request, but they were all friends. + +The Jeliagins announced that Natalie danced the mazurka like a true +woman of Warsaw. They left her no peace. + +"Oh, I will put on no more airs," said she, "if one of the ladies will +take a seat at the piano, so----" + +To go to the piano, even were it only to play dance-music, in Lensky's +presence! The ladies swooned at the mere thought. + +"Very well, then you must give up the mazurka," said Natalie, +decidedly. + +"Ask Boris Nikolaivitch," whispered one of the St. Petersburg women. +"If he is the first violinist of his time, he is also an excellent +pianist." + +"No, no," said Natalie, firmly, and then her great brilliant eyes met +Lensky's. + +Although at that time he maintained his artistic dignity with quite +childish exaggeration, he smiled very good-naturedly and said, "I see +very well that you place no confidence in me; you think I cannot catch +your mazurka music." + +"No, no, no!" said Natalie. "You shall not degrade your art." + +"And do you really think it would be degrading to improvise a musical +background for your performance? I should so like to see you dance." +And he stood up and went to the piano. + +Such pretty little phrases were formerly not his style. He had, as +Natalie had often laughingly told him, no talent for _fioriture_ in +conversation. + +The Petersburg ladies looked at each other. "How polite he has become! +You have changed him, Natascha," whispered they. + +Meanwhile Pachotin gave Natalie his hand. + +Lensky had seized the opportunity of admiring her grace with joy. He +had never thought how painfully it would affect him to see her dance +with another man. He did not take his eyes off her, and meanwhile +improvised the most bewitching devil's music. + +She wore a white dress, her neck and arms were bare, and around her +waist was a Circassian girdle embroidered with gold and silver. One +hand in her partner's, the other hanging loosely at her side, her head +slightly on one side, she moved safely over the dangerously smooth +surface of the marble floor. At the beginning, pale as usual, except +her dark-red lips, she looked quite indifferent; gradually she became +warmer and more animated, a slight blush crept into her cheeks, her +eyes beamed as if in a happy dream, around her lips trembled the sad +expression which the feeling of intense pleasure often causes us, and +her movements at the same time had something indescribably gentle and +supple. + +[Illustration: At the beginning, pale as usual, except the dark-red +lips, she looked quite indifferent; gradually she became warmer and +more animated, a slight blush crept into her cheeks, her eyes beamed as +in a happy dream---- _p. 56_.] + +Pachotin, most correctly attired, with a collar which reached to the +tips of his ears and faultless yellow gloves, hopped around her in the +true affected knightly grimacing Polish-mazurka manner. + +"An ape!" thought Lensky to himself; "but how handsome, how +distinguished he is! almost as handsome as she!" and suddenly the +question occurred to him: "Is it my music or his presence which +animates her? And if it were my music! Nevertheless, she will still +marry him; yes, even if she were in love with me, still she would marry +him, and not me! What a fool I was to imagine----" + +After Pachotin had soberly placed his heels together and acknowledged +his deep devotion to the lady by a suitable courtesy, the mazurka was +at an end. + +Quite beside themselves with enthusiasm, the Parisians surrounded +Natalie. When she wished to thank Lensky he had disappeared. It was his +manner many times to withdraw without taking leave, but still to-day it +made Natalie uneasy. She was vibrating with a great excitement, the air +seemed to her suffocatingly hot, she drew off her gloves; the noise of +the prattling voices became unbearable to her, and she passed through +the second empty drawing-room, into the arched loggia set with blooming +orange-trees, from which one looked across the court-yard to the Tiber. + +The storm still hung on the horizon. Heavy masses of clouds, shot +through by pale lightning, towered, on the other side of the river, +above the gloomy architecture of the Trastevere. They had not yet +reached the moon, which, palely shining, stood high in the heavens. Its +light illumined the court, with its statues and bas-reliefs. The air +was sultry. + +Natalie drew a deep breath. Suddenly she discovered Lensky. He was +staring down on the Tiber, which, rolling by in its bed, incessantly +sighed, as if from sorrow at its sad lot, which compelled it +continually to hasten past everything. + +Could one really take it amiss in the stream if it sometimes overflowed +its banks in order to carry away with it some of the beautiful objects, +near which, condemned to perpetual wandering, it might not remain +standing? + +"Ah! you here?" said Natalie. "I thought you had taken French leave. I +was vexed with you." + +"So!" + +"Yes, because--because I was sorry not to be able to thank you. It was +really----" + +"Do not speak so," said he, quite roughly; "just as if you did not know +that there is nothing in the world, nothing in my power that I would +not do for you!" + +She bent her head back a little and smiled at him in a friendly way, +but as if his words had not surprised her in the slightest. "You are +very good to me," said she. + +He felt strangely thus alone with her in this sweet-perfumed, +melancholy, intoxicating sultriness, alone with this happiness that was +so near him, and which he was afraid of frightening away by an unseemly +imprudence. He felt by turns hot and cold. Why did she not go? + +She rested her hands on the marble balustrade of the loggia and bending +over it she murmured: "How beautiful! oh, how wonderfully beautiful! +And it is so tiresome in there; do you not find it so, Boris +Nikolaivitch?" + +His throat contracted, he felt that he was about to lose control of +himself. + +"Shall I play?" he asked. "I will do it willingly for you." + +"Oh, no! Why should you play to those stupid people in there?" replied +she. "I would be prepared to hear, in the middle of the G minor +concerto, the question: 'Before I forget it, can you not give me the +address of a good shoemaker in Rome?' You know how such things vex me." + +"Is she coquetting with me, or--?" he asked himself again. + +She stood before him with her enchanting face, and her tender glance +met his. She did not know that she tormented him. In spite of her +twenty-one years, she had the boundless innocence of a girl whose mind +has never been desecrated by the knowledge of passion, a degree of +innocence in which men do not believe. + +"Is she coquetting?" His heart beat to bursting, and suddenly, when she +quite unconstrainedly came one step nearer him, he took her hand. "Oh, +you dear, dear girl!" he murmured, with hoarse, scarcely audible voice, +and pressed it to his lips. + +[Illustration: "Oh, you dear, dear girl!" he murmured, with hoarse, +scarcely audible voice, and pressed it to his lips. + +Crimsoning. She tore away her hand. _p. 61_.] + +Crimsoning, she tore away her hand. "For Heaven's sake, what are you +thinking of?" said she, and started back with a proud, almost scornful +gesture. + +Then a horrible anger overcame him. + +"I was stupid, I was mistaken in you. You think no more nobly or better +than the others!" he burst out. + +"I do not understand you. What do you mean?" murmured she. + +What else had she to ask? Why did she not go, but stood before him, as +if paralyzed, with her pale, seductive loveliness, surrounded by +moonlight? + +"I mean that if you observe our relations from this conventional +standpoint, your behavior to me was a heartless, arrogant abomination." + +"But, Boris Nikolaivitch, that is all foolishness. You do not know what +you are saying," she stammered, quite beside herself. + +"So! I do not know what I am saying?" He had now stepped close up to +her. "And if I, mistaking your coquetries--yes, that is the word; blush +now and be a little ashamed--if I, mistaking your coquetries, have +permitted myself to petition for your hand? Oh, how you start! +Naturally, you had never thought of such a thing!" + +His voice was hoarse and rasping, his face very calm and as if +petrified by anger and such a mental torment as he had never before +experienced. "But go! Why do you stay and torture me? I will no longer +look at you. I abominate you, and still I love you so passionately, so +madly!" + +Yes, why did she still not go? He could endure it no longer--he clasped +her to his breast and kissed her with his hot, burning lips. Then she +pushed him from her and fled. + +He looked after her. Now all was over. For one moment he remained +standing on the same spot, then, with deeply bowed head, dragging his +feet along slowly, he passed through the vestibule and left, without +thinking of his hat, which he had left in the drawing-room. + +For the remainder of the evening Natalie's whole being betrayed only +haste and uneasiness. She spoke more and quicker than formerly, laughed +frequently, and told the gayest stories. + +When her Petersburg cousins wished to tease her with Lensky's +enthusiasm for her, and laughingly called him "your genius," she +mentioned him indifferently, quite disapprovingly, shrugged her +shoulders over his talent as composer--yes, even found fault with his +playing. She was friendly, quite inviting, to Pachotin; she no longer +knew what she did, only when he wished to give the conversation a more +earnest turn she broke it off suddenly and remorselessly. + +When at last, at last, the drawing-room was empty and she might +withdraw, she locked herself in her room, threw herself down before the +holy picture before which she always said her evening prayer. But, +however she tried to pray, she could not. She did not know for what she +should pray. Her cheeks burned with dreadful shame. How could he have +so far forgotten himself with her! + +She threw open a window. What did it matter to her that they said the +Roman night air was poisonous? She would have liked to take the Roman +fever, would have liked to die. Her window opened on the street. The +Via Giulia was divided by the moonlight into two parts, one light and +one dark. All was quiet, empty, deserted. Then there was a sound of +slow, dragging steps, and two lowered voices whispered down there in +the silent solitude. It was probably a pair of belated lovers, and +suddenly there was a soft, tender sound through the mild May night. She +caught her breath, closed the window, and turned back to her room. +Half-undressed, she sat on the edge of her little cool white bed and +thought again and again--of the same thing--of his kiss. + + * * * * * + +"Why has 'your genius' so suddenly tired of Rome? He leaves to-day," +remarked the Jeliagins, who had come to lunch the next morning in the +Palazzo Morsini. + +They were staying at the same hotel as Lensky--that is to say, in the +"Europe"--and had spoken to him in the court of the hotel. "He looked +miserably," they added, with a haughty glance. "Either he has Roman +fever or you have broken his heart." + +Then they spoke of other things. Soon after lunch they went away. + +Meanwhile Lensky stumbled up and down, up and down, in his room. A sick +lady whose room was beneath his, at last sent up by the waiter and +begged him to be quiet. + +His departure was fixed for seven o'clock; it struck one, it struck +four. + +Should he leave without having made a parting call upon the Princess +Assanow run away like any fellow who has borrowed thirty rubles? "But +they will not receive me," he thought, "if the princess has told her +mother. But, no, she will have said nothing; she is too proud. What a +lovely being! How could I only-- Oh, if I might at least ask her +pardon! But what kind of a pardon would it be? Such a thing a woman +pardons only if she loves, and how should she love me, a beast as I am? +She must have an aversion for me." + +He resolved to take leave by letter. He tried it in French and Russian, +but could complete nothing. Ashamed of his laughable incapacity, he +tore up the different sheets of letter-paper adorned with "_Des +circonstances imprévues_," or "_La reconnaissance sincère que_." + +Five o'clock! He hastened across the courtyard, sprang into a carriage. +"Palazzo Morsini, Via Giulia," he called to the coachman, and commanded +him to drive fast. + +When he ascended the well-known stairs he asked himself a last time if +he would be received. + +The servant conducted him to the boudoir of the old princess. She broke +off her game of patience to greet him, only betrayed a slight +astonishment at his sudden departure, and said that she and Natalie +should soon follow his example and go North, probably to Baden-Baden, +for the heat in Rome began to be unbearable. Then she rang for the +maid, whom she commissioned to tell the princess that Boris +Nikolaivitch had come to take leave. + +Lensky waited in breathless excitement. The maid came back with the +decision: The princess was very ill and had lain down with a headache. + +"Quite as I expected," thought Lensky, while the princess remarked +politely, "She will be very sorry." + +Then he kissed the old lady's hand, she touched his forehead with +her lips in the Russian custom, wished him a pleasant journey, he +thanked her a last time for all the friendship she had shown him, and +went--went quite slowly through the large empty room, in which the dust +danced in a broad sunbeam which lay across the marble floor, and in +which the flowers which she had arranged so charmingly yesterday now +stood withered in their vases. + +"Shall I never see her again, never--never?" he asked himself. He would +have given his life for a last friendly glance from her. What use was +it to think of that--it was all over! + +Then suddenly he heard something near him like the rustling of an +angel's wings. He looked up. Natalie stood before him, deathly pale, +with black rings around her eyes, with carelessly arranged hair. A +passionate pity, a tender anxiety overcame him. "How she has suffered +through my offence!" he told himself and rushed up to her. "Natalie, +can you forgive me?" he called. + +Her great, sad eyes were raised to him with an expression of helpless, +ashamed tenderness, as if they would say, "And you ask that!" She moved +her lips, but no word came. + +He held her little hands trembling with fever in his. She did not draw +them away. He grew dizzy. For one moment they were both silent, then he +whispered, drawing her closer to him, "Do you love me, then? Could you +resolve to bear my name, to share my whole existence?" + +Scarcely audibly she whispered, "Yes." + +We are sometimes frightened at the sudden fulfilment of a wish which we +have believed unattainable. + +And as Lensky under the weight of his new, strange happiness sank at +the feet of his betrothed and covered the hem of her dress with tears +and kisses, in the midst of his happiness he felt an oppressed anxiety, +a great fear. + + * * * * * + +A few days after Natalie's betrothal there was a short, imperious ring +at the door of the artistic gray anteroom, in which the imposing +butler, as usual, sat majestically intrenched behind his newspaper. + +Monsieur Baptiste raised his eyebrows; he did not like this imperious +manner of ringing a bell, and did not hurry at all to open the door. +Only when the ring was repeated did he unlock it. His face changed +color from surprise, and he bowed quite to the ground when he +recognized in the entering gentleman the young prince, the eldest +brother of Natalie, Sergei Alexandrovitch Assanow. + +"Are the ladies at home?" he asked shortly in a high, somewhat vexed +voice without further noticing the respectful greeting of the servant. + +"The princess is still in bed, but the Princess Natalie is already up." + +"Good. Do not disturb the princess, and announce me to Princess +Natalie," said Assanow, and with that he followed the butler, who was +hastening before him, into the drawing-room. There he sat down in a +mahogany arm-chair upholstered in faded yellow damask, crossed his +legs, rested his tall shining hat on his knee and looked around him. On +one of his hands was a gray glove, the other was bare. It was a long, +slender, aristocratic hand, very well cared for, too white for a man's +hand, but bony, and with strongly marked veins on the back--a hand +which one saw would certainly hold firmly what it had once grasped, and +a hand which was capable of no caress. For the rest it would have been +hard to judge anything from the exterior of the prince. He was a tall +slender man of about thirty, with light-brown hair that was already +thin on the top of the head, and a face--smoothly shaven except a long +mustache--which in the cut of the delicate regular features resembled +his sister's not unnoticeably. But the expression, that animating soul +of beauty which lent Natalie's pale face more charm than the regularity +of the lines, was lacking in him. Everything about him was as correct +as his profile--his high stiff collar, the drab gaiters which showed +beneath his trousers, his light-gray gloves with black stitching. He +was the type of the Russian state official of the highest category, the +type of men who in public life only permit themselves to think as far +as will not injure their advancement. + +As he was a very clever, sharp, judging man withal, he revenged himself +for the discomfort which the systematic crippling of his intellectual +capacity in the service of the state caused him, by devoting all the +superfluity of his unneeded intellect to shedding an unpleasantly +glaring intellectual light about him, and condemning as absolute +foolishness all those little poetic, pleasant trifles which make life +beautiful. + +He called this manner of pleasing himself doing his duty. + +Strangely enough, with all his sterile dryness he was a true lover of +music. He played the cello as well as a man of the world can permit +himself to--that is to say, with an elegant inaccuracy, together with +pedantic bursts of virtuosity, and in consequence had cultivated +Lensky's acquaintance assiduously. + +While he waited for his sister he looked around the room distrustfully +with his handsome dark but unpleasantly piercing eyes. He grew uneasy. +The atmosphere of the whole room was quite permeated with happiness. +Everything seemed to feel happy here--the shabby furniture, the music +which lay somewhat confusedly on the piano. On the table near which +Sergei Alexandrovitch sat stood a basket of pale Malmaison roses, under +the piano was a violin case. + +Sergei Alexandrovitch frowned. Then Natalie entered the room; he rose, +went to meet her, kissed and embraced her. It seemed strange to her +that she did not feel as glad to see him as formerly, but rather felt a +kind of chill. Which of them had changed, he or she? + +"What a surprise!" said she, and felt herself that her voice had a +forced sound. "It has not formerly been your custom to appear so +unexpectedly." + +"My journey was only decided upon last month," replied he, somewhat +hesitatingly; and with his dull smile he added, "I hope I do not arrive +inopportunely, Natalie?" + +"How can you ask such a thing!" said she. "But sit down and put your +hat away--you are at home." + +He remarked the uneasiness of her manner. He coughed twice, and then +sat down again near the table on which the basket of roses stood. + +Natalie sat down. Both hands resting on the red surface of the mahogany +table, she bent over the flowers, and slowly with a kind of tenderness +inhaled the dreamy, melancholy perfume. + +"Have you had a pleasant winter?" began Sergei Alexandrovitch. + +"I do not know," replied she without looking at him; "I have forgotten, +but the spring was wonderfully beautiful, wonderfully beautiful," and +she bent over the flowers again. + +"Hm! So you prefer Rome to Naples?" said he condescendingly. + +"Yes." + +"You seem to have been very comfortably fixed here," he remarked, with +a glance around. "You have very pretty rooms. Those are beautiful roses +which you have there." + +"Boris Lensky sent them to me," said she, while she at the same time +pulled a rose from the basket to fasten it in the bodice of her light +foulard dress. Then she sat down opposite Sergei. War was declared. + +"Lensky seems to be a great deal with you," said Assanow, +condescendingly. + +"Yes." + +"I heard of it through acquaintances in Petersburg," began the prince. +"It did not quite please me." + +Natalie only shrugged her shoulders, with an expression as if she would +say: "I am very sorry, but that does not change matters at all." In +spite of that she secretly trembled before her brother. The +announcement which she had to make to him would not cross her lips. + +"It is hard to speak of certain things to you," he continued, while he +tried to make his thin high voice sound confidential. He did not wish +to make his sister refractory by overhasty roughness. "I have no +prejudices." It had recently become the fashion in his set, and +especially for the upper ten thousand, to boast of a kind of harmless +liberality. "No one can accuse me of smallness. I am always in favor of +attracting young artists into society--first, because they form an +animating element in our circles, and secondly, because one should give +them an opportunity to improve their manners a little; but all in +moderation. Too great intimacy in such cases is bad for both parties. +You are too much carried away by the generosity of your heart. I know +that in reality your immoderate kindness to Lensky does not mean much, +but----" + +Her wonderfully beautiful eyes met his. + +"I am betrothed to Boris Nikolaivitch," said she wearily but very +distinctly. + +"Betrothed!" he burst out. "You to Lensky? You are crazy!" + +"Not at all." + +"Does mother know of it?" + +"Certainly." + +"And she has given her consent?" + +"At first she was surprised; she cried a whole afternoon. I was very +sorry to pain her. Then she gave way. She is very fond of him. Every +one must be fond of him who learns to know him well." Natalie's eyes +beamed with animation. + +Sergei Alexandrovitch pulled at his mustache. "Hm, hm," he murmured; +"we will leave that undecided. As it happens, I am one of those who +know him well; there are few in our set who know him as intimately as +I, and--hm--I do not know that he has caused me any very enthusiastic +feelings. As artist I rank him very high, not so high as has been the +fashion lately, for as a _beau dire il manque de style_, he lacks +style! But that has nothing to do with this. But if he united in +himself the genius of Beethoven and Paganini, I would still look upon +the possibility of your alliance with him as unheard of, and I tell you +frankly, that I shall do all that is in my power to prevent it." He had +taken up again the hat which he had formerly laid down, and held it on +his knee as if paying a call of state. While he spoke the last words, +he knocked on the top of it with malicious decision. + +Natalie crossed her arms. + +"I knew that you would oppose the mésalliance," said she, "but----" + +He would not let her finish. "Mésalliance!" said he, and laughed very +mockingly, quite shortly and softly, to himself, and began to drum on +the top of his hat again. "Mésalliance! I cannot say that the marriage +of my sister to this Mr. Lensky would be especially pleasant--no, that +I cannot say. What must be my horror at your undertaking if I scarcely +think of my opposition on account of the unequal birth!" He was silent, +but then as Natalie remained obstinately silent, he continued: "That +you will in consequence change your social position is your affair. But +do not believe that this will be all that you give up. You sacrifice +not only your position, your whole personality, all your habits of +life, but more than all these, you sacrifice all your formerly so +spared and guarded womanly tender feeling if you insist upon marrying +this violinist. Oh, I know what you will say," said he, while he +noticed the glance which Natalie gave the roses on the table. "He is +full of poetic attentions for you. When they are in love, the roughest +men speak in verse. And I believe that he loves you. But his enthusiasm +for you is still only a passing effervescence. What will remain when +that is gone? I ask you, what would remain in a man without principles, +without a trace of moral restraint, who has grown up amid surroundings +which have forever blunted his feelings for things which would horrify +you, and others of which you have no suspicion?" + +Again he paused, but this time Natalie spoke: "May I ask you," began +she, with the calm behind which irritation bordering on uncontrollable +anger concealed itself--"may I ask you to tell me exactly, without any +more finely veiled insinuations, what you have against Boris +Nikolaivitch, except that he is of lower birth and has enjoyed no +careful bringing up?" + +"My God! If it is a question of my sister's future husband, that is +enough and more than enough!" said Assanow. + +"Is it all?" asked Natalie, and looked at him penetratingly. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Is it all?" she repeated, while she slowly rose from her chair. "Have +you anything else against him?" + +"I have really nothing against him as long as it is not a question of +my sister's husband," he hissed; "but in that case everything. And if +instead of Lensky he were called Prince Dolgorouki, I would still say, +as a husband for you he is impossible!" + +"Why--I wish to know it--why?" + +"Why? Good. I will tell you, as far as one can tell you--because he is +a wild animal, with bursts of roughness of which you cannot form the +slightest conception," said Assanow; and, striking his thin hands +together, he added, with evidently genuine excitement: "_Mais, ma +pauvre fille_, you have no suspicion to what humiliations, what +degradations, you expose yourself." + +He stopped. He looked at his sister triumphantly. She still stood +before him with her hand resting on the top of the table, staring, pale +and without a word. It would be false, to say that his speech made no +impression on her. It had made an impression on her. Still, she +ascribed all that he said to boundless, passionate opposition. While he +spoke it seemed to her as if little pointed icicles were hurled in her +face. And weary and wounded from this hailstorm of fruitless prudence, +she longed with all her heart for a reconciling delusion. + +He misunderstood her apparently great excitement, and in the firm +conviction that she already secretly began to fall in with his opinion, +he began, this time in a kindly, playful tone: "My poor Natalie, my +poor, unwise but always charming sister, you are like children who see +that they are wrong and are ashamed to acknowledge it. Well, we will +not press you too much. At first it is always painful to be undeceived; +but time cures everything, and when you are married to a distinguished +and reasonable young fellow--_un garçon distingué et raisonnable_--who +will rationally cure you of your romantic ideas, you will only think of +this youthful foolishness with a smile." + +She threw back her head and measured him from head to foot. At this +moment he seemed to her quite pitiable. How poverty-stricken, how sad +was his whole inner life, his feelings, his thoughts, to those to which +she had recently accustomed herself! "And you really believe that it +could occur to me to give up Boris Nikolaivitch?" said she slowly with +proudly curved lips. + +"I think, after what I have said to you--" He tried to be patient, and +even wished to take her hand, but she drew it back; the touch of his +cold, bloodless fingers was unpleasant to her. Yet it had never been so +before. What had changed in her? + +The prince's face took on a hard, vexed expression. "I think after what +I have told you--" he repeated. + +"Is it not true, after what you have told me, after the consolation you +have offered me, you cannot understand that I keep my word?" said she, +challengingly. "What will you, I am now so foolish?" Her voice, veiled +at first, became warmer and stronger, while she continued: "You take +away summer from me, and offer me winter as consolation--that is, you +ask of me that I should refuse everything in the world that blooms and +bears fruit, only because sometimes a devastating thunderstorm bursts +over this wealth of beauty and life! I know that in a normal winter +there are no thunderstorms, and in spite of that I prefer the summer!" + +"But it is a tropical summer!" exclaimed Assanow. + +"That may be," she replied, calmly; "but for that very reason it is +more magnificent--yes, even because of the dangers involved in it--more +magnificent than any other." + +He stood up. "It is useless to speak to you," said he, coldly; "the +only thing that remains for me is to speak to Lensky. He has a clear +head in spite of all his genius. He can be talked over." + +Then Natalie was startled out of her proud calm. "You would be +indelicate enough to say to him what you have said to me!" she burst +out. + +"In such cases it is not only wisest, but most humane, to use pure +prudence instead of foolish sentimentality," announced Assanow; and, +bowing to his sister as to a stranger, he left, with all his vexation, +still elevated by the thought that he had again had opportunity to +display his "prudence" in a brilliant light. He loved his prudence as +an artistic capability, and was glad to give proofs, by all kinds of +virtuoso performances, of its extent and unusual pliability. Whether +these productions were exactly suited to the time troubled the virtuoso +little, and that by his last threat he had attained exactly the +opposite with Natalie from what he wished, did not occur to him at all, +momentarily. + +He had gone. Natalie still stood in the middle of the room, her hand +resting on the table, and trembling in her whole body. Suddenly the +memory of the "musical confession" arose in her, which Lensky had laid +before her the morning when he tried the Amati, the confession which +had frightened her. And through her mind vibrated, piercingly and +cuttingly, the mysterious succession of tones from the Arabian +folksongs which echoed lamentingly through all his compositions--the +devil's music: Asbeïn. + +As long as she had to defend herself from her brother, she had not +realized how deeply he had wounded her. She felt at once miserable, +wounded, and discontented with life--as a young tree must feel, over +whose fragrant young spring blossoms a hailstorm has passed. Then +Lensky came in. He perceived in a moment what had happened. + +"They have tormented you on my account," said he. "Poor heart! if I +could only take all this vexation upon myself." + +She smiled at him. "Then I would not be worthy of you," replied she. + +He drew her gently toward him. Her discouragement had disappeared; +warm, strong life again pulsated in her veins. + +"Everything has its recompense," whispered she; "it is sweet to bear +something for any one whom----" + +"Well, for any one whom--please finish," he urged, and drew her closer +to him. + +"You know it without." + +"I would so love to hear you say it once." + +She raised herself on tiptoes and whispered something in his ear. + +He held her tighter and tighter to him. "Oh, my happiness, my queen!" +he murmured, and his warm lips met hers. + +She felt as if wrapped in a sunbeam, in a warm, animating atmosphere, +through which none of the critical sneers and opinions of those who +stood without the consecrated magic circle of love could penetrate. + + * * * * * + +Six weeks later Natalie and Lensky were married, and at the Russian +Embassy in Vienna. Her dowry consisted of a very incomplete trousseau, +in part lavishly trimmed with lace; of a mortgaged estate in South +Russia that had brought in no rents for three years; and of three +Cremona violins. + +While her elder brother silently concealed the true despair which the +marriage caused him behind stiff dignity, the younger, an officer of +the guard, with a becoming talent for arrogant impertinences, pleased +himself by jesting over this adventurous marriage, and describing the +"strange taste" of his sister, with a shrug of the shoulders, as a case +of acute monomania. When he spoke of his brother-in-law, he called him +nothing but "_cette bête sauvage et indécrottable_," even when he had +long made a practice of borrowing money of him. + +Neither of Natalie's brothers or her married sister appeared at her +wedding. Only the old princess accompanied her daughter to the altar. + + + + + + SECOND BOOK. + + +They trifled away the summer on the Italian coast and in Switzerland. +In the autumn Lensky made a concert tour through Germany and the +Netherlands, on which his young wife accompanied him, and attempted +with humorous zeal to accustom herself to the role of an artist's wife. +In the beginning of December Lensky and she came to St. Petersburg. The +residence had been prepared for the young pair by a friend of Natalie. +Natalie made a discontented face when she entered her new kingdom. How +new, how glaring, how unsuitable and tasteless everything looked. "It +is as if one bit into a green apple," said she; and turning to Lensky +she added, gayly, with a shrug of her shoulders: "The stupid Annette +did not know any better; but do not trouble yourself. In a couple of +weeks it will be different. You shall see how comfortably I will +cushion your nest. You must feel happy in it, my restless eagle, or +else you will fly away from me. What?" + +She said this, smiling in proud consciousness of his passionate love. +What pleasure would it give him to fly away? And teasingly, jestingly, +she pushed back the thick hair from his temples. + +Ah, how pleasant and yet tantalizing was the touch of her slender, +delicate fingers, which made him at once nervous and happy! As he +expressed it, it "almost made him jump out of his skin with rapture." +At first he let her continue her foolish, tender playfulness to her +heart's content; then he laughingly put himself on the defensive, +preached a more dignified manner to her, and when she did not yield, +but gayly continued her lovely, teasing ways, he at length seized her +violently by both wrists and quite crushed her hands with kisses. + +If in the first weeks of their married life both had been quite solemn, +thoughtful, and confused in their manner to each other, now they often +frolicked together like two gay children. + +While he took up again his long-interrupted duties at the Petersburg +Conservatory, she built him "his nest." She did not go lavishly to +work. Oh, no! She knew that one must not press down a young artist with +the burden of material cares. She imagined she was very economical. She +did not cease to wonder over the cheapness with which she could get +everything that was needed, beginning with the flowers--flowers in +winter, in St. Petersburg! He never enlightened her as to how much the +footing on which she maintained her "simple household" surpassed his +present circumstances. + +Every time that he came home he found a new, attractive change. She +accomplished great things in artistic arrangement of the so-called +"confused style," which at that time was not so common as to-day, but +was still a bold innovation. + +"_C'est tres joli, mais un peu trop touffu_," said he to her once when +she met him, quite particularly conscious of victory and awaiting +praise, with the knowledge of a new, costly improvement in the +arrangement of the drawing-room. + +"Yes, my love; but a drawing-room is neither an official audience-room +nor a gymnasium," replied she, somewhat offended. + +"Nor a ball-room nor riding-school," completed he, jestingly; +"but--h'm--still one should be able to move in it. Do you not think +so?" + +"That is as one looks at it. I have nothing to do with it if you cannot +brandish around too freely in it." + + * * * * * + +They went out in society quite frequently--in Natalie's society. That +many people, especially Natalie's near relations, made comments on the +marriage of the spoiled child of a prince with a violinist is easily +understood. But scarcely had they seen Boris and his young wife +together a few times when the comments ceased. A full, true, young +human happiness always causes respect, and, like every achievement, +bears its triumphant justification in itself. The leader of fashion, +Princess Lydia Petrovna B., declared publicly, and, indeed, in the +highest court circles, that in her opinion Natalie had acted very +wisely. + +Countess Sophie Dimitrievna went a step further when she energetically +declared that she envied Natalie. From that time every one vied in +fêting the young couple and distinguishing them. + +They both enjoyed society, but the best part of it was not entering the +brilliantly illuminated reception-rooms or being surrounded by +wondering strangers. Oh, no! the best of all was the last quarter of an +hour before they left their home, when Lensky, already in evening +dress, entered the dressing-room of his young wife. Each time he felt +anew the same pleasant excitement when he, slowly turning the knob, +after a teasing, "May I come in, Natalie?" entered the cosey room. +How charming and attractive everything was there! The room with the +light carpet and the comfortable, not too numerous articles of +cretonne-upholstered furniture; the two tiny gold-embroidered slippers +on the rough bear-skin in front of the lounge; not far off, Natalie's +house-dress, thrown over a chair, exhaling the warmth of her young, +fresh, fragrant personality. Then there on the toilet-table, with +clouds of white muslin over the pink lining, and with sparkling silver +and crystal utensils, a pretty confusion of half-opened white lace +boxes, and on the table dark velvet jewel-cases. The pleasant, mild, +and still bright light of many pink wax-candles, which stood about in +high, heavy silver candelabra, and the warm, strange, seductive +atmosphere which filled the whole room--an atmosphere which was +permeated with the fragrance of greenhouse flowers, burning +wax-candles, and the pleasant, subtle, spicy Indian perfume which clung +to all Natalie's effects. + +And there, before the tall cheval-glass, Natalie, already in evening +toilet, almost ready, her beautiful arms hanging down in pampered +helplessness; behind her a maid, just finished fastening her corsage, +and a second, with a three-branched candelabra in her hand, throwing +the light upon her mistress. + +Was that really his wife? This splendid, queenly being in the white +silk dress--she wore white silk in preference--really the wife of the +violinist, in whose life, not so far back, lay all kind of need, +humiliation, trouble of all kind? + +Then she looked around. She had a charming manner of holding her small +hands half against her cheeks, half against her neck, and turning +slowly from the glass and looking at him with lowered eyelids, and a +kind of mischievously proud and yet tenderly suppressed consciousness +of victory. "Are you satisfied, Boris?" + +What could he answer? + +"You come just as if called," then said she. "You shall put the +hair-pins in my hair. Katia is so awkward." Then she sat down in a low +chair, and handed him the hair-pins. They were wonderful hair-pins, the +heads of which were narcissi formed of diamonds, a bridal present from +Lensky. He took them with gentle fingers, and the celebrated artist was +proud if his young wife praised him for the taste with which he +fastened her diamonds in her hair. + + * * * * * + +"Natalie!" exclaimed Boris, in a tone of the greatest surprise--a +surprise made up of the greatest astonishment and not of joy--"you +here?" + +It was in his study, and nine o'clock in the morning. At this hour, +daily, in crying opposition to his former proverbial unreliability, he +had long been sitting at his writing-table. But that Natalie should +leave her bedroom before ten o'clock had hitherto been an unheard-of +occurrence. + +But to-day, just as he was about to go to the piano, to try on that +modest representative of an orchestra a completed musical phrase, he +discovered her. Quite unobserved, she had mischievously crept in, and +now crouched comfortably in a large arm-chair, which formed a very +picturesque frame for her silk wrapper, bordered with black fur. She +sat on one foot; one tiny gold-embroidered Caucasian slipper lay before +her on the floor, and she smiled tenderly at her husband with her +great, proud eyes. But the pride disappeared from her glance at his +ejaculation, an ejaculation which expressed so much perplexity, so +little joy. She started and, embarrassed, reached out for her slipper +with the tip of her foot. + +"Do I disturb you?" she asked, anxiously. "Must I go?" + +Formerly he could not bear to have any one about him when he worked. +His face wore a forced, smiling expression, while he assured her: + +"Oh, not in the slightest--pray sit down." Whereupon he pushed his +chair up to hers. + +"Oh, if you are going to treat me so!" said she. + +"How, then?" asked he. + +"Like--like any visitor," she burst out, and hastened to the door. He +brought her back. Then he saw that her eyes were full of tears. + +"But what is the matter?" + +"I am ashamed of my intrusion, that is all. Adieu--I will not disturb +you further!" + +With that she wished to free herself from him. But that was not so +easy. He took her, struggling in his arms like a child, and carried her +back by force to the immense chair which they had left. "So now, sit +there, and don't spoil my mood, you witch. Why should I not enjoy your +company for a little? Do you think, then, that I am not glad to see +you? But you do not expect that I should bend over the table, and spoil +paper, while a charming little woman sits behind me? The temptation to +talk to you is too great." + +She shook her head. "You wish to be good to me, but you pain me," +murmured she. And she added, flatteringly, "Can you really not work +when I am with you?" + +"Would you like it if I could?" he asked, and looked at her with a +quite new, penetrating expression in his eyes. + +He drew his brows together humorously; he was now kneeling before her, +and held both her hands in his. "You are not only a charming little +woman, Natalie," said he, "but, what very few such beautiful and +seductive women are, of a good heart. But still I have noticed one +thing in you, namely, that you do not like to be second anywhere. And, +do you see, everywhere else you are not only the first, but the only +one in the world for me; but here, Natalie, here it must please you +that I should forget you for my art!" + +"And do you think that I would wish it otherwise?" said she, and there +was an earnest, solemn expression in her eyes which he never forgot. +"Oh, you blind one, you do not yet know me at all. Do not kneel there +like a hero in a romance; in the long run, it looks not only awkward +but uncomfortable. Sit down by me--there is room enough in this immense +chair for us both. So! and now--now I will confess to you what I have +already so long had on my heart. Do you see, you love me, I do not +doubt that, how should I? but--do not be angry with me--sometimes I +wish that you loved me differently; I wish to be not only your petted +wife, your plaything----" + +"My plaything!" he interrupted her, very reproachfully. "Oh, Natalie! +my sanctuary!" + +"Well, then, as far as I am concerned, your sanctuary. That, looked at +in one light, is also only a plaything, even if of the most +distinguished kind." She laughed somewhat constrainedly. "It is +certainly immoderate," she continued, and hesitated a little, +"horribly immoderate, but still it is so--I--I do not want to be only +your plaything, but also your friend--do not be horrified at this +audacity--yes, your friend, your confidante. I wish to be the first to +share your newly arising thoughts. Lately, it has often hurt me that +you busy yourself so much with all kinds of trifles only to give me +pleasure. I know it is my fault; at first I was afraid of your genius, +which soared heavenward, and wished to accustom you to the earth, +and chain you close to me. But then--then I was ashamed of my +smallness--ah, so ashamed. You shall not stoop down to me; let me try +to rise to you. Spread out your mighty wings, and fly up to the stars, +but take me with you!" + +He could not speak--only kisses burned on his lips. He pressed them on +her wonderful eyes, whose holy light humiliated him. Then, after a +while, he murmured, softly: "You are nearer the stars than I, Natalie. +Show me the way, show me the way!" + + * * * * * + +From then, she daily passed a couple of hours in his study. How happy +she felt in the great, airy room, which was almost as empty as a shed. +In here she had not ventured with her soft, seductive, decorative arts. +All had remained as sober and plain as he had always been accustomed +to have his surroundings while at work. High shelves almost breaking +under their weight of music, a piano, a couple of stringed instruments, +the arm-chair in which he had established her, and two or three +cane-bottomed chairs constituted the whole furniture. On the +writing-table stood a picture of Natalie, painted in water-colors by a +young French artist in Rome. The room could show no other ornament. +Still, there in the darkest corner hung a single laurel-wreath. No +large one, such as one lays to-day at the feet of great artists, but +poor and small, and in the middle of the wreath, in a common wooden +frame, drawn with a hard lead-pencil, the face of a woman, with a white +cloth on her head, from beneath which fine, curly hair fell over the +forehead. Without being beautiful, the face was strangely attractive, +and Natalie would have liked to ask the history of the laurel-wreath +and the picture. But she did not venture to. She never, by a single +question, touched upon Lensky's past. + +He only continued to remain in solitude during the hours which he +devoted to technical practice. At other times he quietly let her stay. +She sat behind him, quite soberly and still, in the large, worn-out +patriarchal chair, and did not breathe a word. She never even took a +book in her hand, for fear of irritating him by the rattling of turning +pages, but busied herself with pretty, noiseless handiwork. + +The feeling of her presence was unendingly sweet to him. His whole +activity was increased; he worked more intently than formerly. A +fulness of music vibrated in his head and heart. And if the inward +vibrations became too dreamily sweet, too luxuriant and exuberant, he +stopped writing, sat awhile in silence, and then, without taking the +slightest notice of Natalie, walked up and down a couple of times, +hummed something to himself, made a sweeping gesture, in conclusion +took up the violin--then---- + +Natalie raised her head and listened--how wonderful that sounded! He +had unlearned the madness, but still in his melodies always sounded the +strange Arabian succession of tones, the devil's music: Asbeïn! + +She became, as she had wished, the confidante of his work. When he had +sketched on paper the plan of a composition, he played it to her, now +on his violin, which he passionately loved, now on the piano, which he +did not love; for its short tone, incapable of development, repulsed +him, but which he respected and made use of as the most complete of all +instruments. Although he played the piano, not with virtuosity, but +with the helplessness of the composer, he could still bring out +something of the "warm tone" which made his violin irresistible. + +How eagerly she listened to his compositions! How much she rejoiced in +them, and how severe she was to him! She would not let him pass over a +single musical flaw. That she rejoiced and wept over the beauties in +his compositions, that she boldly placed his genius near Beethoven and +Schumann, that is to say, near what she ranked highest in the world, +that was another thing! For that reason she was so severe. He laughed +at her sometimes for her tender delusion. Then she took his head +between her hands, and said, triumphantly: "That is all very well; only +wait a little while, then the whole world will say that you have been +the last musical poet: the others are only bunglers." + + * * * * * + +In the beginning of March he made a short artist tour through the +interior of Russia. Naturally, he could not drag her around with him, +for she could not endure the exhausting fatigues of his quick journeys, +especially at that time. But how horrible, how unbearable the parting +seemed to him! He wrote her every day. His writing was ugly and +irregular, his orthography as deficient in French as in Russian; but +what tenderness, what passion and poetry spoke from every uncultured, +stormily written line. No one could better impress his whole heart in a +short, insignificant letter than he; and what rapture, what wild, +almost painful rapture at seeing her again! She had missed him much +less than he had missed her. He reproached her for it, complained that +the new love which now began to fill her whole existence left no place +for the old. But then she measured him with such a tender, and, at the +same time, a so deeply hurt look, that he was ashamed. + +"You must not take it so," he whispered to her, appeasingly. "It is an +old story that if two hearts hasten forward together in a race of love, +one will naturally outdo the other, and still will be vexed that it is +so. But it is quite natural and in order that I should cling more to +you than you to me." + +She smiled quite sadly. "We will see who will win the race in the end," +murmured she. + + * * * * * + +Natalie no longer went into society. Her health was much impaired. She +passed the entire month of April stretched on her lounge, in loose +wrappers. She now reproached herself with having been foolish not to +have spared herself before. The time of tormenting fancy approached for +the young wife, the time of concealed anxiety for them both. In spite +of the consoling assurances of the physician, Lensky was no longer +himself, from anxiety and despair. But he did not let her notice it. +When he was with her he had always a gay smile on his lips and a droll +story for her diversion. He cared for her like a mother. + +Then, toward the end of May, came the most tormenting hour he had ever +lived through, until at last--when he already believed that all hope +was lost--a little, thin, shrill sound smote his ear. It startled him, +his heart beat loudly; still he did not venture to move, but listened, +until at last the doctor came out of the adjoining room, and called to +him: "All is over." + +He misunderstood the words. "She is dead!" he gasped. + +"No, no! Boris Nikolaivitch; everything is as well as possible. Come!" + +He felt as would a man buried alive, if one should raise the lid from +his coffin. + +At the door of the bedroom a fat old woman, with a large cap, came +toward him. "A son, a very fine young one!" said she, triumphantly, +while she laid something tiny and rosy, wrapped in white cloth and +lace, in his arms. + +Tears fell from his eyes, and his hands trembled so that the nurse was +horrified and took the child away from him. + +He went up to Natalie, who, deathly pale and exhausted, but with a +lovely, indescribable expression on her face, at once of tenderness and +of a certain solemn pride, lay among the high-piled pillows. Quite +softly, with a kind of timidity which his violent love had hitherto +never known, he pressed her pale hand to his lips. + +"Are you content?" she whispered, dreamily and scarcely audibly. "Are +you content?" + + * * * * * + +She recovered rapidly. Her beauty had lost none of its charm, but had +rather won an earnest--one might almost say consecrated--loveliness. + +Her face reflected her happiness. That also had become a shade deeper, +nobler. In spite of all her pampered habits, she insisted upon caring +for the child herself. He let her have her way. + +The former dressing-room was changed to a nursery. Sometimes, in the +long, transparent twilight of the spring, he entered the room in which, +in winter, he had passed so many charming hours by candle-light, and +where now everything was so changed. A cradle stood in the place which +formerly the toilet-table had occupied--ah, what a cradle--a dream of a +cradle! A basket with a canopy of green silk, hung with a long, +transparent lace veil, a costly nest for a young bird whose little eyes +must be shielded, by all kinds of tender devices, from the bright +light, which perhaps later would pain him so! + +The air, quite filled with a pleasant, mild, damp vapor, was permeated +by a weak perfume of iris and warming linen, and, besides that, with +something quite strange, quite peculiarly sweet, stirring--the breath +of a healthy, fresh, carefully cared-for little child. + +And there, where the cheval-glass had formerly reflected to him the +lovely form of a proud queen of beauty, now sat in the same large +arm-chair, a tender young mother, her child on her breast. The lines of +her neck, from which the loose, white dress had slipped down a little +so that the outline of the shoulders was visible, was charming; but +what was it, to the lovely, attentive expression with which she looked +down at the child? + +Everything about her expressed tenderness: her look, her smile, the +hands with which she held the child to her. It was just these small, +white hands which Lensky could not cease to observe. How helpless they +had formerly been--and now! She would scarcely let the nurse touch +baby. He was never weary of watching how untiringly she touched the +tiny, frail body of the infant, and did a thousand services for it +which all resembled caresses. + + * * * * * + +"It is all very beautiful, but you have a manner of ignoring me in this +little kingdom," said Lensky, jokingly, to the young mother, while he +threw a look of humorous vexation at the young despot whom she just +laid in the cradle. + +She bent her head a little to one side, and whispered roguishly, while +she came up to him and played with the lapel of his coat: "Do you see, +Boris, this is my study. Everywhere else you are not only the first but +the only one in the world for me; but here you must be content if I +sometimes forget you for my calling." + +He laughed. + +"Do you know that you once said something similar to me; that time when +I, for the first time, dared to enter your sanctuary?" she murmured, +and repeated petulantly: "Do you know it?" + +He kissed both of her hands, one after the other. "Do you then believe +that I could ever forget such a thing, my angel?" whispered he. "I am +no such spendthrift; oh, no! If you knew how I cherish this dear +remembrance! That is pure happiness which we will keep for our old +days, when the sun no longer seems to us to shine as brightly, and we +must light a poor candle in order to find our path again to a suitable +grave." + + * * * * * + +Natalie still thought of the poor laurel wreath in his study. But she +did not venture to ask him a direct question about it. + +He himself, of his own accord, at last told her the history of the +pitiful relic. + +He had never spoken to her of his childhood, but once a great impulse +came over him to tell her the whole; to lay bare before her all the +pitiableness of his past. What would she then say to it? + +It was a clear summer night, out on the terrace of the country house +near St. Petersburg, which they had hired for the summer, the terrace +which looked out on the small but pretty and shady garden. They sat +there, hand in hand; around them the dull, gray light of a day that +will not die, sweet perfume of flowers, and in the tree tops the gentle +rustling of the kissing leaves. She talked of gay, insignificant +things; gave him a droll, laughing description of a visit to one of her +friends. At first it amused him; then something, he could not have said +what, irritated him against this monstrous principle of gliding so +triflingly and mockingly through life without ever glancing into it +more deeply. + +"What would she say if she knew?" thought he. "Perhaps she would shun +me!" A kind of madness overcame him. He felt the wish to risk his +happiness in order to convince himself of its durability, to put his +petted wife to the test. "How you butterflies, floating over flowers in +the sunshine, must be horrified at the miserable worms who creep over +the earth!" he began bitterly. + +"What are you thinking of?" asked she, astonished. + +"Nothing especial, only that I was originally just such a worm, +creeping over the earth." + +"Ah! that is long past!" she interrupted him hastily. She wished to +keep him from long dwelling on an unpleasant thought, but he suspected +that his insinuation of his humble antecedents vexed her, and that she +felt the need of forgetting his derivation. He looked at her from head +to foot, with an angry, wondering glance. Her richly embroidered white +dress, the large diamonds in her ears,--how the diamonds sparkled in +the dull evening light! + +Then he began to speak of his childhood, dryly, with a smile on his +lips as if it was a question of something quite indifferent and +amusing. + +In a large tenement at Moscow, overcrowded with all kinds of human +vermin, had he grown up; in the half of a room that was divided by a +sail, behind which another poor family hungered. His father he did not +remember. His mother sang to the guitar in wine rooms. When he was five +years old she had bought him a fiddle for four rubles, and then some +one, a dissolute musician, who often came to them, had taught him to +scrape on it a little. From that time he accompanied his mother when +she sang in the wine rooms,--or even on the streets, as it happened. + +She had been pretty; the drawing which hung in the laurel wreath, and +which an artist in their horrible dwelling-place had made of her, was +like her. Only she had quite unusually beautiful teeth which one could +not see in the picture. He remembered these teeth very well, because +she laughed so much, especially if there was little to eat and she made +him take it all, and declared she had spoiled her appetite at a +friend's house with fresh _pirogj_. Once the thought had occurred to +him that she only said so because there was not enough for two, and +then he could not eat anything more. If there was nothing at all to +eat, either for him or for her, she told him a story. + +Had he loved her? Yes, he believed so--how could it be otherwise? But +the consciousness of what she really had been to him only came to him +when he was no longer with her. How that happened he really did not +know, but one fine day she took him in a part of the city which he had +never known until then, in a handsome residence that seemed so +beautiful to him that he only ventured to go around on tiptoes. At the +door a fat, yellow man, with long, greasy, black hair, received him, +and told his mother it was all right. Then she kissed him a last time, +told him she would take him away in an hour, and went. + +He was taken in a room with gay furniture, and there greeted by a fat +woman with a thick gold chain over the bosom of her violet silk dress, +and with rings on all her short, stumpy, wrinkled fingers, and was +entertained with tea, cake, and honey. He had never before enjoyed a +similar repast. He felt in an elevated frame of mind. + +When the fat man--he was a mediocre musician who had married a rich +merchant's daughter, who gave him none of her money, however--told him +that he should always stay with him, and never go back to his mother, +he was glad, and felt the consciousness of having taken a step forward +in the world. + +Did that surprise Natalie? He could not help it, it was still so. +"Strange what roughness men show before a little bit of civilization +has taught them to conceal it," he added reflectively. + +Did he not feel anxiety later? Natalie wished to know. Yes, for his new +life contained nothing of that which he had promised himself. That he +should live in the beautiful rooms with the master and mistress and eat +with them, as he had thought at first, had been an illusion. Only the +two children of the fat daughter of the merchant could tumble around on +the sofas, with their fiery-red, woolen, damask covering, and could +help themselves from all the dishes. + +He lived on charity; they told him that every day. The musician had +bought him of his mother for fifty rubles, as Lensky afterward learned, +as a speculation, in order to make money out of him as a prodigy. The +time which he did not devote to his musical practice he must spend +helping the maid in the kitchen. + +He slept, with an old sofa pillow under his head, on the floor, in a +gloomy little room, without window, only with dirty panes of glass in +the door--a room in which the cook put all kinds of rubbish. Dampness +ran down the walls, and every evening from all corners crept out a +whole regiment of black beetles, and spread themselves over the boards. +The food? Well, it was sparing. Sometimes he only received what the +family had left on their plates. + +Was he not angry at this treatment? No. He found it quite in order at +that time. The well-fed, warmly dressed people impressed him, +especially the cap of Vauvara Ivanovna--that was the name of his +mistress. He felt a respectful shudder pass over him every time he saw +this structure of blonde, red flowers, and green ribbon. Except the +Kremlin, nothing impressed him so much as this house. + +When the whole family, in festival attire, went to church on Sunday, he +stood at the door, quite oppressed by the feeling of modest wonder, and +looked after the well-dressed, well-fed people. He did his best to make +himself useful and agreeable, and to please them. Yes, he was just so +small and pitiable, as a half-starved six-year-old pigmy. And then, +in conclusion, one day he simply could bear it no longer and ran back +to his mother. He found the way. With that quite animal sense of +locality and traces, which only children of the lowest classes of men +have, he found it. His mother was at home; she was frightened when +she saw him. Had they turned him out? Yes, she was frightened. In +the first moment she was frightened; then--here Lensky stammered +in his confession--naturally she was glad; for, what use of losing +words?--naturally she was glad. How she kissed him and caressed him +with her poor, rough, toil-worn, and still such gentle, warm hands. He +still felt her hands sometimes on him, in dreams, especially behind his +ears and on his neck. Then she fed him. She spread a red and white +flowered cloth over the table in his honor, and after that she gave him +a holy picture. Then she said it could not be otherwise; he must go +back to Simon Ephremitsch; it was for his own good. When he had become +a great artist, then he would come to fetch her in a coach with four +horses. + +That impressed him. And in order to calm him completely, she promised +to visit him very soon. + +But she did not come; and when he ran back to her, after about a month, +she was no longer in her old abode; he never found her! Soon afterward +she sent him two pretty little shirts, delicately embroidered in red +and blue. But she herself did not come. Never! + +At his first appearance in public--he had performed his piece +with the anxious assiduity of a little monkey that fears a blow, he +asserted--to his great astonishment, he was applauded. In the midst of +the hand-clapping he suddenly heard a sob. He was convinced that his +mother had been at the concert. + +At the conclusion they handed him a laurel wreath, the same which now +hung in his room; quite a poor woman had brought it, they said. He +guessed immediately that the wreath came from his mother; and suddenly, +just as a couple of music-lovers had stepped on the stage, in order to +see the wonderful little animal near by, he began to stamp his feet and +clench his fists, to scream and to sob, until every one crowded around +him. His principal threatened him with blows; a very pretty young lady +in a blue-silk dress took him on her lap to quiet him; but all was of +no use. + +He saw his mother once more--in her coffin. + +His benefactor told him that she was dead, and that, after all, it was +suitable that he should show her the last honors. The coffin stood on a +table, surrounded by thin, poorly-burning candles, and she lay within, +so small and thin, her hands folded on her breast, in a poor shroud, +that they had bought ready made for a few copecks. + +In the beginning, Natalie had interrupted him with questions, but now +she had long been silent. He looked at her challengingly, at every +pitiful, repulsive detail, especially if it brought forward a trace of +his own insignificance. It was quite as if he expressly tried to pain +her. But when he came to speak of the death of his mother, whose form, +in the midst of his glaring, sharp description, he drew so tenderly and +vaguely, obliterating everything disturbing, as if he saw her, in +remembrance, only through tears, he closed his eyes. + +Suddenly he heard near him a suppressed sound of pain, then something +like the falling of the over-abundant load of blossoms from a tree +among whose spring adornment there yet moves no breath of air. + +He started, looked up--there was Natalie on her knees before him, the +beauty, the queenly, proud one, and had embraced him with both arms, as +if she would shield him from all the woes of earth, and sobbed as if +she could not console herself for his past suffering. + +"Natalie! my angel, do you really love me so?" + +"One cannot love you enough, or recompense you enough for all that you +have missed," whispered she. + +And he had really for one moment suspected that---- + +He raised her on his knees. They did not speak another word. Through +the garden at their feet the birches rustled in the mild night breeze, +and from the distance one heard the sad voice of a marsh bird, who with +heavy beating wings flew to the neighboring pond. + +The most beautiful love will always be that which has been sanctified +by a great compassion. In that mild summer night, while all around them +was fragrance and veiled light, Natalie's love had received its +consecration. + + * * * * * + +Three, four years passed; a second little child lay in the pretty, +veiled cradle, from which little Nikolai first made his solemn +observation of the world--a dear little plump maiden, whom they +baptized Mascha, after the grandmother, and whom Boris particularly +idolized. There was still nothing to report of Natalie's married life +but love, happiness, and beauty. Lensky kept every unpleasant +impression far from her, surrounded her with the most touching care, +overwhelmed her with the most poetic attentions. Her life at his side +unrolled itself like a long, secret, passionate love-poem. + +Natalie's family had reconciled themselves to her marriage. Even for +the wise and arrogant Sergei Alexandrovitch it had the appearance that +he had been mistaken in his discouraging prediction, as happens even to +the wisest men, if with their predictions they have only the sober +probability in view, without thinking of the possibility of some +underlying miracle. After four years of married life Natalie was as +happy as a bride. + +Still, Lensky's happiness was not as unclouded as that of his wife. A +great unpleasantness became ever more significant to him, the quite +universal coldness of his artistic relations. + +It would be wrong to believe that Natalie, with systematic jealousy, +had wished to estrange him from the world of artists. On the contrary, +she had complied with his wish to make her acquainted with his +colleagues and their families, had herself asked it of him, +flatteringly. + +The world of artists interested her. There, everything was more +animated, more meaning, than the eternal sameness of good society which +she knew by heart, quite by heart, she assured him tenderly. She made +it her ambition to win his acquaintances for hers. But strangely +enough, in spite of all her seductive loveliness, she succeeded only +very incompletely. + +She had already known the _élite_ among the artists. There is nothing +further to be said of her relations with these favored of the gods, +exceptional existences, than that she always felt honored by +intercourse with them, and pleased, and that, when with them she ever +vexed herself over the worn-out old commonplace, that one should avoid +the acquaintance of famous men in order to prevent disappointment--a +commonplace which was probably invented for the consolation of those +who, in advance, are excluded from intercourse with celebrities. That +Natalie always succeeded in winning the sympathies of these exceptional +natures stands for itself. + +But when it was a question of that great crowd of artists, of the +mixture of sickly vanity, embarrassed affairs, depressing relations, +etc., then it was hard to build up a friendship between Lensky's wife +and his old colleagues. + +Envy of Lensky, envy which had reference largely to his artistic +results, and in a less degree to his marriage and social position, +peeped out everywhere from these people, and had its own results in +soon completely embittering the not very pleasant relations between +them and Natalie. + +In a truly friendly, touchingly friendly manner, they only met her in +quite modestly circumstanced families--families of a few true artists +who yet could accomplish nothing with their work but to honestly and +poorly provide for their seven or eight children. Families of simple +people, who had formerly been good to Lensky in the difficult beginning +of his career, and to whom he always showed the most faithful +adherence, the most prodigal generosity. She also felt happy among +these plain people. + +What wonder that these people would all have gone through fire for him! +They would also have all given of their best for Natalie, whom without +envy they worshipped with enthusiasm as a queen. They rejoiced that +Lensky, their pride, their idol, possessed such a beautiful and +distinguished wife--in their eyes the daughter of the emperor would not +have been too good for him. + +Natalie thanked them for their great attachment, as well as she could; +she reckoned it a special favor to receive these modest people in her +home, to invite them with their wives and children, to entertain them +with distinction, to stuff all the children's pockets full of bonbons, +and give them little parting presents. + +But intercourse with these poor devils was in reality only a +sentimental game, even as intercourse with the artistic _élite_ was +nothing but an ideal recreation. Neither the one nor the other sufficed +to firmly knit the band between Lensky's wife and his former world, or +to keep up his popularity in that world. + + * * * * * + +Of all the opposition and difficulty which would arise therefrom for +Lensky's future and especially for his yet to be won future as +composer, Natalie still suspected nothing. For her, the whole heaven +was still blue. + +Then the first deep shadow fell on her happiness. Lensky, to whom every +long separation from her was unbearable, when he undertook a long tour +through central Europe, in spite of her express request, could not +resolve to leave her behind with the children, in St. Petersburg. The +little children were left under the care of their grandmother. + +For the first time, Natalie was no amusing, but a dull and nervous, +travelling companion. An unbearable anxiety followed her like a +foreboding. All his attempts to console her were in vain. + +In Dusseldorf, she received, by telegraph, the news that little Mascha +was ill with diphtheria. When she arrived in Petersburg, half dead from +anxiety and breathless haste, the child lay in her coffin. + +He was almost as desperate as she. He overwhelmed himself with +self-reproaches;--who knows, if they had watched the child better, if +they had thought of this or that in caring for it.... What torment, to +be obliged to say that to one's self! A reproach never passed her lips, +she even concealed her tears lest they should sadden him. But from that +unhappiness on, something in her formerly so elastic nature, so capable +of resistance, was broken forever. The first jubilant time of their +marriage was at an end. + + * * * * * + +Together with the evermore unpleasant friction with his colleagues, and +the great pain for his lost child, still another worry announced itself +to Lensky--something gnawing, and incessantly tormenting: a daily +increasing money embarrassment. Natalie decidedly spent too much, but +quite naïvely, with the firm conviction that she could not exist more +economically; wherefore it was doubly hard for him to be finally +obliged to tell her that he could not raise the money to continue the +household on the footing to which she had been accustomed. + +It was quite touching to see how frightened she was when he made her +the first communication in reference to it--frightened, not at the +prospect of having to save, but only at the thoughtlessness by which +she had burdened Lensky with cares. She immediately showed herself +ready for the most exaggerated reforms. But to live with his wife like +a proletary, in St. Petersburg, among her brilliant relations and +friends, he could not bring himself to do. + +In the autumn of the same year, he moved with his family to ----, a +large German capital, where he had accepted the direction of a +significant musical undertaking. + +But here the conflict between his artistic and family life which had +arisen through his alliance with Natalie, came to light with more +detestable clearness. + +He was in his element, as an artist whose powers have found a wide, +noble sway. + +The great musical undertaking, at whose head they had placed him, +flourished wonderfully under his lead. The fiery earnestness with +which he undertook it won him all musical hearts. Also the atmosphere +in ---- was sympathetic to him for other reasons. He had a crowd of old +connections there, acquaintances of his first virtuoso period, people +who surrounded him, distinguished him, with whom he could speak of his +art--which always remained sacred and earnest to him, and never, for +him, deteriorated to a more or less noble means of earning his living, +or to a social pedestal--in quite a different manner than with the +elegant dilettantis who had gradually crowded out every other society +from his house in St. Petersburg. They gave one artistic festival after +the other in his honor, and all this entertained him. + +His wife appeared with him a couple of times on such occasions, then +she excused herself--she had no pleasure in them. She felt isolated, an +insurmountable home-sickness tormented her. + +Without confessing it, for the first time since her marriage the +position which she occupied with Lensky angered her. + +In St. Petersburg she had always remained with him the Princess +Assanow, he had ascended to her world; here she must suddenly satisfy +herself with his world. She was too vexed, too angrily excited to seek +in this world all the true interest, earnestness, and nobility that +were to be found therein. + +She had intimate intercourse only with an old friend of her youth, a +certain Countess Stolnitzky, who went out but little and consequently +had time enough for Natalie. + +Lensky begged Natalie to open her drawing-room one or two evenings a +week, that is to say to his friends. Natalie's drawing-room became a +meeting-place for all kinds of artistic leaders, among which the +dramatic element formed the principal contingent, and this chiefly +because Lensky wished to have an opera performed. + +For him, intercourse with dramatic artists had no unpleasantness; he +had been accustomed to it from youth. But it became unpleasant to +Natalie after she had satisfied that superficial curiosity which every +woman living in severely exclusive circles feels concerning these +theatrical people. + +The only people that were still more unpleasant to Natalie, in her +drawing-room, than this crowd of people still smelling of freshly +washed-off paint, were the aristocrats who came there to meet the +artists. And many of these came--very many, all who coquetted with a +little bit of musical interest--yes, and many others. "Very +interesting, these _soirées_ at Lensky's," they always said, when these +were spoken of; "very interesting; they always have very good music +there, and then one meets a crowd of amusing people whom one never sees +anywhere else. And the wife is really charming--quite _comme il faut_." + +"She is a Russian princess," a foreigner interrupted, who belonged to +the diplomatic corps. + +The native women turned up their noses repellently. They placed no +great confidence in the distinction of Russian princesses who married +artists. + +Natalie was so ignorant of their rooted prejudices that she greeted the +ladies who came to her house with the greatest frankness as her equals. +She caused offence by her naïveté, and noticed it. People came to +Lensky, not to her--if she would only understand that they wished +to be as polite as possible to her, in the somewhat narrow limits of +well-bred society--but she must understand it. + +She did understand. When she observed that most of the ladies accepted +her invitations without returning them, yes, when it happened that the +art-loving Princess C. sent Lensky an invitation to a _soirée_, and +overlooked his wife, then she understood. It began to tell upon her, to +aggravate her. + +She fulfilled her duties as hostess with displeasure, did the honors +negligently, and did nothing to animate her receptions. My God! people +came there to hear music and to rave over her husband,--she was no +longer necessary. She became quite foolish and childish. + +She was used to the homage that was paid her husband, she would have +been fearfully angry if they had not paid him enough; but in Russia, +this homage was shown in quite a different, much nobler, intenser form; +in Russia he was a great man, before whom every one removed his hat, a +sacred being of whom the nation was proud; men and women of the highest +rank showed him the same respect. + +But in ----, except one or two particularly enthusiastic lovers of +music, none of the nobility appeared in his house, with the exception +of the ladies. Why did he ask them? He ridiculed them--but yet their +flattery pleased him. He had dedicated a composition to more than one +of them. + +Natalie was almost beside herself with rage. For the first time she +felt a certain jealousy. Among others, there was a little dark Polish +woman, married to a Swedish diplomat, and separated from him, a +Countess Löwenskiold. She purred around him like a kitten. + +Formerly he would have noticed the change in Natalie immediately, but +for the first time since their marriage he forgot, not only in his +study but elsewhere, his wife for his art. He was so happy in his art, +so completely occupied with it, that he scarcely noticed the pitiful +social pin-pricks which formerly would have caused him vexation enough, +and consequently did not consider the importance they had for Natalie. + +The study of his opera, for which they had placed at his disposal the +best facilities at the command of the ---- Theatre, went steadily +forward. The artists liked to work under his direction, and with +enthusiasm did their utmost to do justice to his work. Joy fevered in +every vein when he came home from the rehearsals. + + * * * * * + +It was toward the end of the carnival. One of Lensky's musical +_soirées_ had been visited by quite an unusual number of brilliant +visitors. A very large number of ladies of the best society had been +there. + +They had all appeared in brilliant toilets, with bare shoulders, and +diamonds and feathers in their hair. Natalie was also in evening dress, +while the wives of Lensky's colleagues and all the ladies present not +belonging to the court circle had come in high-necked dresses. + +When the aristocratic ladies, with profuse thanks for the musical treat +offered them, had withdrawn before eleven o'clock, because they must, +"alas!" still go "into society," into Natalie's social world, but which +was closed to her in ----, Natalie remained the only woman in her +drawing-room with bare shoulders. + +Lensky, who had just accompanied some tedious Highness politely out of +the room, now returned to the music-room, closed the door, behind which +the noble patroness had disappeared, and cried gayly: "So, children, +now we can be among ourselves, and enjoy a comfortable evening." + +"Among ourselves!" These words pierced Natalie like a poisoned +stiletto. "Among ourselves!" She bit her lower lip, angrily. + +Meanwhile, pushing back the hair from his temples with both hands, +Lensky asked: "Would the gentlemen like to play the Schumann E-flat +major quartette with me before we sit down to supper?" Then he looked +over at Natalie and smiled. She knew that he proposed this wonderful +quartette for her sake, because it was her favorite, but she was +already so over-excited that the touching little attention made no +impression on her. She remained as defiant and bad-tempered as before. + +While they played she let her eyes wander gloomily over the already +empty hired cane-bottomed chairs, which stood around in regular rows. +She asked herself bitterly, what really was the difference between her +"reception evenings" and any other concert?--that the people paid their +admission with compliments instead of money! And while she made these +useless and vexing observations, the most noble music that was ever +written vibrated around her heart, like an admonition of how small all +these worldly, outward vanities were in comparison with the lofty, +god-like being of true art! And her obstinate heart had already begun +to understand the sermon and to be ashamed, when she observed two bold +eyes of a man staring from across the room at her bare shoulders. The +eyes belonged to a certain Mr. Arnold Spatzig, the most influential +musical critic and journalist in ----. Scarcely had he noticed that her +look met his when he left his chair, in order, crossing the room, to +take his place near Natalie, and continue his insolent scrutiny from +near by. He was a disagreeable man, with thick lips, spectacles, and +boldly displayed cynicism. Natalie, who could not endure him, had +formerly tolerated him on Lensky's account. Now she felt so insulted by +his manner, that, with the vehement impoliteness of a spoiled woman +whose pride is wounded and who is excluded from her natural sphere, she +sprang up, and turning her back directly to Mr. Arnold Spatzig, +hastened away from him. + +And now the quartette was over, and also the supper which followed, +exquisite and over-abundant as ever, at which Lensky did the honors +with that heartiness, not overlooking the least of his guests, which +was peculiar to him. + +It was two o'clock, and the house was empty; the lights still burned. +Lensky was busy arranging the music on the piano, Natalie stood in the +middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, evidently trying to +suppress a nervous attack. She held her handkerchief to her lips--it +was no use. Suddenly she cried out: "Must I receive these people? I +would rather scrub the floor!" And with that she made a gesture as if +she would tear something apart. + +"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He had become deadly pale, and his +voice trembled. + +She only drew her brows gloomily together and continued to gnaw at her +handkerchief. + +Then he lost patience. He seized a large Japanese vase, and threw it +with such force on the floor that it broke in pieces; then he left the +room, slamming the door behind him. + +But Natalie looked after him, offended, and broke out in fierce, +whimpering sobs. + +A few minutes later when she, still weeping and trembling in every +limb, leaned against a sofa, in whose cushions she had buried her face, +she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up, Lensky had come up +to her. The traces of his difficultly mastered irritation were still on +his deathly pale face, but he bent down anxiously to her and said +gently: "Calm yourself, please, Natalie; it is no matter. Poor Natalie! +I should have thought of it sooner. You shall never again receive any +one--not a person--who does not please you, only stop crying; that I +cannot bear." + +At the first friendly word that he said to her, her whole ill humor +changed to tormenting remorse and shame. "You will not take what +I said to you in earnest," said she. "It is not possible that you +should take this madness in earnest. I am so ashamed--ah, I cannot tell +you how ashamed I am! I acted unjustifiably, but I was so tired, so +nervous--scold me, be angry with me, and only then forgive me, or else +your indulgence will oppress me too heavily," and with that she kissed +his hands and sobbed--sobbed incessantly. + +He caressed her like a little child whom one wishes to soothe, and she +continued: "I will suit myself better to my position, I will be +friendly to every one--as if I could not make that little sacrifice to +your artistic position!" + +Then he interrupted her: "I will accept no sacrifice from you, not the +slightest, that I cannot do," said he. "What have you to trouble +yourself about my artistic position? You have nothing at all to do but +to love me and be happy--if you still can," he added softly, with a +tenderness that for the first time since his marriage had a bitter +savor. + +But she looked up at him in the midst of her tears, with glorified +happiness. "If I still can?" she whispered, drawing his head down +to her--he now sat on the sofa beside her, with his arm around her +waist--"if I still can!" His lips met hers, her head sank on his +shoulder. + +The candles in the chandeliers had burned low down, one of them went +out, and in going out threw a couple of sparks down on the pieces of +the Japanese vase which Lensky had broken in his anger. He had sent it +to Natalie filled with roses, in Rome, while they were betrothed, +therefore she loved it and had brought it with them to ----. + +His eyes rested on the pieces with a peculiar sad look. "And now lie +down and see that you sleep after your excitement," said he to the +young wife. She followed him like a little child. He mixed her the +sleeping potion of orange essence, to which she was accustomed, and +calmed her with pleasant patient words. A happy smile lay on her lips +when she at length fell asleep. + +But he did not close his eyes during the whole night, he did not even +lie down; but sat in his room at the writing-table. He wished to work +on something, but the music-paper remained untouched beneath his pen. + +How could she so give way, at the first little trial which she had ever +had? Why had she spoken of a sacrifice? sacrifice! he would take no +sacrifice from her. + + * * * * * + +Natalie's reception days were given up under pretext of the illness of +his young wife. From that time, Lensky saw most of his friends only +outside of his house--his "patronesses" he saw no more. + +Natalie was ashamed of her small, pitiful discontent, was ashamed of +the scene she had made her husband, and still was foolish enough to +rejoice over her victory, and to fully profit by it. + +She offered all her intellectual, flattering, charming lovableness to +recompense for the loss she had caused him, and to quite win him again +for herself. She thought of all his preferences in her housekeeping, +which, in the beginning, she had somewhat neglected in ----; with half +unconscious slyness, she knew how to profit by his small as well as his +great qualities; to attain her aim, knew how to touch his heart as well +as to flatter his vanity. In full measure she attained what she strove +for. Forgetting all the prudence which his position demanded, he laid +just as enthusiastic homage at her feet as in the very first time of +his marriage. But she was so charming! And how well her defiant +arrogance became her! that arrogance which would bend to no one and +only with her loved one melted into passionate submission. + +What did the great artist coterie which his wife had repulsed say to +all this? Oh, who could trouble one's self about all these people? + +Meanwhile, during this happy intoxicated period he had met with one +vexation that concerned him very nearly. Three weeks before the +appointed date for the production of his "Corsair," the prima donna of +the ---- opera, Madame D., an artist of the first rank, for whom he had +quite specially written the principal feminine _rôle_, declared that +she would not sing it under any consideration. Lensky knew very well +that he had to thank the senseless arrogance of his wife for the sudden +opposition of this irritable leader; it was bitter to him; but without +telling Natalie a word of it, he choked down this unpleasant affair, +and submitted to seeing the part which the artiste had thoroughly +learned and brought to such splendid perfection intrusted now to the +weak powers of a talented but awkward beginner. + + * * * * * + +The evening of the representation came. They were both feverish, he and +she; but she fevered in expectation of a great triumph, he trembled +before a defeat. + +He knew that his work had three things against it: a libretto that, for +an opera, was over-finely poetic, and poor in dramatic effect, the weak +representation of the principal _rôle_, and the whole coterie of +artists and bohemians in the audience excited against him by the +arrogance of his wife. Perhaps his music would save the situation. The +music was beautiful, that he knew; he must build on that. + +Natalie made the sign of the cross on his forehead and hung a +consecrated Byzantine saint's picture, in a strange gold and black +enamel frame, around his neck before he went into the fire, that is to +say, before he drove to the opera-house to take the baton in his hand. +He smiled at this superstitious action and let it happen. + +The greatest heroes like to avail themselves of a little celestial +protection before a battle. + +In the opera-house he found everything in the best condition, +courageous, ready for battle. An hour later he mounted the director's +rostrum. + +Once he turned his head to the audience, and his eyes sought Natalie. +There she sat near the stage in a box in the first row, which she +shared with the Countess Stolnitzky. She wore a black velvet dress, in +her hair sparkled the diamond narcissi which he had given her as +bridegroom; around her neck was wound a thick string of pearls which +the Empress of Russia had sent him for her once when he played at +court. In the whole theatre there was no woman who could compare with +her in proud, beaming, and yet indescribably lovely beauty. She smiled +at him constrainedly. What was not hidden in that scarcely perceptible +smile! For the last time a kind of happy, proud delirium of love lay +hold upon him. He knocked on the desk, raised his arm, and the violins +began. + +With a kind of magnificent, fiery earnestness, and with that, quite +classically severe in the musical roundness and connection of the +motives, the overture sounded through the crowded hall. It was rather +too long, and as the learned ones among the audience remarked, was +better suited for the first movement of a symphony than the +introduction of an opera. But what of that! the music was beautiful, +wonderfully beautiful, full of sad sweetness and quite demon-like, +ravishing power. Here, also, sounded the strange Arabian succession of +tones again, which was the characteristic of all his compositions, the +devil's tones: Asbeïn. + +Natalie did not hear a sound, the buzzing in her ears, the beating of +her heart was too loud. + +The last piercing chord resounded through the hall. What was that? An +immense burst of applause, unending bravos; the overture had to be +repeated. + +It was with difficulty that Natalie could keep from sobbing aloud. +Again her smile sought his. A beautiful expression of noble, earnest +peace was on his features, but his glance did not answer hers, he had +forgotten her for his work. + +The curtain rose. Natalie scarcely breathed, her hot blood crept slowly +through her veins like chilling metal, her ears no longer buzzed, on +the contrary her hearing was uncommonly sharp; only she could not take +in the music, but listened to all kinds of other things. The rustling +of a dress, the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a voice caused her +such excitement that it seemed to her, each time, as if she had been +shot through the heart by a pistol. The unexpected result of the +overture had increased her nervous tension still further. + +During the first two acts the opinion remained favorable. After the +second act, the Russian ambassador presented himself to Natalie to +congratulate her. + +While she received his congratulations, still trembling with +excitement, she suddenly heard quite loud talking, in a box not far +from her. + +It was the box of that same Princess C., who was mentioned as +particularly musical, and who had invited Lensky to a _soirée_ and +passed over Natalie. Between her and another art-loving woman sat Mr. +Arnold Spatzig. Up to a certain point, he had access to the highest +circles of society, that is to say, he was patronized by a couple of +ladies who were bored in their "world," and who consequently liked to +attract men from some "other world" to them for a short entertainment, +not a long engagement, to be amused by them. + +"These plebeian men at least take pains to amuse," the ladies were +accustomed to remark, and Arnold Spatzig decidedly took pains to amuse. + +Once he raised his opera-glass to his eyes, and stared long and boldly +in Natalie's face. + +The third act began with an aria by Gualnare, that is to say, with a +kind of duet between her and the ocean, which was represented by the +orchestra. For a concert piece the number was interesting and original, +but peculiarly unsuited to the beginning of the third act of an opera. +Only the splendid vocal powers and the poetic comprehension of Madame +D., for whom the aria was written, could have saved it; the powers of +the beginner who sang the part of Gualnare that evening were not at all +equal to her task, her voice, wearied by the exertions of the two +preceding acts, sounded almost extinct, her acting was awkward. + +Natalie observed the bad impression which this number made on the +audience. Anxiously she looked around the theatre: the people were +patient, had too much sympathy for the virtuoso Lensky to +inconsiderately insult the composer. + +On the stage, still continued the endless ocean duet. Still, in the +same monotonous time, Gualnare advanced to the waves and retreated from +them, quite as if she were dancing a _pas de deux_ with the sea. Then +Natalie heard laughing; the laughing sounded from the box of Princess +C. + +Dr. Spatzig bent over to her, smiling, whispered something to her. She +laughed--how heartily she laughed! The opera-glasses of many ladies in +the boxes sought the Doctor's critical glance; Spatzig laughed, the +Princess laughed, the whole theatre laughed. + +The aria was at an end, the gallery applauded. "Ss--ss--ss." What was +that cutting, piercing sound which killed the applause? + +Natalie became white as chalk; her friend sought her hand; Natalie drew +it away; no human sympathy could be of use to her. + +From that moment the enthusiasm of the audience rapidly declined. The +lack of dramatic action in the libretto became more and more +significant. More and more difficultly the poor music dragged along +amidst a succession of glaring spectacular effects, which monotonously +made place for each other without ever forming an interesting contrast. +And the music was so beautiful. There was something so heavily majestic +in the rhythm, here and there at once a trifle monotonous and +over-laden, but in the accompaniment so wonderfully beautiful in spite +of all, and furnished with a richness of melody unattainable by any of +the other composers of the time, never approaching the trivial, but +always remaining noble. + +The audience was weary, and like every wearied audience, mocking; its +musical comprehension was worn out. From the middle of the fourth act +people began to leave the theatre, and when the curtain fell at the +close, not a hand moved. + +Countess Stolnitzky accompanied Natalie silently down the steps. +Natalie got into her carriage and directed it to the stage entrance. +She had promised to call for Lensky after the opera. More dead than +alive she sat in the pretty coupé and waited. The air was sharp, it was +a frosty March night, the stars sparkled as if in cold mockery from the +unreachable heavens, quite as if they were laughing to think that once +more a child of man had tried to storm this heaven and had so pitiably +failed. + +A half-hour had passed; at last Natalie sprang from the carriage and +hastened up the narrow stairs. There she met Lensky. He was deathly +pale, his hat was put on his head differently from usual, in a kind of +enterprising and challenging manner; his walk had something negligent, +swinging; there was a vagabond trace in his carriage that Natalie had +never before perceived in him. He held his cigarette between his teeth +and had the little singer on his arm who had to-day impersonated +Gualnare in his opera. Many of the singers, as well as the members of +the orchestra, came down the steps behind him, a gaudy, witty, +whispering throng. For the first time, Natalie remarked a certain +similarity, one might almost say a common family resemblance, between +her hero and these other "artists." The men all had the same manner of +wearing their hats and swaggering in their walk as he had to-day. + +Although these men were more than ever repulsive to her, she greeted +them with anxious politeness. "I was afraid you were ill," she said, +while she glanced sadly and anxiously at Boris. "I have already waited +half an hour for you." + +"So! I am very sorry," replied he, and his voice sounded rougher than +formerly. "I sent a messenger to you, he must have missed you. I cannot +go home with you this evening, we"--he looked over his shoulder at the +following crowd--"are going to have supper together. After a lost +battle the commander must care for the strengthening of his troops." He +laughed harshly and forcedly, and touched the hand of the singer who +hung on his arm. + +"A lost battle!" said Natalie. "Lost--but the first two acts were a +great success!" + +"'Don Juan' did not succeed at the first representation," remarked some +one behind Lensky. He turned around and looked at the man with a +comical, threatening gesture; then he said, with the expression of a +man with a bad toothache, who yet bursts out with a witticism: "Who +laughs last, laughs best!" + +Natalie still stood, helpless and desperate, in the middle of the +narrow stairs. Her splendid fur cloak had half slipped down from her +shoulders; her simple, distinguished toilet stood out in strange relief +from the glaring, tumbled, inharmonious, motley evening adornments of +the singers. + +"You will take cold, wrap yourself up better," said Lensky, while he +came up to her and drew the fur up around her neck. + +"Will you take me with you to your supper? I would come with the +greatest pleasure; _je serai gentille avec tout le monde!_" she +whispered, softly and supplicatingly to him. + +"What an idea!" said he, repellently. "No, to-night I sup as a +bachelor. You bar the passage. Drive home quite calmly. Adieu!" + +He pushed her into the carriage, and went. She put her head out of the +window of the coupé to look after him. She saw how he got into a fiacre +with the singer; one of the men crawled in after him; then she heard +some one laughing, harshly, gipsy-like, was that he? Then came a great +rattling of windows, and creaking and rolling of wheels. Her way and +his parted. Hurrying by a row of ghostly gas-lights, which all seemed +red to her, she rolled away in a great, cold, black darkness. And ten +minutes later, weary and miserable, she crept up the steps of her +residence. She knew that something terrible had happened, something +that not only embittered her present, but would darken the future, that +for her much more had gone wrong than the result of an opera. + + * * * * * + +"Who knows, perhaps the thing will pull through; even the best operas +have sometimes not immediately found approval with the public," said +Lensky, with the awkward, forced smile that had not left his lips since +the morning after his fiasco. The challenging, gipsy humor with which, +in the beginning, he had sought to bluster over his disappointment, had +not lasted long. Quiet, weary, and depressed, he dragged himself around +as if after a severe illness. Natalie did what she could to be +agreeable to him; her heart bled with pity, but she did not venture to +approach him. + +He avoided her, and if she spoke to him his answers sounded forced or +vexed. + +To-day, for the first time since the fatal evening, he turned to her +with a remark in reference to his work. It was the third day after the +first production of the opera, and at breakfast. Natalie had just read +to him many criticisms from the newspapers which had arrived. In many, +Lensky's magnificent musical gifts were praised. + +"Perhaps the thing will pull through," said Lensky, and Natalie +replied: + +"Naturally, the opera will make a career for itself. You must yourself +have forgotten how beautiful your music is, if you can doubt that." + +"Is it really beautiful? I really do not know," murmured he. "One is so +seldom able to believe it if others shrug their shoulders. To improvise +variations on the old theme _mon sonnet est charmant_ is a tasteless +occupation." + +There was a ring at the door-bell; he listened. + +"Do you expect anything?" asked Natalie, and then she accidentally +looked at the clock. It was already very late, and the hour at which he +formerly had been accustomed to sit down to work was long past. She saw +very well that he only trifled with time like a man who is too +tormented by inward unrest to be able to resolve on an earnest +occupation. + +"Yes," he replied. "I do not understand why the _Neue Zeit_ has not yet +arrived." + +Natalie lowered her eyes. The _Neue Zeit_ was the journal in which Dr. +Arnold Spatzig's musical criticism, or rather his musical +_feuilletons_, usually appeared. + +"That"--Lensky motioned to the pile of other papers "is all very pretty +and pleasant, but it is not decisive. I am anxious to see what Spatzig +will say." + +"Do you consider Spatzig decisive?" asked Natalie, constrainedly. + +"Yes." + +"But you told me yourself that his judgment was always one-sided, +prejudiced, and superficial; that he was really only a wit and no +critic," murmured Natalie. + +"I still think so, but nevertheless he has here taken upon himself the +monopoly of musical good taste," replied Lensky. "The most intellectual +part of the public, that is to say all the subscribers, fancy they can +only consider an article of his as true. He has taken out a patent for +it, like Marquis, in Paris, for good chocolate. He is witty, which +these people like. A criticism is so easily noticed, one always appears +intellectual if one cites it, the more malicious it is the better. +Until now, Spatzig has spared me, hm--hm--" Boris smiled forcedly. "He +even once compared me to Beethoven, but recently he has seemed to avoid +me. Have you had anything with him, Natalie?" + +Natalie blushed to the roots of her hair. "I cannot endure him," said +she; "and it is possible that he has noticed it; in fact, in reference +to a certain point, one cannot have patience with a man." + +"He surely has not presumed upon you?" Lensky started up angrily. + +"No, no! He did not have an opportunity," said Natalie, very +arrogantly. "Not that: but he has a way of forcing himself upon one; of +looking at a woman----" + +"That is to say he has bad manners," said Lensky. "Now----" + +At this moment there was another ring at the door-bell. Shortly after +the servant brought on a salver a whole pile of newspapers in their +wrappings, which had just come by post. Lensky opened them hastily; +they were all copies of the same paper--of _Fortschritt_, and in every +copy there was a twelve-column-long notice marked with a blue or black +pencil: "A musical enjoyment by design and intention," and with the +motto, for title, "From whence the great discord arises which rings +through this world (read opera)." + +Hastily, Lensky looked at the signature. + +"Arnold Spatzig," murmured he, dully. "I did not know that he also +wrote for _Fortschritt_." + +"Do not read the thing," said Natalie, who, with feminine quickness, +had already glanced over the article. "I beg you; why should you +swallow the poison?" + +But he shook her roughly from him, bent over the paper, and read half +aloud: "If there were a musical 'Our Father,' the last supplicating +request would be: deliver us from all evil, but especially from all +virtuoso music. By his opera, Lensky has again given us a significant +example of how greatly the reproductive activity of an artist hinders +the development of his creative powers. His first smaller compositions +really had always a certain melodic freshness. But in this last work, +Lensky, like all men poor in invention, has shown himself a follower of +that inconsolable musical pessimism which regards _ennui_ and a feeling +of universal, oppressive discomfort as a _sine qua non_ of every +distinguished musical work. + +"The public, in a sympathetic frame of mind with the loved and +distinguished master, in the beginning of the opera strained their good +taste so far that they desired the repetition of the extremely tiresome +overture, made up of badly connected motives, reminding one of +Meyerbeer, Halévy, Gounod. But with the best intentions, the +cut-and-dried wonder brought with them was not proof against the +yawning monotony of the never-ending fourth act. Only the grotesque +side of the unfortunate opera, which ever became more prominent in the +course of the evening, helped the ill-used public over the dry +emptiness of this musical desert. One could at least laugh heartily. +What a consolation that was for the spectator, but hardly one for those +who took part. + +"One cannot understand how such an artist of the first rank as +Mr. ---- could submit to make himself laughable in the _rôle_ of +_Conrad_...." + +Lensky became paler and paler; he reached for a glass of water. + +"Do not read any further," begged Natalie. "What does it matter what +the liar writes? your music speaks for itself. This evening you will +see how the public will applaud you, will receive you, to recompense +you for this pitiful insult." + +The second representation of "The Corsair" was fixed for that evening. + +There was another ring at the door-bell; the servant brought a letter. +Lensky broke it open hastily, and with a furious gesture threw it away, +struck his fist on the table, and sprang up. + +"What is it?" called Natalie, beside herself. + +"Nothing; a trifle; the opera is postponed; the tenor has announced +himself ill," said Lensky, cuttingly. "He has no pleasure in making +himself laughable a second time. It is over;" passing the palm of his +hand under his chin, with the gesture by which one understands that +some one has been executed. + +Natalie rushed up to him, but he impatiently motioned her away, and +hurried by her to the door. All at once he remained standing, reached +under his collar, tore off the little gold chain with the saint's +picture which Natalie had hung round his neck before the first +representation of "The Corsair," and flung it at her feet. Then he went +into his study. She heard how he locked the door behind him. + +How benumbed she still stood on the same spot where he had shaken her +off from him--he had shaken her off! + +How he must suffer to pain her so! Then she bent down to the poor +little amulet which he had thrown away. She understood him. She had +never been lacking in sentimental-poetic manners, but when it was +necessary to sacrifice a humor for him, her love had not sufficed. + +Her fault was great, but the punishment was fearful. + + + + + + THIRD BOOK. + + +A short time after the fiasco of his opera Lensky resigned his office +in ----. His position there had become unbearable to him. He had made +no plans for the distant future; for the present he travelled with his +family to Paris. + +How happy Natalie could have felt here if the still depressed mood of +Lensky had not caused her such heavy anxiety. Not that he had further +shown himself in the slightest degree disagreeable to her--no, not a +single direct reproof crossed his lips; he even, without speaking a +word about it, begged her pardon for his momentary roughness by a +thousand silent attentions. But what good did that do her? His +happiness was gone; he was gloomy and taciturn. Faint-hearted, like all +very self-indulgent men, even doubting his formerly revered talent as +composer, for the moment he had completely lost his belief in himself. + +She did what she could to distract him--all was in vain. And all might +have been so pleasant! The Parisian artist world was so large that she +quite easily, avoiding all impure elements contained therein, could +associate only with those who were lovable, interesting, and +sympathetic. Besides, she was now ready for the most exaggerated +concessions. If Lensky had wished to write a ballet she would have +invited the ballet dancers to breakfast, and been intimate with the +première danseuse. The lovely imprudence which, even with her uncommon +intellectual gifts, still made the foundation of her petted, +undisciplined being, drove her from one exaggeration to another. + +He gave a succession of concerts, and all Paris lay at his feet. +Natalie sat in one of the first rows in the concert hall and rejoiced +over the triumphs of her husband. Occasionally, if the hour for the +concert was early, she brought her little son with her and taught him +to be proud of his father. Little Nikolai looked charming in his +Russian costume, with the broad velvet trousers and silk shirt. He +always sat there quite brave and quiet, with the solemn expression of +face of a child whom one has taken to church for the first time; only +if the applause burst out quite too loudly, he became very excited +and stood up on his chair in order to see his father better. Then +Natalie kissed him, and blushed at her lack of restraint. And around +them the audience whispered: "That is his child"--"_Tiens! il a de la +chance!_"--"_Ils sont adorables tous les deux!_"--"_On dit qu'elle est +une princesse!_" + +After the concert she went with the little fellow in the green-room to +fetch her husband. The most beautiful women in Paris crowded around +him. He received their homage quite coolly, and while Natalie, smiling +and polite, did honor to his fame, he played with his boy, whom he +overwhelmed with caresses, without being at all confused by the +presence of strangers. "Admire this if you must admire something!" he +burst out once, angry at the intrusive enthusiasm of a very pretty +American woman, and with that he raised the child on a table to show +him to her. "He is worth the trouble," he growled, and truly such was +the case! + +One day, about the middle of May, when Natalie, somewhat out of breath, +holding her boy with one hand, and a bunch of red roses in the other, +came home to lunch, she found Lensky with two strangers in the little +hotel drawing-room. One of them was a young man with long hair and +short neck, in whom she recognized a famous piano virtuoso; the second, +a small, dried-up man, with a yellow, hard, sharp face, she saw for the +first time. + +At her appearance they both withdrew. Lensky accompanied them out. + +"How you have hurried," said he smiling, when he reëntered the room. +"You are quite heated!" + +"Yes, I hurried very much; I was afraid I would be late to lunch. I +know how you hate unpunctuality." And then she sat down on the sofa, +and handed her hat and shawl to the nurse, who had come in to get +Nikolinka--a nurse by the name of Palagea, in a Russian national +costume which created a furore on the boulevard. + +"Why did you not take a carriage, little goose?" asked he. + +"To economize, Boris Nikolaivitch," replied she, with mischievous +earnestness. Then laughing up at him with her great tender eyes, she +added: "Besides, the doctor has expressly advised me to take more +exercise." + +"The doctor?" said he, anxiously. "Do you feel ill? Why did you consult +a physician?" + +"Yes, why?" murmured she, softly. "Sit down on the sofa by me, so that +I can whisper something to you." + +"What are you talking about?" said he, hoarsely, without stirring. +"What do you mean? What?" + +"You are fabulously uncomprehending to-day," laughed she, and went up +to him. "One cannot scream such a thing across the whole room, and as +the mountain will not come to Mahomet"--she had now become very red; +laying her hand on his shoulder, she whispered: "O Boris; can you still +not guess?... I am so glad!" + +"Natalie!" he burst out. "You do not mean to say" ... He shook her from +him, stamped his foot, and with a furious exclamation left the room. + +Ten minutes later, when he entered the little dining-room where they +had served lunch, Natalie's maid announced that he must not wait for +her mistress, as she was feeling ill. He hurried to her bedroom. She +sat on a sofa, her hands in her lap. Her great eyes stared into the +distance, she looked like a corpse. + +He sat down by her, drew her on his knee, and overwhelmed her with +caresses. + +"You are right to be angry, quite right. I was detestable," said he; +"but you know what a bear you have for a husband. It is only because I +love you so dearly that now, just now, the thing is so inconvenient. +Oh, my little dove, my heart!" He pressed the palms of her hands to his +lips and stroked her cheeks. + +Every vexation melted away in the warmth of his manner. She suddenly +began to sob, but not from grief. + +"Do you think, then, that I would not have been glad?" he said to her +tenderly. "But now, do you see, just now----" + +Then he told her the state of affairs. The man in the Havana brown +overcoat was the famous impressario Morinsky, with whom Lensky had just +made an engagement for a concert tour in the United States. Morinsky +had offered him a small fortune. "You know how hard it is for me to +part from you," he concluded. "I wished to take you with me--you and +the boy, for he can put off school for another year. I thought it was +the most favorable moment, and now--it is so stupid, so horribly +stupid!" + +She had listened very quietly; now she raised her head and said +uneasily: + +"And now you naturally will have to give up the American project?" + +"That is impossible," replied he, turning his face from her, "but I +will try--that is, I will put off my departure in any case until the +great event is over." + +"And then?" She had slipped down from his knee and walked up and down +the room uneasily. "And then?" she repeated, while she beat on the +floor quite imperiously with the tip of her little foot. + +"Then," said he slowly. "Well, then you must either decide to accompany +me and leave the children behind, or I must go alone." + +"How long will you stay away?" she asked with short breath. + +"Eight months, ten months." + +"So--ten months!" she spoke slowly. "And you will part from +me--voluntarily, without compelling necessity--for ten months?" + +Her face had become ashy, the words fell harsh and cutting from her dry +lips. + +"You must not take the thing so desperately," replied Lensky, with an +embarrassment which did not escape her. "Ten months are soon over." + +Something that sounded half like a laugh, half like a cry of anguish +escaped her lips. She stroked the hair back from her temples with both +hands. Her eyes had suddenly become unnaturally large, and were opened +uncommonly wide. They were no longer the eyes of a usually wise woman. + +"Ten months!" she murmured, with extinguished voice, like one who +speaks in the midst of an oppressive dream, "ten months--do you no +longer remember how you used to miss me, if it was only a question of +weeks, of days, and not--ten months! But this is no separation, this is +a final parting, this is the end of all! Oh, do not look at me so!--I +am not crazy, I know what I am saying--I know very well! You will come +back--certainly you will come back, if no malicious illness snatches +you away during your journey; but how will you come back? Like a +stranger you will return under your own roof, and a stranger, from that +hour, will you remain. You will have acquired other customs, other +needs; the tender restrictions of family life will confine you like a +forced burden! The good, and magnificent, and beautiful in you will +still exist, because it is immortal like everything that is god-like; +but it will be grown wild and soiled, and I will no longer be able to +force my way through what has towered between me and your heart! And, +more than all that, the sweet voice which, until now, has whispered +such wonderful songs within you, will be silenced in the confusion of +your wandering life; your genius will no longer be able to express +itself, it will from then burn in you like a great unrest, and you will +feel the treasure which Providence has implanted in you as an +oppressive burden, and will no longer be able to find the magic word +which can lift this treasure!" + +He stared gloomily before him. +"Ah, Boris! do not sin against yourself, because I have sinned against +you," Natalie began once more, with hoarse, broken voice. "Do not let +your wings be broken by this first disappointment. Your opera was +wonderfully beautiful--yes--but it was not the best that you can give! +Give your best, it will stand so high that the hand of envy can no +longer reach it. Have patience, sacrifice the virtuoso to the composer +in you, and you will see what a splendid reward you will reap!" + +With heavily contracted brows, he listened to this speech, vibrating +with desperation. When Natalie had ended, he remained silent. She +believed she had conquered. Leaning against him she laid both arms +around his neck, and whispered to him: "You will stay, Boris--will you +not?--you will stay!" + +For a little while he let her stay, then he freed himself from her +arms, as one frees one's self from a shackle, and called out: "It +cannot be--torment me no longer--I must go!" With that he sprang up to +leave the room. At the door he turned round to Natalie, and said: "Are +you coming? Lunch will be cold." + +"Presently!" said Natalie, "presently!" She shivered, she felt the +chill of a great fright in all her members. It was worse than she had +believed! Something allured him away. After the first unpleasant +surprise at the frustration of his plans had disappeared, he rejoiced +at the opportunity of being able to free himself from the chain, and to +separate himself from his family for a time. What she had feared for +the future had already arrived--the gypsy element in his nature had +awakened! + + * * * * * + +The agreement between Lensky and the impressario was really completed, +the contract was signed, Lensky's departure fixed for the beginning of +October. Meanwhile, he would pass the summer quietly with his wife, in +the country, in the vicinity of Paris. + +The place which Natalie chose was about an hour's journey from Paris, +and perhaps fifteen minutes from the railway-station, a charming old +house in the shadiest corner of a park, in the midst of which a large +castle stood empty. The castle was modern; the house, on the contrary, +a carefully reconstructed ruin of the time of Francis First. The castle +was called "Le Château des Ormes," and the small house "L'Erémitage." +The last owner had restored it, in order that his favorite daughter +might pass her honeymoon there. Since the daughter had died the +Hermitage stood empty, and to reside in the castle was painful to the +owner. Both were to let. Lensky left the choice to his wife. What would +she have done with the large castle? The Hermitage pleased her better. +The windows were all irregular, one small and narrow, another very +broad, all surrounded by artistically carved and voluted stone +framings. The trees grew up high above the roof, and through the whole +day sang sweet, dreamy songs, to which a little brook, that ran close +by the house, furnished a harmonic accompaniment. + +The ground floor was built in accordance with the architecture of the +early Renaissance period, with brown beams across the ceilings of the +room, and artistic wainscoting on the walls. Gigantic marble mantels, +iron chandeliers and sconces, and heavy furniture did what they could +to transport the spectator's imagination back to the much sung old +times of gay King Francis. At the right and left of the entrance door, +set far back in its carved niche, grew lilies, tall and slender; they +were in full bloom when the married pair moved in, and their white +heads nodded in a friendly manner through the windows of the rooms even +with the ground. Sage, lavender, and centifolias bloomed at their feet, +tall rose-bushes nodded a fragrant greeting to them from above. The +branches of the old trees before the windows were thick enough to +partially exclude the sunbeams if they became too intrusive; not thick +enough to completely bar the way for them. + +In this lonely solitude, Natalie fought a last time for her happiness. +She tried to make her whole home as attractive and poetic as possible, +so that in Lensky's remembrance something might remain for which he +must long. She no longer tormented him with jealous, isolating +tenderness, but cared for his distraction and intellectual as well as +artistic recreation. She knew how to allure not only the first +musicians in Paris, but celebrities of the most different kinds from +the capital and surrounding villas, to the Hermitage; earnest men of +lofty aims and noble endeavors, together with an animation and +susceptibility which did away with the hindering respect which towers +between every plain, modest child of man and great people. It always +gave Natalie pleasure to see Lensky in the company of these prominent +men. He grew in such surroundings. + +He was never very talkative; his intellectual capabilities were of a +heavy calibre, unsuited for the purposes of small talk. But how he +listened, what questions he asked! Then, quite without haste, he would +make some remark so peculiarly sharp and far-reaching in reference to +some impending political, artistic, or literary question, that, every +time, an astonished silence would follow. + +One of the guests once remarked: "If Lensky mingles in the +conversation, it is as if one fired a cannon between pistol shots." + +He was not one-sided in his interests, as other musicians. When one +learned to know him more intimately, for every accurate observer it had +always the appearance that his musical capabilities formed only a part +of his universally abnormally gifted nature. + + * * * * * + +Quietly and still animatedly passed the days, weeks, and months. +Natalie never spoke of the approaching separation. + +An inexplicable discomfort tormented Lensky. Natalie had guessed +rightly--he had concluded the engagement with Morinsky with quite +precipitate haste, not only in order thereby to win the opportunity of +acquiring with one stroke a large sum of money which would put an end +to his pecuniary difficulties, but because in intercourse with the old +friends of his bachelor days in ---- he had first significantly +realized how much he had had to restrain himself to live morally and +uprightly at the side of his wife; and because his gypsy nature, bound +for years, now demanded its rights. + +Still it vexed him that Natalie remained so calm in the face of the +approaching parting. Now, when the farewell drew near, his heart failed +him. Did she, then, no longer love him? + +The thought was unbearable to him, prevented him from working. He wrote +everything wrong on the note paper. + +The lilies were dead, the days became short, and the first leaves fell +in the grass, but the foliage was still thick, only here and there one +saw a yellow spot in a bluish green tree, and the rustling had no +longer the old soft sound. + +"The trees have lost their voice, they have become hoarse, the old +melting sound is gone!" said Natalie. The roses, in truth bloomed more +beautifully than in summer; still one saw, significantly, the approach +of autumn, and Lensky had the repugnant feeling that near by something +lay dying. + +His work did not please him. Three times already he had heard Natalie +pass by his door; each time he had thought, now she will come in; he +had already stretched his arms out to her, but she did not come. He +threw away his pen and sprang up to look for her. + +It was a late September afternoon. It had rained for three days, and +the air was cool. + +Natalie sat in the brown-wainscoted ground-floor sitting-room, in one +of the gigantic, high-backed arm-chairs near the chimney, in which +flickered a gay wood fire. The windows were open. The noise from +without of the rain drops softly gliding down between the leaves, the +blustering of the high swollen brook, mingled with the crackling and +popping of the burning wood. + +In the middle of the room, on a large table with a dark-red cover, +stood a copper bowl filled with champagne-colored _Gloire de Dijon_ +roses. From without came the melancholy odor of autumnal decay and +mingled with the sweet breath of the flowers. + +The veil of twilight sank down from the mighty rafters of the ceiling. +The corners of the large, somewhat low room were already, as it were, +rounded off by brown shadows. Freakish, pale reflections slid over the +dark wainscoting, and over the brass and copper dishes which adorned +it. + +Little Kolia crouched on a stool before his mother, and with both tiny +elbows rested on her lap, gazed earnestly and attentively up at her. + +One could think of nothing more charming than this mother and this +child. Involuntarily Lensky's heart beat high in his breast. "How +beautiful my home is, how happy I am here. Why am I really going away?" +he asked himself. + +"Ah!" cried Natalie when he entered, pleased and at the same time +surprised, for his appearance at this hour was something quite unusual. +"Do you wish anything?" + +He shook his brown, defiant head silently and sat down near the chimney +opposite her. The little boy had sprung up, embarrassed, and now leaned +against his mother, with his little arm round her neck. + +"You have been telling him fairy tales," began Lensky. + +"Oh, no! I told him of the ocean, and how one lives and is housed on +the wide boundless water--of the ocean and of America. Before it was +too dark we were busy with something much more important," said +Natalie, and she pointed to a low child's table which was covered with +writing materials and lined paper. "Show papa what we have finished, +Nikolinka." + +The little boy became very red and drew his brows together. "But, +mamma," said he, excitedly stamping his foot, "why do you tell that? It +is a surprise." + +His mother stroked the offended child's cheek soothingly. "We will not +give papa your letter to read, only show it to him, so that he can be +pleased with it. Bring it, Nikolinka." + +Resistingly the little fellow freed himself from his mother, then he +brought the document, which was concealed behind a vase, and carried +it, with importance as well as embarrassment, to his father. On the +already extensively sealed envelope, between three lines, stood the +unformed, but neatly and industriously written letters: + + + À + MONSIEUR BORIS LENSKY, + EN + AMÉRIQUE. + + +"The letter is to be sent to you when you are over there," explained +Natalie. + +"How nicely the wight writes for his five years," said Lensky touched, +looking at the envelope. "You guided his hand, Natascha?" + +"Oh, no!" declared Natalie. + +"But you prompted him?" + +"Certainly not; he thought it out all by himself; did you not, +Nikolinka?" said Natalie. + +The little one nodded earnestly; he was quite crimson with pride and +embarrassment. His father took him between his knees, called him +"Umnitza," which in Russian means paragon of wisdom, kissed and +caressed him, then rang the bell for Palagea, and told him he must go +now and wash his hands, and have his curls brushed smooth, and then he +should take dinner with his parents, because he had been so clever. + +When the child had tripped out at the nurse's hand, Lensky threw +himself down on the stool at his wife's feet. It had now become quite +dark. The heavy, regular-falling rain still rustled in the foliage +without, in a dreamy, melancholy cadence. + +"Listen; how sweet, how sad!" said Natalie, turning her head to the +window, through which the landscape, behind its double veil of rain and +twilight, looked to one like a greenish-gray chaos only, without any +distinct outlines. + +"The D-flat major prelude of Chopin," said Lensky. + +She shook her head. "No, I did not think of that," whispered she. "But +see! Sometimes it seems to me that the ghost of the poor young wife who +died here creeps around the Hermitage, and sighs for the happiness +which she might not finish enjoying. She died after the first year, +while I, Boris--I was happy six years. It is too much for one human +life. Sometimes--it is a sin; I know it--and still, sometimes I quite +wished I might die, but I dare not; Kolia still needs me." + + * * * * * + +Soon after this she brought a little girl into the world, who was +baptized Marie, after the grandmother and the little dead sister. + +A few weeks passed, she convalesced rapidly. The day of farewell came, +on which everyone hastened, with everything overhurried, incessantly +imagined there was too much to do in preparing for the journey, and +finally had nothing more to do. The day on which all the usual +occupations were sacrificed in honor of the pain of parting, when one +aimlessly trifled away the hours, tormented by nervous unrest, which +finally expressed itself in the dullest _ennui_. + + * * * * * + +They sat together; now here, now there, and did not know what to do. +Lensky was to take the six o'clock train to Paris; from there, the same +evening, he would travel with Morinsky's troupe to Boulogne, for they +would take ship in Liverpool for America. + +The dinner-hour was changed from seven to four, lunch and breakfast +were combined at ten o'clock. These irregular hours took away one's +appetite, accustomed to regular hours, and increased the general +discomfort. + +In order to kill the last half-hour before dinner they took a walk +through the immense, solitary park. Kolia went with them. + +It was a beautiful October day, with a blue heaven over which only +filmy white clouds spread themselves, and from which the sun looked +down so sadly and mildly as only the October sun looks down on the +dying beauty of the year. Masses of foliage still hung on the trees, +but it was already withered--it no longer lived. And in the midst of +the windless peace, one heard, again and again, the gentle sighing of a +dead leaf that fell on the turf. + +Both the parents were silent, only the little boy asked, from time to +time, tender, important questions of his father, whom he loved very +much, although he felt a kind of shyness of him. At first Lensky led +the child by the hand, then he took him in his arms, in order to have +the pleasure of holding the supple little body quite closely to him and +feel the soft, warm little arms round his neck. + +They hurried back to the house so as not to delay dinner, and naturally +arrived much too early. + +"Play me something for a farewell," begged Natalie. + +"One of the Chopin nocturnes which I transposed for your sake?" asked +he. + +"No, just what you have in your heart," replied Natalie. + +He took up his violin. It was the same violin which he had tried in the +Palazzo Morsini, the Amati which Natalie had given him when they were +betrothed. He was very excited, and became paler with every stroke. + +The whole desperation of a great nature which feels an unavoidable +degradation approaching, spoke from his improvisation, and in the midst +of the passionate and painful madness rose melodies so pure, so +beautifully holy, like the resting in heart-felt prayer of a nature all +in uproar. + +When he had finished and wished to put the violin back in the case in +which he should take it with him to America, Natalie took it from his +hand. + +"What do you wish with it?" he asked. + +She kissed the violin and then handed it to him. "Here you have it," +said she, very softly. "It will never sing so again until you return." + +At last the servant announced that dinner was served. They sat down to +the executioner meal, the executioner meal for which all his little +favorite dishes had been prepared, at which everything was so abundant +and so good, only the appetite was lacking. + +It was still light when they went to dinner. The light slowly died in +the course of the meal. The words fell seldomer and more seldom from +Lensky's lips; there was a leaden silence; the brook sobbed without. + +Lensky held his wine-glass toward Natalie. "To a happy meeting!" said +he; "to a happy meeting!" She repeated, dully: "I will await you here +next year when the roses bloom." He pressed her hand; he could not +contain himself during the whole meal, but got up before the dessert +and began to walk up and down restlessly. + +"You have still time," Natalie assured him; "the coffee will come +immediately." + +"Thanks; is baby asleep? I would like to give her a kiss before I go." + +They brought little Maschenka. He kissed and blessed the tiny, rosy +child, bundled up in lace and muslin. He has kissed Kolia, loudly +crying from excitement, and commissioned him to be brave and not to +grieve his mother. + +Now he goes up to his wife. They have brought the lamps; he wishes to +see her distinctly before he goes. She tries to smile; she raises her +arms to stretch them out to him--the arms sink. + +"My heart, be reasonable," says he, and draws her to him. A fearful +groan comes from her lips; she presses her mouth against his shoulder +so as not to scream aloud; her form shook. + +He held her to him so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. For one +moment he is all hers--it is the last in her life! She knows it! The +happiness of her love rallies once more in a feeling of awful, +delirious happiness, and dies in a kiss! + +Now he has gone! She accompanied him to the house-door. There she now +stands and gazes along the street, through the twilight, where he has +disappeared between the trees. It did not seem to her that she had +parted from a dear man who was about to make a journey. No; as if they +had carried a corpse out of the house. It is all over--all! Whatever +further comes is only more dry bitterness and inconsolable torment of +the heart. She sees his footprints in the half darkness. Why had she +not accompanied him to the railway? she asks herself, why--why? From +stupid anxiety, from pride of giving the few loafers at the station the +sight of her despair had she renounced the pleasure of enjoying his +presence until the last moment? She steps outdoors, hurries her steps, +wishes to hurry after him, to see him once more, only one moment--then +the loud voice of the railroad bell breaks the universal silence--a +shrill whistle--it is over! She falls down, buries her face in the cool +autumn grass at the edge of the garden path, and sobs as one sobs over +a fresh grave. + + * * * * * + +About three hours later, Lensky, with his colleagues and Morinsky, sat +penned up in a coupé of the first class. The train was over-full, there +were eight of them in the small compartment. + +In one corner slept Morinsky, his fur collar drawn up over his ears, +his head covered with a fez, whose blue tassel waved to and fro over +his left ear, which lent his sharp yellow face a diabolical expression. + +Opposite him sat an old woman with a copper colored skin, and held a +basket of lunch on her knees. At first she had uninterruptedly chewed +and smacked her lips, now she snored. She was the mother of a famous +staccato singer, who, large and blond, with her head and shoulders +prudently wrapped in a red fascinator, embroidered with gold, and +painted, and smelling of cosmetics, coquetted with the 'cellist, a very +effeminate young man who looked like an actor. They had spread a shawl +over their knees, and the diva laid the cards for him, which gave +occasion for the most entertaining allusions. + +The accompanist of the troupe, a pedantic young pianist, afflicted with +a chronic hoarseness, which alone prevented him from becoming a tenor +of the first rank, formed the public to the beautiful duet, while he +laughed loudly at every particularly poor witticism. + +The 'cellist and the diva were very familiar with each other, and both +constantly made use of expressions of the commonest kind. + +The laughter of the diva became ever shriller, while that of the +'cellist sounded ever deeper from his boots. + +Opposite Lensky, the short-armed, fat piano virtuoso of the troupe, a +very solid father of a family, who tried to sleep, and from time to +time looked round angrily at the disturbers of his rest; and near +Lensky, wrapped in furs to the tip of her nose, sat a new prima donna, +Signora Zingarelli, of whom Morinsky promised himself the highest +success, a beautiful, red-haired Belgian, with long, narrow sphinx +eyes. She had tried to enter into conversation with Lensky, but he had +turned from her, monosyllabic and coarse. + +The train sighed and groaned. Fiery clouds flew by the window in the +black night. The close atmosphere in the coupé, the odor of paint, +musk, fat meat, hot fur and coal, maddened Lensky; he wished to open +one of the windows--the singers protested, Morinsky awoke, settled the +dispute:--the window remained closed. + +A terrible longing for his love, for his beautiful, poetic home, came +over Lensky. He thought of his last night journey, with wife and child, +quite alone in a coupé. He saw the charming serpentine lines which the +slender, supple figure of his young wife described on the cushions. She +slept. Her little head rested on a red silk cushion which she took +about with her on all her travels. How tender and delicate her profile +stood out from that colored ground! She coughed in her sleep; he stood +up to draw the fur mantle which covered her closer up around her +shoulders. Drunk with sleep, she opened her eyes and with half +unconscious tenderness rubbed her smooth, cool cheeks against her hand. +The sweet fragrance of violets which exhaled from her person smote his +face. Then--a jolt!--He started up--he must have slept. In any case he +had dreamed. His travelling companions all slept now; their heads on +their breasts, only the pretty red-haired head of the Zingarelli lay on +Lensky's shoulder. She opened her long, narrow eyes, smiled at him--a +shrill whistle--the train stopped. + +"Amiens!" cried the conductor. "Amiens!" All got out. + +While his colleagues plundered the restaurant, Lensky, smoking a +cigarette, wandered around the platform alone. The others had all taken +their places again, when Morinsky, who had gotten out to look for him, +and saw him wandering to another coupé, called after him: "Here, +Monsieur Lensky, here!" + +But Lensky only stamped his foot impatiently: "Leave me in peace, I am +not obliged to make the whole journey in the same cage with your +menagerie!" he said. + + * * * * * + +Six weeks later not a trace of his homesickness remained. At the artist +banquet, which usually followed the concerts, symposiums which began +with bad witticisms and ended with an orgy, he was the most +unrestrained, the wantonest of all. + +He was like one who, suddenly relieved from the pressure of iron +fetters, at first, unaccustomed to every free movement, can scarcely +move his limbs, but afterward cannot weary of stretching them, and +moving them in unlimited freedom. + +He broke every bond, indulged every humor. He no longer thought of +Natalie and the children, he did not wish to think of them. Remembrance +was ashamed to follow him on the way he now went. + +It was hard for him to write to his wife, but it was still harder for +him to read her letters. And yet she wrote so charmingly, so lovingly! +She did not say much of herself, but so much the more of the children, +especially of Kolia. With what shining eyes he listened, when she read +the reports of the triumphs of his father to him, she wrote, and how he +seized every newspaper that he saw, and then asked her: "Is there +anything in it about papa?" and how, with his little playmates--she +passed the winter with her mother, in Cannes--he boasted importantly of +the homage which fell share to his father, and how she did not have the +heart to reprove him for it. How he drew ships incessantly, and how she +made use of the interest which he took in his father's journey to give +him his first lessons in geography, and many other such tender trifles. + +These letters vexed him; when he had read them, he despised himself and +his surroundings, and for two, three days, remained melancholy and +unsociable. + +At last he no longer read them, at most only glanced over them, +convinced himself hastily that "all was as usual," and then folded them +up and laid them aside. + +Then came the time when he told himself it was foolish to have such +scruples. He was what he always had been, an exceptional man, a Titanic +nature. He could not be judged like the others, he could not have +exercised his compelling charm over the masses without the fiery +violence of his temperament. His success was wonderful. Since they had +celebrated the reception of Jenny Lind with discharge of cannon in New +York or Boston--history differs as to which, is always careless in +relation to prima donnas--no artist had received more homage than Boris +Lensky. The women especially seemed as if bewitched by him. + +He did not take the situation sentimentally, but rather cynically; +still he accustomed himself to the horrible noise of the public, which +followed his performances, to the cries of the crowd which accompanied +him without, when he left the concert hall, to the illuminated streets +in which every window was filled with gazers when he drove home. + +When the excitement was once over, a kind of shame overpowered him. +What signified these virtuoso triumphs? People always applauded the +stupidest piece the loudest. He attained no such effect with a sonata +of Beethoven, or Schumann, as with a mad tarentella which he had +composed long ago for his wonderful fingers, and of which he was now +ashamed. + +In Boston, he omitted this tarentella, which had become a nightmare to +him, from the programme. + +The people remained lukewarm, and so much already did his over-excited +nerves desire the shrill storm of applause, that he voluntarily added +the trivial and wearying piece of artifice--he, who had formerly so +despised his virtuoso triumphs! + + * * * * * + +The lilies stand straight and slender, with golden hearts in their +deep, white calices, right and left of the door of the little +Hermitage, into which Natalie has again moved when the first roses +bloom. + +It is July. Lensky has fixed his return for the fifteenth. "Afternoon, +with the first train that I can catch; but do not worry if I should be +late," said his letter. + +Not at the station, no, only to the hedge which incloses the park, will +Natalie go to meet him. + +Kolia quivers with impatience. Natalie counts the hours, draws out her +watch--it has stopped. She hurries in the dining-room to consult the +clock on the mantel, and discovers Kolia, who, kneeling on a chair, +moves the hands. + +"What are you doing?" says she, laughing. + +The boy sighs impatiently. "I am fixing the clock, mamma. I am sure it +must be sick, it goes too slowly to-day." + +How she kisses him for it! How pleased she will be to tell Boris of it! + +"Hark!" + +A shrill sound of a bell, a penetrating whistle; the train has come. + +She fetches her little daughter, who has had a charming little white +dress put on her, in honor of her father's arrival. + +With the little one on her arm, and Kolia at her hand, she steps out +under the lindens, which are in full bloom, and throw a sunlit shadowy +carpet over the path. Oh, how her poor heart beats! She kisses the tiny +hands of her little daughter from excitement, looks scrutinizingly at +the little child. Will he think her pretty? + +She stands at the hedge of the park, looks out on the street, gazes, +waits, sees the people return from the railroad. Now he must come! but +no, the white, dusty street is empty; a scornfully whispering breeze +blows away the footprints of the last passer-by, a couple of white +linden-blossoms fall from the tree-tops--he has not come! + +And with slow steps, as one wearily drags himself along after a great +disappointment, she turns toward the house. Kolia gives a deep sigh. "I +don't understand it, mamma," says he. + +"Papa will come with the next train; he has missed this one," his +mother consoles him. + +For a while he trips silently beside her, then suddenly raising his +head and looking at her with his earnest, thoughtful child's eyes, he +says: + +"We would not have missed the train, would we, mamma?" + +And once more the bell sounds in the solemn quiet, and Natalie's heart +beats loudly--and he comes not. + +Ever sadder, she wanders through the empty rooms, into which the +sunlight presses through a shady, cool, perfumed curtain of foliage. + +"How can one stay an hour longer than one must in the sultry, dusty, +sunny, wearying Paris?" she asks herself. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Lensky sits with his colleagues in the _Trois Frères_ at a +breakfast which began at one o'clock, and now at five o'clock has not +yet ended. A breakfast at which all laugh and make jokes--only he +broods silently. + +He is satiated with this rope-dancer's existence--heartily satiated--he +longs for his home, for his dear, incomparable wife, but he delays the +moment of meeting as long as he can. A kind of shame contracts his +throat at the thought of meeting her eyes. He knows she will ask him no +questions, but still---- + + * * * * * + +Once more the railway bell has in vain startled Natalie and her little +son. Evening has come. The excellent little dinner which was prepared +in honor of the return has been served and taken away quite untouched. +Kolia incessantly pulls his mother's sleeve and asks ever more +importunately: "Why does not father come? Why does he not come?" + +Maschenka has long been divested of her white muslin finery, and lies +in her cradle. Kolia obstinately refuses to go to bed until his father +has returned. Weary and tearful he wanders from one corner of the +drawing-room to the other and will not play. + +Now, with little head on his arm, he has fallen asleep over his picture +books at a low child's table. + +The roses which Natalie arranged so carefully in the vases wither. The +white draperies of her dress are limp and tumbled. + +Once again the bell rings. It is the last train to-day. She does not +wake Kolia. Why should he uselessly vex himself this time also? + +Softly she steps on the porch. The moon stands in the heavens; the +trees are black. A gray, transparent mist arises from the earth which +obliterates all contours. The flowers smell unusually sweet, and, in +luxuriant melancholy, confess so much to the pale, cold moon that they +have shamefacedly been silent about to the sun. + +Why does the little brook sob so loudly? Can it not be silent a moment? +Natalie's whole being is now only a strained, longing listening. Why +does her heart beat so loudly? Why does her strong imagination charm up +things in the stillness which do not exist? Or--no--no; she hears a +sigh, a step, slow, slow! Who can that be? No man walks so slowly who +after long, oh, how long absence, returns to wife and child! It is a +messenger of misfortune, who delays to announce some ill news to her. + +Then, from out the shadow, in the foggy moonlight, comes a +broad-shouldered form. + +"Boris!" calls Natalie, half to herself. She cannot go to meet him--she +cannot. Trembling in her whole body, she stands there, in the carved +Gothic portal, against the bright golden background of the lighted +hall; stands there in her white dress, between the tall, pale lilies, +like an angel before the door of a church, into which a wicked sinner +would like to slip. + +"Is it you, at last?" she breathes out. + +"Yes; I am somewhat late. You know, with one's colleagues, one must +offend no one; it is always so." + +How rough his voice sounds! How fleetingly, how hastily he kisses her. +Is she dreaming? + +"How are you; how are the children?" He steps in the hall, blinking +uneasily in the light. + +Is this really the man to whose coming she has so foolishly, so +breathlessly looked forward? This irritable, heavy man with the tumbled +clothes, the badly arranged hair, the fearfully altered face, with a +new expression of God knows what! Her feet refuse her their service; +she catches hold of a support, and sinks down in a chair. + +"How pale you are, Natalie!" says he. "Are you ill?" + +"No--no--only--I have waited for you since five o'clock. I--I thought +you would never find the way back to us." + +For an instant he hesitates; then he sinks at her feet, embraces her +knees with both arms. He, who at parting had not shed a tear, now, at +their meeting, sobs like a desperate one. What pretext, what falsehood +can he utter? As if his colleagues could have withheld him if he had +only really wished to come home! + +"O Natalie! Natalie! Pardon me. We all fear to return to Heaven when we +have accustomed ourselves to Earth. Natalie! be good to me; never let +me leave you again." + +He had plunged a dagger in her heart, but her whole tenderness is +awakened. + +She bends over him, strokes his rough hair with her tender, white hand. +"My poor genius!" she whispers gently. "My poor, dear genius!" + +"Papa!" calls a silvery voice, joyfully. "Pa--pa!" he repeats, +hesitatingly, frightened. Kolia has run up. + +If he lives to be a hundred years old he will never forget how he saw +his father sobbing at his mother's feet after the first long +separation. + +Then he did not understand, but later he understood--understood only +too well. + +How sad life is: how sad! + + * * * * * + +It was the morning after his arrival. Lensky stood at the window of his +room, and looked down in the quiet garden. The little brook which +tumbled down the hill at the side of the Hermitage with exaggerated +violence, quite like a little waterfall, in front of the house from +whence Lensky looked down on it, plashed quite calmly, earnestly, and +dreamily along its here scarcely susceptibly descending bed, and bore +away on its dark waves only as much of the sunshine as could reach it +between the lindens. A cool breeze rose from the water, all around was +dark green, dewy and luxuriant--luxuriant without the slightest +indication of decay, without the least trace of approaching withering. + +And what an abundance of roses stood out in gay, blooming colors +against the sober, dark-green background! Great Maréchal Niel roses, +with heavy, earthward-bent heads, dark-red Jacqueminot, fiery Baroness +Rothschild, delicate pink, capriciously crumpled La France. The Gloire +de Dijon roses climbed quite in the window of his room in their race +with the quite small, pert little running roses. + +Light steps crunched the gravel, large and small steps. Natalie stepped +out from the shady lindens in front of the house. She held her little +daughter in her arms. Kolia walked near her, and with the important +earnestness of six years carried a basketful of strawberries, which he +had evidently just helped his mother pick. One could think of nothing +more charming than the young woman in her white morning-dress, with its +lilac ribbons, and the tiny, rosy being in her arms. The little thing +was bareheaded, and her little arms and feet were also bare. She +quivered and danced with animation. There she discovered a butterfly, +cried out gayly, and clapped her little hands. + +"Oh, are you ready so soon?" called Natalie, when she saw her husband +at the window. "Come to breakfast; I have had the table laid in the +garden." + +He hurried down. The breakfast-table stood in a shady spot, over which +the blooming lindens reached their branches. + +Oh, what a table! How very pretty the Rouen service made it! a service +whose old-fashioned gayness combined harmoniously the most incongruous +colors, set out on the dazzling white damask table-cloth. How inviting +and appetizing everything was! These curiously shaped dishes, with +their fragrant burden of still warm golden cakes and rolls of pale +yellow butter between glittering pieces of ice, and ham covered with +transparent aspic! Around the greenish twilight, fragrant, cool, only +here and there the reddish glimmer of a sunbeam curiously wandered into +the shadow, and now held captive by the lindens. + +When she saw her father coming, little Mascha became quite unruly, +almost danced out of her mother's arms, and, without resisting, let +herself be taken, hugged, and kissed by him. While he held her in his +arms, Kolia seized her little bare legs, and pressed his mouth to her +tiny pink feet. + +"She is charming, a beauty! Is that really my daughter, can something +so wonderfully pretty have such an ugly man for father?" he said from +time to time, laughingly, tenderly, while he kissed her bare shoulders, +and especially the dimple in her neck, again and again. + +"She looks very like you, your pretty daughter," jested Natalie. "More +than the boy! It vexes him if I say that, and I also would prefer it to +be the other way." + +Lensky laughed somewhat constrainedly. The nurse came up to get baby. + +"Just a moment," said Lensky, swinging the little thing high in the +air, to its great delight, "so--and one more kiss on the eyes, the +neck, on these dear, sweet little hands, so----" + +The nurse already had the little thing in her arms, when the sweet +little rogue looked round at her father. + +Meanwhile, Natalie busied herself with the samovar, which stood on a +small stand near the breakfast table. No servant was near, Kolia helped +mamma serve tea, and waited with a sober expression until his mother +had confided the cup for his father to him. Carefully, as if he held +the Holy Grail in his hands, he carried it over to Lensky. Natalie sat +down opposite her husband, and buttered him a piece of bread. + +He looked at her with a peculiarly sad, touched look. "You are all much +too good to me," he murmured; then he added, tenderly: "Either I had +really forgotten during my absence how beautiful you are, or you have +really gained in charm." + +How awkwardly that came out! how stumblingly! He had wished to say +something loving to her, but he had not succeeded well. He felt it +himself. A petulant smile shone in her sad eyes at his well, or much +rather, badly put little speech. Some reply trembled on her lips, then +she suddenly closed her lovely mouth, as if she feared her husband +would take what she wished to say somewhat ill, and busied herself in +fastening a napkin round Kolia's neck. + +After a while Lensky began anew: "How charming my home is. Ah, Natalie, +how have I renounced it all for so long! How could I exist so long +without you!" + +"If you only are really pleased over your return we will make no +further remarks about your absence," said Natalie very lovingly, and +then hesitated with embarrassment and blushed to the roots of her hair. + +Breakfast took its course. Here and there, by turns, Natalie and Lensky +made a remark, but the conversation did not become fluent. A strange +irritation vibrated in every nerve of the virtuoso. Formerly there had +been no end of talking between them, and now-- What was she thinking +of, to speak about the weather as if he were any guest to whom one +feels obliged to be polite, and to whom one does not know what to say, +because no common interest unites him with us? + +He remembered the words which she had spoken in the Hotel Windsor at +that time before the conclusion of his contract with Morinsky: "As a +stranger you will return to us, and a stranger you will remain among us +from that time." + +Was she right? Foolishness! She had only become a little too +distinguished among the wearisome crowd with whom she had passed the +winter. The forced mood which reigned between them was her fault, not +his. + +"You are so stiff and formal, Natalie," he remarked at last, vexedly, +quite irrelevantly. "You have again accustomed yourself to such +fearfully aristocratic manners." + +"How can you say anything so foolish?" she answered him, laughing +constrainedly. + +"Oh, it is not laughable to me," he growled, and suddenly, without any +reason, only to air his inward uneasiness, he burst out: "It is painful +to me, I cannot endure it--cannot bear it." He pushed his cup away with +an involuntary motion. + +"But, Boris!" Natalie admonished him. "My poor, unaccountable, dear +genius!" She looked at him so roguishly therewith that his anger was +scattered to the four winds. + +He stretched out both his hands to her across the table; she took them. +He bent somewhat forward, wished to draw her hands to his lips, when a +light step was heard on the gravel. Natalie blushed, and with a quick, +almost frightened movement, drew them away from him. He scowled +angrily. Before whom was she embarrassed then? + +A young woman in a very elegant _negligé_ costume, profusely trimmed +with Valenciennes lace, without hat, and a yellow parasol in her hand, +stepped up to the breakfast table. She resembled Natalie, although she +was smaller, stouter, and the features of her pretty face were coarser. +Lensky recognized in her his wife's sister, Princess Jeliagin, a person +whom he detested from the bottom of his heart, even if he had until +now only known her slightly, before his marriage with Natalie. Kind +friends had told him that she had described his alliance with her +sister as _une chose absurde_. Wife of a rich, quite incompetent +diplomat, she had during her ten years' life in foreign countries made +all the most absurd aristocratic prejudices her own, and was always +addressed as "Princess," although her husband had no title. With all +these Western-Europe grimaces she combined something of her Russian, +half Asiatic exaggeration, by which she became still more grotesque and +tactless. In spite of her boasted exclusiveness she had never quite +learned to understand the shades of foreign society, and made frequent +mistakes in her choice of acquaintances. + +Besides this, with all her weaknesses and affectations, she was good +natured to silliness, and hospitable to prodigality. + +"So early in the morning, Barbe what a surprise!" Natalie called to +her, while she tried not to let it be perceived how inopportune her +sister's visit was to her just at that moment. "That is charming, I +must introduce my husband to you." + +"We know each other already, at least I hope that Boris Nikolaivitch +remembers me--once in St. Petersburg, at the Olins. In any case, I am +very happy to renew the acquaintance," remarked the Jeliagin, and at +once reached him her fat little hand, in a buckskin garden glove. Her +voice was guttural and rough, her whole face, as Lensky could now see +plainly, was painted. + +"How are you, Nikolas?" She turned to little Kolia, while she stroked +his head in a friendly manner. "Please greet a person, or have I fallen +as deeply in your displeasure as my Anna? I assure you that I cannot +help it if she talks foolishly. Only think, Boris Nikolaivitch, he +cudgelled my daughter Anna, day before yesterday, because she ventured +to assert that a prince was greater than a genius. He answered her that +not even an emperor was greater. A genius came next to the dear God, +and as she would not agree to that, he struck her, and hard." + +The Jeliagin laughed. Lensky also laughed involuntarily, but remarked +in a tone of admonition to his son, who had shyly concealed himself +behind his mother: "A boy should never strike a girl; that is not +proper." + +"But why did she say such foolish things?" little Nikolas defended +himself, while he wrinkled his small forehead. "I cannot bear that, and +then she is larger than I, so much"--he measured the width of his hand +above his head. + +"She gave him quite a scratch, she was not defenceless," said Barbara +Alexandrovna, while she sat down and closed her umbrella. "But to come +to something more interesting," she continued; "we have, in spirit, +followed you on every step of your American triumphal march, Boris +Nikolaivitch; the newspapers gave us the guide thereto. I hope we will +now see very much of you. Natascha can tell you how well all artists +are received at our house,--and h'm!--and if it is a question of a +relation--_à propos_, could you not come and dine with us this evening? +We are quite _entre nous_, only Lis, Princess Zriny, that eccentric +Hungarian, Marinia Löwenskiold, a good friend of yours, you remember +her, a few diplomats, etc.; and we are bored as only _gens du monde_ +are bored if they have been together under the same roof for ten days. +Natalie can tell you how bored we are--merely people from our coterie, +who know each other by heart; if you please. And how stupid we are! ha, +ha, ha! In desperation we arranged a race in the drawing-room +yesterday. Arthur de Blincourt, while jumping a barrier, dislocated a +joint, and now lies on a lounge, and lets himself be looked after. But +we all long for a new element--_on vous attend comme le Messie_, Boris +Nikolaivitch. You will come, will you not? We dine at eight o'clock." + +While she chattered on with self-satisfied fluency, it seemed to Boris +as if some one scratched a knife on a porcelain plate. + +"Why does she roll her eyes so incessantly when she speaks? They do not +look more beautiful when one sees so much of their orange-yellow +whites," he thought to himself. Aloud he only remarked: "Do you really +believe that I would amuse you better than a drawing-room race?" + +"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed she. "That is splendid! I must repeat it to +Marinia Löwenskiold, who raves about you. You will come, will you not?" + +"No, I will not come," replied he sharply. "I do not feel myself equal +to the task of amusing a dozen _gens du monde_ who are bored." + +"Well, as you will," said the Jeliagin, shrugging her shoulders. "Try +to persuade him before evening, Natalie, and come, or send me word. I +must go, we wish to ride out _en bande_, at eight. Adieu! Give me your +hand, please, Kolia, and come and lunch with us. Anna will be pleased, +and you shall have strawberries and whipped cream. Adieu!" With that +she went away. + +Lensky stared gloomily before him for a while, then he struck his +clenched fist on the table so that all the dishes rattled: "From whence +did this goose drop down so suddenly?" asked he. + +"She lives in the castle in the park," said Natalie. "She has hired it +for the summer." + +"So!" grumbled Lensky. "Now if I had known that, I should never have +thought of coming here." + +"But I wrote you of it." + +"Not a word." + +"Certainly, in many letters; did you not have time to read them?" + +Instead of replying to this, for him very unpleasant remark, Lensky +said, in increasing rage: "Oh! now I understand the change which has +taken place in you. She is horrible, your sister! For what does she +hold me, that she takes this tone with me?" + +"I cannot help her lack of tact," replied Natalie, gently and +reproachfully. + +"Ah, you are still influenced by your relations, by that narrow stupid +crowd," he growled, crimson with rage. "You are condescending to me, +yes, that is the right word, condescending, indulgent. Why do you start +back from me when this silly machine comes near? Are you then ashamed +of our love before her?" + +"Our love!" repeated Natalie, with broken voice, strangely emphasizing +the word "our." + +He did not suspect anything from the trembling sadness of her voice, +and did not once look at her. + +Meanwhile he felt the anxious touch of a silky, soft child's hand. +Little Kolia had come up to his father, and whispered to him shyly and +pleadingly: "Papa, mamma is crying." + +Lensky looked up, frightened. Yes, she had done her utmost to +courageously smile through the unpleasant scene, but her overexcited +nerves could not bear it; she sobbed convulsively. + +"But Natalie, my angel, my little dove!" He could not see any woman +weep, least of all his wife, whom he loved. He sprang up, took her in +his arms, covered her eyes, her mouth, her whole face with kisses. "Do +not torment yourself, my treasure! You are much, much too good to me; +you are an angel! How could you ever take such a rough clown as I am? +We are not suited to each other, Natascha." + +"Oh, Boris! do you mean that?" + +"Yes, I mean it," said he, gloomily. "Better, a hundred times better, +would it have been for you if you had never seen me! You are so +charming, so good, and I love you so idolatrously; but I am a fearful, +a horrible man, and I cannot always govern myself--I cannot! I will yet +torment you to death, my poor Natalie!" And he did not cease to caress +and to kiss her. + +Then she raised her head from his shoulder, and looking at him from +eyes still shining with tears, with a glance full of tender fanaticism +she said: "What does it matter, even if you kill me? it would still be +beautiful! I would change with no woman in God's world, do you hear, +with none! Think of what I have said to you to-day when one day you +give me a last kiss in my coffin!" + + * * * * * + +Lensky could no longer get back into the old ways at home; however much +he tried, he could not. As in the former year, only more significantly, +more tormentingly, the feeling of growing discontent made itself felt +in him. It seemed to him as if he could not remain for any length of +time on the same spot; as if he must incessantly seek something which +was no longer anywhere to be found. + +For a couple of days he ill-humoredly stayed away from the castle, but +when his brother-in-law paid him a visit and repeated the invitation of +Barbara Alexandrovna in the most polite manner,--when one day, all the +ladies staying at the castle as guests had come out in a body to give +him an ovation and especially when he had become immeasurably weary of +the poetic monotony of life in the Hermitage; he replied to Natalie, +when she once asked him smilingly, with the intention of freeing him +from his own constraining obstinacy, whether he thought it was really +worth the trouble to longer play the bear: "No!" + +From that time, he passed every evening in the castle. + +At first Natalie had been glad that the social intercourse there +offered him a distraction. But soon the evenings in "Les Ormes" became +a torment to her. The hateful change which had taken place in him +during his long absence from his family, that change which Natalie had +predicted, and by which she yet had been frightened at his return, as +by something quite unexpected, never became more significant than +during these evenings at the castle. + +If, during the first years of his marriage, through the lovely +influence of his young wife, and especially through the wish to +satisfy, to please her in everything, he had learned with quite +incredible rapidity to follow the usual social customs of the country, +and no longer to bear himself in the world as a genius, but as any +other cultivated, well-bred man, he had completely forgotten it during +his vagabond life, or rather it had become wearisome to him. + +More than ever, his circle of action in a drawing-room limited itself +to producing music and then being raved over by ladies. The incessant +self-bewilderment in this smoke of incense how, where and whenever it +might be, had become a necessity of existence for him. Everything in +him had gone wild, even his art. + +Together with a preference for perilous technical artifices, +challenging musical unrestraint of every kind showed itself. Oftener +than ever he fell into those mad moods in which he demanded things of +his poor violin which it could not perform, until it groaned and +screamed as if in the torments of hell, and if he had formerly +complained that he could not govern himself, he now boasted of it. It +was his specialty, by which he was distinguished from all the virtuosos +of his time. And, in spite of all the underlying lack of restraint and +the impurity, that the sense-enslaving glow of his art now unfolded +stronger than before, there could be no doubt. Especially over the +feminine portion of his listeners his playing exercised a quite +degrading charm. The triumphs which he achieved in "Les Ormes" proved +this. + +He profited by the situation. Although it would have been tiresome to +him to have passed a whole evening among these people of the world, far +removed from all his most intimate interests of life, without playing, +he sometimes let himself be urged almost to lack of taste before he +took up his violin. It happened once that he waited until a +particularly crazy enthusiast presented, kneeling, his violin to him. + +One of the musical ladies present sat down to the piano to accompany +him; the others grouped themselves as near as possible round him, while +they anxiously tried to express by their positions a kind of dying-away +charm. He felt the longing glances of their eyes resting on him while +he played. He saw the beautiful heads bent forward. It went to his head +like a stunning oppression; he no longer knew himself. But they no +longer knew themselves. If in the bearing of the great ladies who +frequented his house in ----, in spite of all their enthusiasm for his +art, there had still been a trace of patronage with reference to the +artist, many of these beauties now fawned upon him like slaves who +would sue for his favor. + +When he had finished, no one of them knew by what special insanity she +should over-trump the others, in order to prove to him her enthusiasm. +And while the music-bewitched women crowded around him, to beg +autographs or locks of hair from him, and carefully picked out the +remains of his thrown-away cigarettes from the ash receiver, in order +to keep them as relics, the Jeliagin told some new guest, in an +adjoining room, the "romance of her sister," which she always concluded +with the words: "My poor sister; so courted as she was! You know that +she refused Prince Truhetzkoi. We were inconsolable when we heard of +her betrothal with Lensky. He is really a great genius!" And then she +sighed. + +But Natalie stood on the terrace which opened out of the music-room, +quite alone. She was happy if she could remain alone; if no one came up +to her to ask if she had a headache, or if anything else was the +matter. Was anything the matter with her? No one could feel what she +suffered, and there was also no human consolation which she would not +have felt as an insult, however tenderly it was offered to her. + +What were the little pin pricks which had excited her impatience +in ---- to this pain! + +Around her was the summer night, sultry and still. The black shadows of +the trees stretched themselves in the moonlight over the gray-green +turf on which not a single dew-drop sparkled. + +Out into the stillness of the night sounded a loud, harsh laugh. +Natalie looked through one of the flower-encircled windows into the +drawing-room. There sat Lensky in a circle of ladies. + +Heated by his wearying performance, he wiped the perspiration from his +temples, from his neck. He was relating something that Natalie could +not hear distinctly, but which evidently seemed very droll to him, and +which convulsed his listeners; they exhibited a kind of comically +exaggerated irritation. An embarrassed smile appeared on his lips, he +seized the hand of the lady who sat nearest to him, played with it +appeasingly, and drew it to his lips. This was his manner of making his +apologies if he had said something too racy. + +Natalie stepped back in the shadow. A desperation, which was mingled +with aversion, lay hold of her. Then, hollow, paining, quenching all +the pleasure of life, quite like a physical discomfort, something crept +over her which she would not explain to herself, which at no price +would she have called by its name--jealousy. + + * * * * * + +The whole mud of his inner nature was stirred up as a stream highly +swollen and unsettled after a wild storm, raving and foaming, tumbles +in its bed, and can no longer find peace and rest therein. + +From time to time he invited guests from Paris; sometimes they came +uninvited. They usually remained to luncheon only, but Natalie had +always time enough to be alarmed at them and to wish them away. They +were no longer artistic celebrities like those whom Natalie had charmed +to the "Hermitage" the year before; no, Lensky had reached that point +in his career when an artist only tolerates courtiers and court fools +about himself. + +What a motley rabble that sometimes was which assembled around +him--artistic Bohemians, freed from all social and moral restraint! + +The men usually remained to luncheon. Natalie did her utmost to conceal +the repulsion which the bearing and manner of expression of the throng +caused her, even from her husband. But sharp-sighted as he was he +guessed her feelings. + +At first he tried to spare her; to keep the conversation in suitable +bounds as long as she was present. But one day it became too tiresome +for him. Whether the wine had gone to his head, or whether some secret +vexation irritated him, in any case he felt the need of breaking his +conventional shackles. Scarcely had he given the sign for excessive +freedom of speech, when the other men followed his lead. They laughed, +jested with Natalie and about her, without the slightest consideration +for her, as men heated by wine do when they are together--Lensky by far +the worst among them all. + +From time to time he looked at Natalie challengingly and angrily. Why +was she so prudish? Why was she so affected? It was laughable in a +married woman of her age--was nothing but foolishness and affectation. + +At dessert she could bear it no longer; she left the table and locked +herself in her room. + +A kind of illness had come over her; she was near a swoon. + +How painful the recollection of his roughness was to him later she knew +nothing of. He was much too proud to let it be noticed. On the +contrary, when he was with her again he acted as if he had a humor of +hers to pardon. + +From that time Natalie no longer appeared at these lunches. But in the +distance she heard the rattling of glasses, the laughter. + +She stopped her ears and bit her teeth into her lips. + + * * * * * + +With all this he became daily more out of temper and discontented. + +At first his drawing-room triumphs in "Les Ormes" had amused him; +gradually he lost the taste for them, found everything empty childish. +His position in the midst of this exclusive worldliness vexed him. +While the women threw themselves at his head, he noticed a smile on the +lips of the men which offended him. If, even at the beginning of his +career, he had felt quite _à son aise_ with the ladies of the +aristocracy, he never, on the contrary, to the end of his life, learned +to live in harmony with the men of that rank. Their treatment of him +always remained objectionable to him. True, they always met him with +the greatest politeness, but they never treated him as their equal, and +were always a trifle too polite to him. If he entered the smoking-room +while they, with hands in their pockets and cigars between their teeth, +confidentially talked of politics, race-horses or ladies, the +conversation immediately took a more earnest tone. As soon as he opened +his mouth the others all listened in solemn silence; then one of them +would leave the group, take him apart from the others, and try to talk +of music with him. He embarrassed them and they embarrassed him. + +Formerly, he had taken such things quite philosophically, but his +sensitiveness had increased in recent times. In the long months which +he had passed, going from city to city, winning triumphs and absolute, +surrounded only by artists of the second and third class, he had +gradually begun to feel himself the central point of the world. But +here, in spite of the insane homage of the ladies, he very soon saw +what a small _rôle_ he really played on the world's stage, although he +could give pleasure to so many by his art. + +He could still tolerate the Russians, but sometimes strange diplomats +came to the castle. The condescending flattery of these gentlemen was +unbearable to him. What was he really in the eyes of these empty heads? +he asked himself; an acrobat of the better sort, a man who existed +merely for their accursed amusement. As if music were not the most +beautiful of all arts, an art ten times holier, more God-like than the +political, bungling work of these diplomats! "Art is the most enduring +in the world. I am the only immortal among you all!" he said to +himself. But then came the question: "Yes; am I then immortal? What +have I accomplished up to this time to deserve artistic immortality?" + +He only felt really happy on the days when all the men were occupied in +hunting, and he and a handsome Spanish painter with a wooden leg were +the only men in a circle of ten or twelve ladies, although, in his +heart, the unmanliness of his position struck him bitterly enough. + + * * * * * + +The most charming of his admirers in "Les Ormes," the one who had +decidedly taken the first place in his favor, was the Countess Marinia +Löwenskiold. As already mentioned, she was a Pole, and married to a +northern diplomat, from whom she lived separated, _à l'aimable_. + +Naturally, she was an idealist, as almost all women are who have +departed from the usual course in life. In addition, she was very +musical. What was most piquant about her was the fact that, in spite of +the separation from her husband, whom, besides, no one could bear, and +in spite of her perilous coquetries, no one could say anything against +her which could seriously injure her reputation. + +Perhaps it was just this, her former haughty blamelessness, which +attracted Lensky to her. She was very beautiful, she pleased him; and +then--why did they say that this little Pole was invincible? He would +see! + +Among the guests in the castle was Count Leon Pachotin. Touchingly +faithful to his old enthusiasm, he busied himself by singling out the +wife of the virtuoso on every possible occasion, with the most +exaggerated homage and attentions. He was still a very handsome man, +was rich, had changed his military career, as is quite customary with +young cavaliers, for that of diplomacy, in all appearances bid fair to +reach the highest honors, and--was still unmarried. It was +indescribably bitter to Natalie to play the humiliating _rôle_ which +had fallen to her in life, so near to him. Sometimes she felt his kind +blue eyes resting upon her in sad compassion. Then the proud blood +boiled within her. She collected herself in order that nothing might be +noticed, and was again, so truly the charming, seductive, +unapproachable Natalie Assanow of former days. + + * * * * * + +On a sultry evening, toward the middle of August, the company in the +castle was unusually brilliant and numerous. The men and women sat in +groups here and there in an immense pavilion--in which, by means of +screens and thickets of flowers, all kinds of confidential nooks were +formed--talked, laughed, coquetted, and sipped the refreshments which +tall servants with solemn bearing and brilliant liveries presented. + +Natalie had the consciousness this evening of looking particularly +beautiful. Pechotin scarcely left her side. She observed that the +count's manner to her irritated Lensky, that he looked over to her more +than once uneasily, and she was glad and doubled her lovability to +Pachotin. + +Then she noticed that Boris had left the pavilion. With instinctive +jealousy her eyes sought Countess Löwenskiold. She also was missing. +Natalie's blood throbbed in every vein, she suddenly found Pachotin +intrusive and awkward, wished to do nothing more speedily than to get +rid of him. + +"Please see if you can get me an ice, Count," she remarked. He rose +obligingly. Scarcely had he left her when she stepped out from the +pavilion on the terrace. + +There was no one there, but out in the park, not very far, no further +than a lady should permit herself to wander in the garden on a +beautiful summer night in the company of a gentleman, she discovered +two figures--he and she. A quite irresistible impulse drove her to +follow them, to interrupt their conversation in some manner. Already +she had taken a step forward, then, blushing for herself, she remained +standing. Had it already gone so far with her that she should show +herself capable of a degrading, pitiful act! She stood as if rooted to +the ground. The pair in the park, yonder, also remained standing. She +saw how Lensky stamped his foot, and threw back his brown head. She +knew this despotic, violent movement. Then it seemed to her that she +heard the words: "_pas de sens commun--enfantillages!_" Her heart beat +violently, she turned away and reëntered the room. Soon after, Lensky +joined the other guests, so did the Countess Löwenskiold. It did not +escape Natalie that the latter entered the room by another door from +him. The Polish woman was deathly pale, and her lips burned with fever. +In Lensky's manner, on the contrary, not a trace of excitement betrayed +itself; he was even more lovable than usual, and polite to all the +ladies, and without being specially urged, took up his violin. + +While he played, he turned away from the Löwenskiold, and he charmed +such tones from his Amati that evening, tones of such touching, painful +sweetness, that the most earnest men present, with the women, bowed +before his art. + +While he played, the nervous countess was seized with a fit of weeping, +and left the room. + +A little later, Natalie and Lensky walked home together through the +park. The way which they took was enclosed on both sides by thick +bushes, which almost met over their heads in a transparent arch. The +moonbeams slid through the branches, and the shadows of the leaves +spread themselves out like ghostly lace-work over the yellow gravel. An +oppressive sultriness, the breathless, sticky sultriness of the old +heat of the day, which remained hanging in the thicket, made breathing +difficult. + +Neither of them spoke a word. But while she, holding her head very high +in the air, looked straight before her, his glance rested ever more +frequently on her. In accordance with the custom which ruled in the +castle, she wore evening dress, and, on account of the heat, had let +the white, gold-embroidered burnous slip down a little from her bare +shoulders. The moonlight shone on her neck. She held her little head +somewhat averted. In vain he tried to look in her eyes; he only saw the +outline of her cheek, her chin, and neck; but how charming all that +was! Never before, since his return, had she pleased him so. It really +was worth the pains to only look at another woman near this one. Giving +way to a sudden excitement, mingled with remorse, he drew her to him +and pressed his lips to her shoulder. But she escaped his embrace, not +without a certain correcting roughness. His arms fell loosely at his +sides, but he could not remove his gaze from her. How high she held her +head, what annihilating arrogance her little mouth expressed! In his +mind he saw Pachotin bent over her chair, humbly intent on the +slightest sign of her favor. + +Who knows? perhaps she regrets, thought he to himself, and a furious +rage gnawed at his heart. + + * * * * * + +About three days after this scene--three days, during which Natalie and +Lensky had lived together in mutual wrath, without speaking a word to +each other, Lensky told his wife he must to-day go to Paris, in order +to arrange with Flaxland the publication of one of his works; at the +same time he wished to make use of the opportunity to see and hear +Gounod's new opera. He could, therefore, only come home the next day on +the five o'clock train. He said all that in a very grumbling tone, did +not give her a kiss for farewell, and immediately went to the railroad. + +She fancied him already far away, when he returned again. "Have you +forgotten anything?" she asked him. + +"Yes; namely, I would like to know if you perhaps have anything to be +done in Paris--and then--if you wish, you can come with me; we will go +to the opera together. I will wait, as far as I am concerned, for the +next train, so that there will be time enough for you to make ready." + +If he had only said that pleasantly, but he said it roughly, +disagreeably, as if it did not concern him at all. He had offended +Natalie too much recently for her to agree with his first attempt at +reconciliation. + +"I thank you very much," she replied coldly; "you will amuse yourself +much better without me." + +For one moment he hesitated; then he shrugged his shoulders and went. + +Scarcely had he gone when Natalie was overcome with remorse for her +stubbornness and obstinacy. + +Truly it was unwise and hateful not to come to meet him, if he, proud +as he was, took the first step. She could have cried from anger with +herself. A true child, as in the bottom of her heart she still was, she +could not cease to think of the pleasure which she so petulantly had +renounced. How charming it would have been to pass a whole day alone +with him in Paris. To dine in the Café Anglais, very quickly and quite +early, so as not to miss the opera, but still very excellently; she +even made out the _menu_--ah! she knew all his favorite dishes so well; +then the next day they would have bought all kinds of useless, pretty +things together. She knew, from former years, how good-naturedly and +patiently he would let himself be dragged in the great bazaars. She +would have bought Kolia playthings and baby an embroidered dress--she +saw the little dress before her--and instead of all that--ah, how +vexatious! + +The hours dragged slowly; she scarcely put her foot out of the house. +She also remained at home in the evening; the castle had really no +power of attraction for her. When Kolia took the place opposite her at +dinner, and unfolded his napkin with an important air, he remarked: +"See, mamma, now it is just like the day after papa had gone away to +America, only you are not so sad, because you know that he is coming +back soon." + +Natalie smiled at the child. After awhile Kolia began anew: + +"Mamma, shall we go to meet papa tomorrow?" + +She nodded. + +Kolia rested his little head thoughtfully on his hand. + +"I wonder if he will miss the train again?" said he. + + * * * * * + +In accordance with a loving agreement, Natalie had formerly been the +only one who possessed the right to move anything in Lensky's sanctum, +and to remove the dust from his writing-table. With devoted punctuality +she had always performed this task. Only very recently had she been +untrue to this dear custom. But this time he should observe, as soon as +he returned, that she had busied herself for him during his absence. + +She was in an optimistic frame of mind. She would no longer be angry +with him because he of late had caused her so many bitter hours. He +himself had not been happy. He was not yet really acclimatized at home. +She had known that she must first win him back again after his long +absence. Why had she from exaggerated pride so soon crossed arms? To +remember the low expressions which he sometimes now made use of, and +especially in company with the motley crowd that came over to him from +Paris, this really sent the blood to her cheeks--but still he had +scarcely known what he said. She had needlessly irritated him by her +childish prudery; one must take these great natures, always inclined to +exaggeration, as they were, and not make them obstinate by quite +uselessly checking and restraining them. + +Only at the thought of the Countess Löwenskiold an unpleasant shudder +ran over her. And suddenly the thought flashed through her: "What does +he really wish in Paris?" But almost laughingly she answered herself: +"As if he could wish anything evil when he asked me to accompany him!" + +After she had carefully and daintily set everything to rights on the +writing-table, she went down in the garden to cut for it the most +beautiful roses which she could find. + +Softly humming one of the songs which he had dedicated to her as bride, +she carried the flowers, tastefully arranged in a vase, into his room, +and placed them on his writing-table. There she discovered in a brass +ash receiver a half-burned paper which had formerly escaped her. She +looked at the paper to see whether she might throw it away. Her heart +stood still. She read the words written in French: "O thou my creator, +my redeemer--my ruiner--broken--Paris." The rest of the lines were +burned. + +She could scarcely stand. From whom were these lines? was not that the +writing of Countess Löwenskiold? No, no, it was not possible--he asked +me to accompany him. Yes, he asked me to accompany him. She repeated it +ten times, a hundred times, in order to shake off from herself the +conviction that began so pitilessly to weigh down upon her. She could +not believe such a thing, she would not. Countess Löwenskiold had +certainly not left "Les Ormes"! + +But, however she fights with her distrust, she cannot overcome it. A +thousand little particulars occur to her. + +The sun shines down hot and full from the sapphire-blue heaven. Natalie +does not trouble herself about that; straight through the park she +hurries, without parasol, without hat, over to the castle. She will +inform herself with as little risk as possible. There is no one at +home; the ladies have not yet returned from a walk. What a shame! "_La +princesse regrettera beaucoup_," remarked the _maître d'hôtel_, who had +received her in the entrance-hall. "Perhaps madame will remain to +lunch; they will lay a place for madame." + +He is an old acquaintance, a servant whom Natalie has known for years. +"Oh, no; I cannot stay; I only wished to inquire after the health of +the Countess Löwenskiold; she has looked so miserable of late," +murmured she. + +"Madame la Comtesse Löwenskiold?" says the man, astonished. "Ah! she is +no longer here. The poor countess left day before yesterday evening, +quite unexpectedly. It occurred to me that she looked very badly. Did +madame also notice it?" + +What she stammered in answer to his question she does not know. A few +minutes later she hurries homeward again through the park, hatless, +parasolless. The sun still beams down full and golden upon the earth +from the sapphire sky. She does not feel the burning of the sun, and +does not see that the sky is blue. For her the sun is dead and the sky +black. It seems to her that it sinks slowly down upon her, heavy and +breath-robbing, like a sultry, bruising weight. + +"He wished to take me with him," she still repeats, as if the words +held consolation; "yes, he wished to take me with him." Then she +remembers the embarrassed, uneasy expression which his face wore when +he returned at the last minute to ask her to accompany him. Evidently +he had had a fit of remorse. + +"I could have prevented it," she murmured, with hollow voice. Then she +shook in her whole body with rage and horror. + + * * * * * + +About this time, gloomily looking before him, Lensky went through the +Rue de la Paix. He did not know why he went along this street rather +than another. It was quite indifferent to him where he was; he only +wished to kill time. A furious anger with himself shook him; at the +same time disgust tormented him. It was always the same; one woman was +just like the others. The only one who was different was his own wife; +and he--well, he had taken the first slight opportunity to insult her. + +He came by the hotel in which he had lived with her the former year. He +hastened his steps. From a jeweller's shop the most wonderful jewels +sparkled at him. He entered. He would take something to Natalie; would +give her a little pleasure. He purchased a pretty pin set with +emeralds. She had a preference for emeralds. Scarcely had he left the +shop when it seemed to him that the little case in his pocket weighed +upon him, pulled him down to the ground. How had he dared venture to +offer her a gift in this moment! He took the little case and threw it +on the ground--trod on it, once, twice, raging, beside himself. So! +that did him good. He must vent his wrath in some way. + + * * * * * + +When he returned home about five o'clock, he was calmer. What had +happened could not be changed, it was now only worth while not to ruin +the future. It disquieted him that Natalie did not meet him, but after +all, he was not very astonished. She still felt a little vexed with +him. He would soon make an end of that. He asked where she was. "In her +room," they told him. But what was that? Everything was upturned, +chests stood open, on chairs and tables lay piles of linen, clothes, as +before a departure. He did not yet understand, but still he noticed +that she started violently at his entrance, without looking around at +him. + +"What are you doing, Natalie? Are you preparing for departure?" asked +he. + +"As you see," replied she shortly, and continued her strange +occupation. + +"It is a good idea," said he. "I already myself wished to make the +proposition to you to move away from here. But how did you really come +to think of it?" + +Instead of any answer, she merely shrugged her shoulders. A short pause +followed. + +He stepped somewhat nearer to her. "Natalie," said he, earnestly, +warmly and gently, with his old, dear voice, the voice which always +went so deep to her heart, and which she now heard again for the first +time since his return from America, "Natalie, do you not think that we +would do better to make peace with each other?" + +He wished to put his arm round her, but she repulsed him. In so doing, +for the first time she turned her face to him. With horror he perceived +how miserable she looked. + +Her lips were pale, her features sharpened like a dead person's. For +one moment she still restrained herself, her eyes sought his. An +unrest, a hope fevered in her. "Perhaps I have in vain martyred and +tormented myself," she said to herself. "He certainly could not speak +so to me, if----" + +With trembling hand she opened a little box, and took out the +half-singed letter which she had not been able to overcome herself from +carrying about with her. She handed Lensky the letter. + +He changed color. "What accident has played this silly note into your +hands?" he burst out. + +"No matter about that," she replied dully, and with that she tottered +so that she must catch hold of a chair so as not to fall. "Were you--in +company--with the Löwenskiold--in Paris--or--not?" + +Why could he not lie? He remained silent. + +Once more she looked at him, despairingly and supplicatingly. He turned +away his head. + +She gave a gasping cry, pushed back the hair from her temples with both +hands, and sank in a chair. Then she pointed with her pale, trembling +hand to the door. + +Lensky did not move. + +"Go!" said she, severely; and her hand no longer trembled, and her +gesture was more imperious, more proud. + +Instead of obeying her command, he sank down at her feet and covered +the hem of her dress with kisses. "I have sinned against you," he said; +"yes, but if you knew how furious I am with myself, and how little my +heart was concerned in the affair, you would pardon me. You will not +certainly be jealous of something that is quite beneath one's notice; +one does not always think immediately what one is doing." He shrugged +his shoulders impatiently. "For this reason you are still the only +woman in the world for me. Really, my angel, it is not worth the pains +that you should torment yourself!" He took her hand in his. + +But she started back from his touch. "Leave me!" said she, violently. +"All is at an end between us--go!" + +For the first time he comprehended the gravity of the situation. "All +at an end--" he murmured, while he rose. "What do you mean?" + +"That I will no longer bear to be under the same roof with you; that I +will go back to my mother; that I insist upon a separation--that is +what I mean. Did you, then, expect anything different?" + +He clutched his forehead. "A separation! but that is impossible!" he +gasped. "A separation--the children!" + +She started. "Yes--the children!" murmured she, dully, inconsolably; +"the children!" And with a bitter smile she looked down on her +preparations for the journey, on the trunks, the effects lying about. + +Then he once more stepped up to her. "You see that the bond between us +can never more be broken," said he, gently. "You cannot go!" + +"No!" said she harshly. "No, I cannot go--not even that consolation +remains to me. As the mother of your children I must remain under your +roof. But in everything else between me and you all is at an end. Go!" + +He went. + + * * * * * + +He betook himself to his study. Scarcely had he entered here when a +peculiar feeling of mingled emotion and anxiety came over him. He +noticed that she had been here, noticed that she had everywhere removed +the dust; that she had arranged his of late neglected writing-table, +and how understandingly, with what loving consideration of all his +whims! He noticed the vase with fresh roses. Evidently she had busied +herself for him during his absence. She had wished to be reconciled to +him, and while she troubled herself for him she must have found the +note somewhere in this room. "It is all over," he told himself; "but +that is really not possible. It is jealousy that speaks from her; that +will pass away." Jealousy! Yes, if it had really only been jealousy, +but that which he had read in her features was something else--almost a +kind of loathing. What, then, had he done? He had left a distinguished +young woman, beautiful as a picture, alone for eight months, and when +he returned, instead of recompensing her for her long, sad loneliness +by loving consideration, he had daily, before her eyes, let himself be +raved over by other women, and at last---- + +"She despises me, and she is right!" he murmured to himself. "If she +had borne this also, she would have been pitiable, and I must have +despised her like the others--she, my proud, splendid Natalie!" + +He sat at his writing-table, and rested his head in his hand. + +The twilight shadows spread over the floor, and slid down from the +ceiling, and made the corners of the room invisible, and obliterated +the outlines of the furniture. The colors died; only the white roses +shone in a ghostly manner in the half light. + +Then the door opened; the servant announced that dinner was served. + +It seemed strange to him that he should go to the table to-day as any +other day; it was not possible for him to eat anything, but he was +ashamed to cause talk among the servants, and so he went into the +dining-room. "Will she be there?" he asked himself. How could he have +even fancied such a thing? Naturally she was missing. Only Kolia was +there, and stood expectantly near the silver soup tureen, which shone +on the table. In their little family circle, Lensky always himself +served the soup. Kolia had raised himself on tiptoes, and with one +slender finger had pushed the cover of the dish somewhat to one side. +He stretched his little nose eagerly forward, and slowly inhaled the +rising odor, while with a deliciously old, wise connoisseur expression +he drew down his nostrils and closed his eyes. + +"I see already, it is crab soup--my favorite soup, papa!" he remarked, +and then with agility he climbed up on the chair, which, on account of +his still insufficient stature, was prepared with a cushion for him. + +It was certainly only a quite trivial little affair, and yet it stabbed +Lensky to the heart. + +_Potage au bisque_ was also his favorite soup. He stared at Natalie's +place, which remained vacant. + +A great embarrassment mingled with his pain. He sent the servant, busy +at the side-board, out of the room on some pretext. + +"Mother is not coming?" he turned to the boy, who had already begun to +eat his soup. + +"No; mamma has a headache. Poor mamma!" + +"Do you wish to be a very clever boy, Kolia?" + +"Yes, papa!" + +"Then take this bowl of soup to your mother. Do not spill it; perhaps +mamma will take a few drops." + +With an important face Kolia undertook his errand. Lensky opened the +door of the dining-room for him, and looked after him while he tripped +along the green-carpeted, dimly-lighted corridor. How pretty and +pleasing all that was! The lamps, which stood out from old-fashioned +inlaid plates of polished copper, the stags' antlers on the brown +wainscoting. And he had not felt happy at home! + +Then Kolia came springing back. "I left the soup there," he told his +father, who had remained listening and spying in the doorway, "but +mamma did not wish to eat it." + +"What is mamma doing?" + +"She is holding little sister on her lap." + +In the course of the meal, and when he noticed that his father's plate +continually remained empty, Kolia also lost his appetite. At first, in +the most caressing tones, he urged his father to eat. + +"But, papa, don't you see, you must help yourself to a little bit; it +is such a good dinner to-day. We made out the bill of fare, mamma and +I, early this morning at breakfast, and I remembered all your favorite +dishes which she had forgotten. She was so gay to-day, before she had a +headache, and she only got that headache because she ran through the +park to-day without any hat, in the noon sun. But eat something, papa." + +Lensky still stared at Natalie's empty place. + +All at once he noticed an unusual commotion in the house; confused +talking together, quick running to and fro. He sprang up and went out +in the corridor. + +There he saw Natalie's maid, with disturbed face, and anxious, +over-hasty steps, coming out of her mistress' room. + +"What is the matter; is madame more ill?" he asked in sudden fright. + +"No, monsieur, but the little girl is very ill; it came on quite +suddenly. Madame has told me to hurry over to Chancy for the doctor." + +For one moment he stood still; then he turned to the +sick-room--entered. + +It was no contagious illness. Kolia was not sent away from the house; +only they told him to keep very quiet, for which he was ready without +that, for the weight which oppressed the house was sufficient to +constrain the fresh animation of his elastic child-nature. Quite +cautiously he only occasionally crept up to the sick-room, opened the +door, whose knob he could scarcely reach with his little hand, and +whispered: "How is little sister now?" + +Yes, how was the little sister? + +It was an inflammation of the lungs which had attacked the little one. +The physician did not conceal from the parents what little hope there +was of recovery. + +Two days, three nights long, they both sat together near the cradle +in which the sick little girl lay; two days, three nights, in which +the tiny body restlessly threw itself here and there between the +lace-trimmed pillows, while the breath, interrupted by fierce and +tormenting fits of coughing, with difficulty gaspingly forced itself +out from the little breast. Sometimes Maschenka cried impatiently and +pulled at the coverings with her weak little hands, and then looked at +her parents with that hurt, reproachful look with which quite little +children desire relief from their parents. + +Why did not her parents help her--why must she suffer so? + +And Natalie, who formerly had been the tenderest mother in the whole +world, took this all wearily, almost indifferently, as a person whose +heart, benumbed by a great despair, is no longer susceptible to a new +pain. She scarcely worried herself over the endangered little life. +Yes! Maschenka would die, she told herself, the dear, charming +Maschenka, over whom she had always so rejoiced. She still heard her +cooing laughter like a distant echo in her remembrance. Yes, Maschenka +would die! Why should she not die? It was really better for her than to +grow up to feel such grief in the future as had burned and parched her +mother's heart. Yes, she would die, and then Natalie would lay her head +down on the little pillow, near the pale face of the child, and fall +asleep forever rest forget! When Maschenka was dead, Natalie had no +more duties!--Kolia?--Oh, Kolia would make his way in the world. + +But Maschenka did not wish to die: this world pleased her too well, she +did not wish to. + +The fever became higher; ever more impatiently the child threw herself +about in the cradle. On the evening of the third day the doctor, a +skilful, wise, conscientious family physician, whom Natalie had +frequently consulted for any little illness of the children, and who, +under the direction of a Parisian specialist, fought with death for +Maschenka's little life,--on the evening of the third day he said that +probably the crisis would occur in the night; he would come again at +six o'clock in the morning and look after it. He said that very sadly. +Lensky accompanied him out. When he came back in the sick-room, the +expression of his face was still sadder than before. + +The little one became still more restless--she would not stay in her +cradle. Incessantly she raised herself from the pillows, cried +pitifully, and stretched out her little arms. Natalie took the little +patient, warmly wrapped in coverings, on her lap, but the little one +would not stay there either. She felt that her mother was not just the +same to her as formerly. Quite angrily she turned away from her, and +stretched out her little hands to her father. Lensky took her in his +arms, wrapped the covering still closer round her tiny limbs, and with +a thousand tender words, coaxed her to rest. With what evident pleasure +the little body leaned against his breast! + +Natalie's eyes rested on him. It had been just the same for two days. +He had cared for the child, not she. Only she now, for the first time, +took account of it. How tenderly he held the child! what touchingly +poetic words of love he whispered to it! Expressions, such as one finds +only in those songs in which the people complain of their pain! Just +such words had he formerly found for her--at that time--in those old +days, when he still loved her--and a stream of new, animating warmth +crept through her benumbed heart. + +She still watched him. Her eyelids became heavy. + +Suddenly she started up, looked confusedly about her; she had been fast +asleep. What had happened meanwhile? The morning light already streamed +into the room; without the rain rattled against the window panes. When +had it begun to rain then? Where was Lensky? He stood near the window +and gazed out. How sad he looked, how pale! + +The child!--and with a feeling of immeasurably painful anxiety her +heart now fully awoke to new life. She had not the courage to look in +the cradle. Then Lensky turned to her. "The child!" murmured she. + +He laid his finger on his mouth. "She sleeps--" Then listening: "The +doctor comes." + +The physician entered. He bent over the cradle; the little patient +slept calmly and sweetly, her little fist against her cheek. Her little +face was very pale and sadly lengthened, but her brow was moist and a +peaceful expression was on her tiny mouth. + +"She is better," said the doctor, astonished and pleased. He scarcely +understood it. "The fever is gone, the crisis is past, and if there are +no quite unusual circumstances, the danger is over. A couple of +spoonfuls of strong broth when she wakes, and no more medicine. Adieu, +_à tantôt!_" and he left the room. + +The door had closed behind him, his steps resounded in the corridor. +Natalie rose; she did not know what she wished; to look at the child, +to fall on her knees, to pray! Then her eyes met Lensky's. She started, +stretched out her arms as if to repel a suddenly awakened pain--a swoon +overcame her--she sank down. He took her in his arms, carried her into +the adjoining room, and stretched her out on a couch. He opened the +window and let the spicy, rain-cooled morning air stream in. Then he +wet the temples of the unconscious woman with cologne and loosened her +dress. At that her only carelessly fastened-up hair loosed itself and +slid down in all its dark abundance over her shoulders. + +How wonderfully charming she looked in her pale, melancholy loveliness! +Involuntarily he approached his lips to her temples; then she opened +her eyes; a shudder shook her frame and she turned her face away from +him. + +It went through him from the top of his head to the sole of his foot. +He had forgotten, but now he remembered accurately. How dared he +approach this woman so confidentially!--she was no longer his wife. She +had only tolerated him near her as long as the child lay sick, really +only tolerated! With fearful bitterness he remembered how she had held +herself far from him, even near Maschenka's bed of pain. And now, when +the little one was well--why let himself be shown the door a second +time? + +"You need not be afraid, Natalie, I am going; I had only +forgotten--pardon!" With that he could not deny himself to take her +hand; he believed she would draw away her hand from him; no, she let it +lie quite passively in his. Now he wished to free it, but then, quite +softly, but ever firmer, her fingers closed round his. She herself held +him back. Rejoicing and sobbing he drew her to his breast. + +Scarcely a moment later he felt in his inmost heart quite strangely, +uncomprehendingly, a cold gnawing vexation. + +He did not understand that she could pardon so easily. He had not +expected that of her. + + + + + + FOURTH BOOK. + + +Dear Natalie!--Owing to business affairs which will claim me still +longer, it will be impossible for me to come to Trouville before the +beginning of September. I am very sorry, but I hope and wish that you +will not, on this account, put off your journey to the sea-shore; you +know how you need the stay in the bracing air. I have engaged a +residence for you through Madame de C., and also had everything +arranged for your comfortable reception--a low châlet with a look-out +over the sea. I know how you love it,--the poor wild sea, that cannot +help it if it sometimes crushes a ship, and that finds no rest from +despair over the evil which it does and cannot prevent. + +You must not take any sea-baths; Dr. H. suitably impressed that upon me +in the spring. But in any case, wait until I come. + +From my great, clever boy I often receive long, pretty, regularly +written letters which please me very much. I will show them to you when +we are together again. The boy is romantic, through and through, which +touches me in these our present times, and also a little of a pedant, +which makes me impatient, but still, he is a dear, splendid fellow, and +that you must tell him from me. + +The little note, which I recently received from Maschenka, was +laughably comic, and sweet enough to eat. The little witch wrote me +quite secretly, without telling you anything about it. She confessed +all her naughtinesses to me very remorsefully and over hurriedly, from +anxiety that you might write something about them to me. Is she really +so naughty, and passionate, and wild? She is still charming in spite of +all, so thoroughly good-hearted and tender and generous, and withal so +incredibly gifted. I tell you her little note--it was adorned with +three ink spots, and I could not read a word of the writing--but still +it was a little poem. + +And how she loves you! Just as she is, I find her charming enough to +make one lose one's head over her; and I am very sorry that one must +cure her of her amusing little faults; they are so becoming to her. +That you must naturally not tell her from me, but give her a very warm +kiss from me on her full, defiant lips, of which you always assert that +they are like mine. Do not vex yourself too much over it,--rejoice in +our little gypsy as she is. And if you again worry over her inherited +good-for-nothingness, then look in her wonderfully beautiful, large +eyes, which she did not inherit from me. You will find your soul in +them--let that be your consolation. Farewell, my angel, spare yourself +really--really! Only do not think of saving at all on the journey. You +know that I cannot bear that. Think only of your comfort and of what a +joy it would be to me if, at our next meeting, I should find your poor +thin cheeks somewhat rounder than when I left you. + + Your boundlessly devoted + + BORIS. + + +It is in Berlin, in the Hôtel du Nord, nine years after the first +violent quarrel, the first passionate reconciliation with her husband, +that Natalie receives this letter. + +She had left St. Petersburg a few days before, in order, as by +agreement, to meet Lensky, whom she has not seen since the beginning of +March, in the German capital. It had been a great disappointment for +her that she had not found Boris in Berlin, but he has accustomed her +to disappointments. + +She reads the letter once more. It is a dear, good letter. Ah! Natalie +has received such dear, good, tender letters from all the large cities +in Europe and America--and knows---- + +Not that Boris is deceiving her when he writes to her in this tender +tone. No, every trace of falseness is strange to him, his attachment to +her, his anxiety about her, are sincere--but---- + +What use to grieve over it? These great geniuses are never different. +One must not judge them like other men! With this shallow commonplace, +with which she has so often put to sleep her inconsolable heart if it +sometimes wishes violently to rise up against its oppressive, +ignominious lot, she compels it to rest again to-day. It is easier now +than formerly; her poor heart has already accustomed itself to +grievances. + +Nine years have passed since that time in the pretty, cosey Hermitage +when she--forgave him too easily, and thereby lost her power over him +forever. She has known it a long time. Late in that following autumn a +great symphony by him was given in the "Gewandhaus," in Leipzig. The +work was beautiful, the success moderate, Lensky's discouragement +exaggerated, quite morbid. A few months later he took up his wanderer's +staff anew, and left Petersburg, where he had returned with his family, +in order to distract himself by the most exaggerated virtuoso triumphs +from the humiliation which had befallen the composer. Oftener, ever +oftener, he had then left wife and children, and now, in his own house, +he had long been only an indulged, distinguished guest. + +But in the time which he every year devoted to his wife, to his family, +he behaved in an exemplary fashion. He did everything that lay in his +power to make life bearable to Natalie--everything except to lay a +restraint upon himself; that he simply could not, and for that reason +he must leave home so often in order to vent his passion. + +Natalie's nature was broken. An unexpressed, numbing, blunting +conviction that this was the natural course of things, and that nothing +of all this could be changed, had overpowered her. As to what might +take place while he was away from her, of that she did not permit +herself to think. + +With his art matters had long gone downward, even more rapidly +than Natalie--who already after his return from America had been +startled by the exaggerations to which he had accustomed himself in his +playing--had deemed possible. At that time he had given the reins to +his temperament with assiduity in order to dazzle the public. Now--now, +he had long lost power over himself. And concerning his compositions! A +fearful pain contracted Natalie's heart if she thought how she had +formerly, in her tender enthusiasm, called him the last musical poet, +in opposition to the other great composers of modern times, whom at +that time she had described as--musical bunglers. She could no longer +remember the speech without blushing. + +The bunglers had all grown above his head. One scarcely spoke of his +compositions now, and the worst of it was--Natalie herself no longer +cared to hear them. + +Where was the sweet, sunny, charming element of his first little works? +Where the fiery earnestness, the penetrating, noble sound of pain in +his later works? + +Sleepy monotony, noisy emptiness were now the characteristics of his +musical creations. Certainly, here and there appeared melodies of +wonderful beauty; but who had the patience to seek out the lovely oases +in this sterile musical wilderness? + +Once, Natalie had hesitatingly made a remark to him about a new +composition. But he, who had formerly showed himself of such +unimpeachable gentleness toward her, had flown into a passion, and had +even for many days remained irritable. Since that time she said nothing +more, but let him have his way, as she let him have his way in +everything, only that she might not break the last thin thread which +still held them together. + + * * * * * + +She had read the letter a third time. "Business affairs detain him," +she murmured to herself. "Business affairs! He writes from Leipzig; why +does he not ask me to come to him?" She shrugged her shoulders--what +good to think of it? + +Suddenly her cheeks burned, her breath came short. She pours out a +glass of water, throws a couple of bits of ice from a porcelain bowl in +it, and drinks thirstily. "Such great geniuses are never different," +she says to herself again. She begins to walk up and down in the room +uneasily. At last she goes to the window and looks out. + +A great weariness lay over everything. The lindens slept, wrapped in +white dust; the stony heroes at their feet looked morose and weary, as +if they were satiated with letting themselves parch on their pedestals. +They throw pitch-black shadows over the sun-burned road. A black poodle +lies at the foot of one of the memorials, on its back, and does its +utmost to pull off the muzzle on its nose. The people are weary and +pale, and crowd into the shadow wherever they can. Everything flees the +sun. No one remembers another such hot, dry, oppressive summer. And +suddenly a strange longing for shade comes over Natalie; for some deep, +cool, shady place in which she can rest. + +The hollow, oppressive feeling about her heart has become more +significant, has taken, at length, the form of a piercing physical +pain. She lays her hand on her breast; the physicians have told her +that she should spare herself, should guard against every vehement +sensation, because her heart is affected. Suddenly she breaks out in +convulsive sobbing. Spare herself! Is it worth the trouble to spare +one's self; to exert one's self for the preservation of this poor life; +is it worth the trouble to bend down again and again in the mire for +the poor little bit of happiness that is thrown to one as an alms? + +Then the door opens; a charming little girl of about ten years, +large-eyed, gay, with wonderful curly hair hanging far down her back, +with very long black stockings and very short white dress, hops +in--Maschenka, who had been to walk with the maid. The first thing +which she discovers when she has scarcely greeted her mother and given +her a somewhat breathless and hurried account of the various +impressions she has formed on her walk, is Lensky's letter, which has +remained lying on the table. "Oh, from papa!" says she. "When is he +coming; to-morrow?" and her eyes shine. + +"He is not coming; we are going to Trouville without him," replies +Natalie, wearily. + +"Without him," repeats Maschenka; her sweet, large-eyed cherub's face +lengthens. "Oh!"--looking at Natalie attentively--"Did you cry over +that, mamma?" + +Natalie says nothing, only turns her head away with a gesture of +displeasure. + +"He is coming after us?" asks Maschenka, embarrassed. + +"He promises to," replies Natalie, with difficultly restrained +bitterness. + +"Poor mamma!" and Maschenka tenderly kisses the tears away from her +mother's cheek. "You must not cry, it is not good for you. You know +papa cannot bear to see you cry." + +It is quite inexplicable how nature has been able to bestow upon this +tender, childish, velvet-cheeked little being such a striking likeness +to the face stamped by time, weather, and life of the virtuoso. The +troubled, strangely deep look with which Maschenka regards her mother; +the tender and still defiant expression of her full lips; the manner of +drawing together her delicate brows, all that reminds one of her +father. But that in which her likeness to him is most strikingly +announced, is the bewitching heartiness of her manner, the flattering +insinuation of her caresses. + +Natalie observes her with quite fixed attention, then draws her to her +and kisses her passionately on both eyes. + +Meanwhile there is a knock at the door. It is a waiter, who brings a +telegram from Petersburg. Natalie starts, her thoughts fly to her son +whom she has left behind them. But no the telegram has nothing to do +with Kolia. It is really not from Petersburg, but has only sought her +there, and has been sent after her to Berlin. She reads: + + + Dresden, Hôtel Bellevue, _August 4th_. + +Can you not take the roundabout way through Dresden? We would be very +glad to see you. + + Sergei. + + +Why should she not take the roundabout way through Dresden? Why should +she hasten to reach Trouville, the full, empty Trouville, where no one +will be glad to see her? + + * * * * * + +Shortly after his reconciliation with his sister, Sergei had left St. +Petersburg, in order to follow his brilliant but exacting diplomatic +wandering career from one important but remote post to another, and now +he had at length been recalled to Petersburg, to fill a high position +at home. Natalie cherished the conviction that he suspected nothing of +the slow crumbling together of her happiness. How should he! Before +him, more than before all the others, she had concealed her great +inconsolableness. In the long letter which, by agreement, she wrote him +every month, she had always forced herself to take as gay as possible a +tone, and even if she was accustomed, in the description of her +"domestic happiness" to dwell at especial length on the lovability and +happy dispositions of both of her children, she yet had never failed to +mention the goodness of their father and his unwearied consideration +for her. "How he would triumph if he knew!" she said to herself, on the +platform in Dresden, while she uneasily looked round for her brother, +whom she had informed by telegram of the hour of her arrival. "If he +knew anything of it!" she said to herself, and at the mere thought, it +seemed to her that she would flee to the end of the world, rather than +bear the cold scrutinizing glance of his eye. Then a very slender man +in blameless English clothes came up to her, looked at her a moment +uncertainly, put up his eye-glass--"Natalie! it is really you!" and +evidently truly pleased to see her again he draws her hand to his lips. +And now she is also glad to see him, is pleased to be with her brother, +as she has never yet been glad since her betrothal to Lensky. He has +changed very much since that time in Rome when he had vainly sought to +destroy Natalie's illusions; but, as with all really distinguished men, +growing old was becoming to him. If his bearing is still proud, it has +yet lost much of its harsh, nervous, immature arrogance of that time. +His fine features are still sharper, but his glance has become softer, +more benevolent. + +"That is your little girl?" says he, bending down to Maschenka, +pleasantly. "May one ask a kiss of such a large young lady?" + +The gay Maschenka, always bent upon the conquest of all hearts, hops up +to him with hearty readiness, and throws both her little arms round his +neck. "_Elle est charmante!_" whispers Sergei in a somewhat patronizing +tone to Natalie. + +"We find her very like the Maria Ægyptica of Ribera--your favorite +picture in the Dresden Gallery. Do you not remember it?" + +"Indeed!" The prince bends down a second time, wonderingly, to +Maschenka. Suddenly his face takes on a discontented expression. "She +chiefly resembles Lensky; I do not understand how that could escape +me!" says he, and his tone expresses decided displeasure. + +"And still if he knew!" thinks Natalie. + +"Kolia looks like you," says she, hastily. + +"They have often written me that," says the prince. "Besides, they tell +me only good things of him; I shall be glad to see a great deal of him +in Petersburg. And now come, Natalie. I wished to have rooms in +Bellevue for you, but there were none to be had; not a mouse hole; all +engaged. We ourselves live at the extreme end of a corridor. So I have +taken a little apartment for you in the Hôtel du Saxe. It is a plain +house, but the nearest one to us, and you will not be there much. Send +your maid ahead with the luggage. I hope you will now come direct to +our rooms with me, you and the little one; my wife awaits you at +dinner." + + * * * * * + +And now Natalie has been in Dresden since many hours. The joy of the +meeting with her brother has fled, a great depression benumbs her whole +being. What a home! Sergei's wife, born a Countess Brok, who is two +years older than he, and whom he has married on account of the +influential position of her father, suffers with rheumatism, on which +account she fears a little bit of too warm sunshine as well as a slight +draught. The meal is taken in the drawing-room of the married pair, +instead of down on the gay, sunny terrace, as Sergei had ordered. After +the princess has welcomed Natalie, and has said something in praise of +Maschenka's beautiful hair, her remarks consist in commanding her +companion, a very homely little Frenchwoman, by turns to open or close +a window. + +After dinner the married couple quarrel over several immaterial +trifles, which momentarily interest no one; over the latest Russian +table of duties, and as to whether it is better to treat scarlet fever +with heat or with cold. Then Varvara Pavlovna busies herself in her +favorite occupation; that is to say, twisting paper flowers. Natalie +took part in this, but Maschenka, to whom they have confided an album +with views of Dresden for her entertainment, has uneasily crept about +the room, now reached after this and now that, has hopped around first +on the right, then on the left leg, until at last Natalie's maid +presents herself to ask her mistress if she has anything to command or +to be done, whereupon Natalie has commissioned her to take the little +one out for a walk, and then to take her to the Hôtel du Saxe. + +Then Sergei read something aloud from the newspaper; then tea was +brought. + +It is nine o'clock. Natalie rises, says that she is tired, and that she +would like to retire early to-night. Sergei asks: "Do you wish to +drive? Shall I send for a carriage? It would really be a shame! The +evening is lovely; if you go on foot, I will accompany you." + +They go on foot. "I do not know what fancy has seized me to loiter +about a little," she says in the passage, where Sergei has remained +standing to light a cigarette. "Would you have time?" she asks her +brother. + +"Yes," replies he, "I am very willing to walk a little. Where do you +wish to go?" + +"Anywhere, where it is quiet and pretty, and where one does not hear +this café chantant music." She points over the Elbe, where from out a +dazzlingly lighted enclosure, frivolous dance measures sound boldly and +obtrusively over the dreamy plash of the waves. + +"Come in the fortress grounds," says Sergei, and gives her his arm. And +suddenly a kind of anxiety at being alone with him overcomes Natalie. +"Now he will question me," thinks she, and would like to tear her arm +away from him and--has not the courage to do it. + +They are quite alone in the court-yard, the world-renowned court-yard +of the fortress, with its enclosure of strange, carved, exaggerated, +and charming irregular architecture; only the sentinel continually goes +along the same path, up and down, and above, on the flat terrace roofs +of the fortress, a couple of friends are walking. One hears them laugh, +jest; yes, even kiss, standing in the court below. They may be lovers, +or some couple on their wedding tour. + +The lanterns burn red and sleepily in the transparent pale gray of the +summer half light, and the buttons of the sentinel shine dully; all +other light is extinguished in the world, but up in heaven the stars +slowly open their golden eyes. What is there down here to-day for them +to look at? + +A thunder-storm threatens, but one does not see it as yet, but only +hears its hollow voice growling in the distance. + +Slowly the brother and sister wander along the narrow way between the +old-fashioned, regularly laid-out flower-beds. The stony faces of +satyrs and fauns grin down upon them with triumphant cynicism. One can +still see their small eyes, slanting upward toward the temples, +distinctly in the dull, shadowless, clear twilight. The air is sultry +and close, and quite immoderately impregnated with the sad, penetrating +perfume of weary flowers which have been tormented by an over-hot +summer day. + +"Do you remember the last time that we walked around here together?" +remarked Sergei, at length breaking the silence. + +"Yes," says Natalie. "It was the year before our father's death. I was +not much older than Maschenka, and you had not completed your studies." + +"Quite right, I did not yet feel myself obliged to be ambitious, in +order to help raise our family from its sunken condition," said Sergei +very bitterly. "Father had taken me with him during my vacation, in +order to cultivate my æsthetic taste. Only think, Natalie, at that time +I wrote a poem on the Sistine Madonna! I! that is very laughable, is it +not?" + +"You--a poem," says Natalie, astonished, and still absently; the affair +has in reality little interest for her. + +"Yes, I--a poem!" repeats Sergei. "I--now at that time I was an +idealist, however improbable that may seem to you! Now, now I am a +machine, who still sometimes dreams of having been a man!" He laughs +harshly and forcedly, and is suddenly silent. After a while he begins +again: "Just look at the roses, Natascha," and he points to the slender +bushes which are almost broken under their weight of dried blossoms. +"Have you ever seen such an Ash Wednesday? Early this morning they were +still fresh! It is a pitiless summer." + +Natalie lowers her head. "Now it is coming," she thinks. "Now it is +coming." But no, not what she has expected, but something different, +comes. + +"Did it ever occur to you," continues Sergei after a little while, "how +very much a tree struck by lightning resembles one killed by frost? In +the end it all tends in the same direction." He is silent. After a +while he says, looking her straight in the eyes: "Did you understand +me?" + +"Yes, I understand," murmurs she, tonelessly. + +"Hm! it was plain enough. You are dying of heat, I of cold!" says he, +and laughing slightly to himself, he adds: "Do you still remember how I +lectured you at that time in Rome?" + +Instead of any answer, she pulls her hand away from his arm. +Compassionately her brother looks at her through the gray veil of the +now fast-descending twilight. "Poor Natascha!" he says. "You surely do +not believe that I will return to my wisdom of that time--no! I will +make you a great confession!" His voice sounds hissingly close to her +ear. She feels his breath unpleasantly hot on her cheeks. "There are +moments when I envy you!" he whispers. "Bah! that one must say of one's +self: it is over, one is old, one will die, without once having been +deeply shaken by a true shudder of delight,--_sans avoir connu le grand +frisson_--it is horrible! I know what you have to bear, Natalie, and +still--yes, there are moments when I envy you!" + +"Who has then permitted himself to assert that I have anything to +bear?" Natalie bursts out. + +"Who?" Sergei raises his eyebrows. "You surely do not fancy that it is +a secret?" says he. "Many wonder that you endure it; as it seems, he +exercises an incredible charm over all women!" + +Her eyes and his meet in the sultry half darkness. "What have they told +you?" asks Natalie, with difficulty. + +But then he replies with fearful emphasis: "You surely do not demand an +answer of me in earnest?" + +She breathes heavily. "It is not true!" says she. "They have lied to +you!" + +Thereupon he remains silent. The sultriness becomes ever more +oppressive. Heavy thunder-clouds creep slowly and threateningly over +the roof of the fortress and blot out the stars from the heavens. + +Natalie has turned away from her brother, and with uneasy haste she +hurries to the gate of the yard; he comes after her. "I am sorry to +have wounded you," he says. "I had not that intention." + +She answers nothing; silently she walks along near him. From time to +time he pulls her gently by the sleeve and says: "This is the way." The +stars are all extinguished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and close to +the ground sighs a heavy wind which cannot yet rise to a hurricane. +What is it in this depressing sound of nature which chases the blood +more rapidly through her veins? + +At the door of the great, many-storied hotel, Natalie wishes to take +leave of her brother. "I will accompany you to your room," says Sergei. + +Silently, she lets him remain near her. With bowed head she goes up the +broad staircase to the first landing; then something wakes her from her +brooding thoughts--the rustling of a woman's dress. She looks up--there +goes a man up the stairs to the second story with a heavily veiled +woman on his arm. She sees him for one moment only; then the shadow of +his profile passes quickly over the wall; she turns away her head. It +is he--she has recognized him! Silently and with doubled haste she +follows her brother's guidance. "Your room is No. 53," says he, and +turns the door-knob of a room. The lamp is lighted, everything cosily +prepared for her reception. "I will disturb you no longer," says +Sergei. His manner has become very stiff, his voice is icy cold, and +before he leaves the room his glance seeks a last time the eyes of his +sister. + + * * * * * + +She is alone. Trembling in all her limbs, she has thrown herself down +on a sofa. The maid presents herself with the question whether her +mistress wishes to undress. Natalie signifies to her to go away, to +retire for the night to her room in an upper story. The maid goes, +happy to be released from her service, weary, sleepy. Natalie does not +think of sleeping. How should she think of it when she knows that here, +under the same roof, a few rooms distant from her-- It is horrible! It +seems to her that she is slowly suffocating in a close, oppressing +dread. + +The lamp burns brightly. As a maid of good form, Lisa has already +unpacked those little objects which luxurious women always carry about +with them, even on the shortest journey, in order to make a hotel +residence cosey. On the table lies Natalie's portfolio; her travelling +writing utensils stand near by; and near the ink-case two photographs +in pretty little leather frames the pictures of her husband and of her +son. Shuddering, she turns away. She pushes the hair back from her +temples. "Sergei recognized him also!" murmurs she to herself. "It was +impossible not to recognize him," whispers she, "and Sergei believes +that I will still bear this also. And why should he not believe it?" + +For years she has waded through the mire after a _fata morgana_, and +the world laughs, and points its fingers at her. What does she care +about the world, if she can only once shake off the feeling of +boundless degradation which drags her down to the ground? In a few days +he will come to her with loving glance, uneasily concerned about her, +with a thousand anxious, tender words, with open arms. And she--well, +she--she will rush into those arms, forgive and forget everything as +before. Ah!--she springs up. + +A few moments later she stands near the bed of her little daughter. The +child looks very lovely in her white night-gown, richly trimmed with +lace and embroidery. One of her hands rests under her cheek, the other +is hidden under the pillow. Formerly Natalie has come every night to +the bed of the child in order to kiss and bless her, still asleep. But +to-night her tortured heart is capable of no tender emotion. + +"Wake up!" she commands, in a harsh, strange voice. Maschenka starts +up, thereby involuntarily drawing her hand out from under the pillow, +and with the hand a little letter which she immediately tries to +conceal again from her mother. But Natalie tears it away from her. +"What have you to conceal from me?" she says to the little girl, +imperiously. + +"I have only written to papa!" replies Maschenka excusingly, tearfully. +"I wrote him that you are sad, and that he must come very soon because +we will be so glad--that was all." + +Natalie tears the poor little letter apart in the middle. "Dress +yourself!" she orders. + +"Is there a fire?" asks Maschenka, frightened. + +"No, but something has happened; we cannot stay in the hotel; do not +ask." + +Sleepy, but obedient, as a good child who has the most complete +confidence in her mother, Maschenka sets about putting on the clothes +daintily arranged on a chair near her little bed. Natalie helps her as +well as her fingers, trembling with fever, will permit her, then +wrapping head and shoulders in a lace scarf, she takes the child by the +hand and hurries down the stairs. + +"Is the princess going out?" asks the porter, who has not the heart to +give the sister of Prince Assanow another title. "The weather is very +threatening; shall I send for a carriage?" + +Natalie takes no notice of him, pushes by him like a strange, +inexplicable apparition. + + * * * * * + +The stars are all extinguished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and +close to the ground sighs a weary wind. + +What is it in this confused, depressing sound of nature which chases +the blood through her veins? In the midst of her excitement she hears +the chromatic succession of tones--her breath stops--it is that +inciting, musical poison, that now follows her with a longing +complaint, a strange, alluring call--Asbeïn. + +The wind rises, screams louder and more shrill, its sultry breath rages +so powerfully against Natalie that she can scarcely proceed. One, two +great water-drops splash in her face, then more. Pointed hailstones +prick her between them; all drive her back--back. + +Has not some one seized her by the dress? She looks round. No! she is +alone on the street with her child and the raging storm. Forward she +hastens, panting, breathless. The way to Bellevue is quite easy to +find--quite straight along the street. It grows darker and darker, the +rain falls in streams, the clothes hang ever heavier on her body, she +can scarcely lift her feet from the paving; it is as if all would drag +her down to the ground--all! Twice she loses her way, twice she +suddenly, as if attracted by an evil charm, stands before the Hôtel du +Saxe. + +Maschenka cries silently and bitterly to herself. There--this wall +ornamented with black lead, Natalie remembers, and here--the large mass +of formless shadow--is not that the Catholic church? + +A flash of lightning rends the darkness--Natalie sees the immense +stairs of the Brühl terrace, with its adornments of colossal gilded +statues; she sees the broad, black river flowing along, cool, alluring; +hastily she goes across the place, for one moment her eyes rest on the +stream--Maschenka pulls her by the arm with her tender little fingers, +and whispers: "I am afraid, mamma; I am afraid!" + +Then Natalie turns away from the most alluring temptation that has ever +met her in life, and the water ripples behind her as if in anger that +they have torn away a sacrifice from it. + +Now they have reached the Hôtel Bellevue; the phlegmatic Hollander in +the porter's lodge looks after her in astonishment as she rushes past +him, stretches his powerful limbs, sticks his thumbs in the arm-holes +of his vest, closes his eyes, sleepily, and murmurs, "These Russian +women!" + +She finds the number of her brother's sitting-room. Light still shines +through the keyhole. She bursts open the door. Varvara Pavlovna is +still busy making flowers. Sergei sits bent over a railroad courier, +the eternal samovar stands on its small table. + +"What has happened, Natalie, for God's sake?" says Varvara, as she +discovers Natalie's figure, dripping with water, her pale, staring +face, her burning eyes, and the little girl by her side. "What has +happened?" + +The brother does not ask. + +"I come to seek shelter with you," murmurs Natalie, breaking down, as +she sinks upon a sofa; then turning to Sergei, she with difficulty +gasps out: "You understand--I could not stay there--it--it is all +over!" + + * * * * * + +Yes, it was all over--all. The bond between him and her was broken. He +was beside himself when he discovered what had taken place, begged for +a meeting, wrote her the tenderest letters. She left his letters +unanswered. + +Then a wild defiance overcame him. It angered him that she had placed +herself under her brother's protection--that brother, who from the +beginning had wished to sow discord between him and her. He also could +not be persuaded that the prince had not alone been the cause of the +separation. + +The circumstance that Natalie travelled in advance with her +sister-in-law to Baden-Baden, while Assanow remained in Dresden to +arrange with Lensky, strengthened him in his conviction. + +It did not come to a legal separation. Lensky was not the man to use +compulsion with a woman; if she did not wish to stay with him, he let +her go voluntarily. That she wished to keep the child with her was +understood of itself; he could see the child from time to time, for a +couple of weeks, on neutral ground. Nikolas, as one could not interrupt +him in his studies, quite naturally remained with his father in St. +Petersburg. + +"All that is understood of itself; why lose words over it?" thought +Lensky to himself, while he quite passively consented to all the +propositions of the diplomat. + +For what reason did the unendurable man remain sitting there and +tormenting him? + +Quite everything was wound up between them--it was afternoon, and the +brothers-in-law sat opposite each other at a long table strewn with +papers, in a large, gloomy room, with dark green damask hangings, in +the Hôtel du Saxe. A pause had occurred. + +"What does he still wish?" thought Lensky, and drummed unrestrainedly +on the top of the table, while at the same time he gave a significant +glance toward the door. + +Assanow coughed a couple of times; at last he began: "In conclusion, I +must touch upon a delicate point--the question of money. My sister +formally rejects all assistance on your part, Boris Nikolaivitch, and +wishes strictly to limit herself to live on her own income!" + +Then Lensky flew into a rage: "And you have declared yourself agreed to +that?" he cried, to his brother-in-law. + +"I should have considered it undignified in my sister if she had wished +to act otherwise!" replied Assanow. + +Lensky clutched his temples with a gesture which was peculiar to him. +"Ah! leave me in peace with your pasteboard dignity," said he, +impatiently. "I cannot endure the word--a parade expression which means +nothing--live on her own income--my poor luxurious Natalie--but that is +madness, simply not possible! You are indeed her brother, but still you +do not know her. Such a tender, guarded hothouse plant as she is! Why, +she would die if she did not have what she needed." + +"With the best will, I would not be able to persuade her to take +anything from you," replied Sergei, earnestly. + +"Not?" Lensky struck his clenched fist on the table. "Listen, Sergei +Alexandrovitch, you are not only pitiless, you are also stupid. If she +will not take anything from me, deceive her a little, tell her that the +rents of her estate have increased, that you have sold building land +for her, or what do I know! With women that is so easy, especially with +her, poor soul!--who has never understood the difference in appearance +between ten rubles and a thousand--but force the money upon her, she +must have it! And hear me! if you do not so care for it that she takes +it, then I will make a scandal for you, and insist upon a legal +exposition!" + +For a moment Assanow was silent, then he said: "Good, I will arrange +it!" with that he rose and offered Lensky his hand. + +But Lensky refused it. "Let that go! Between you and me there is no +friendship. After the 'service' which you have rendered me such +grimaces are repulsive." + +"You are mistaken if you believe I would have persuaded Natalie to the +separation," assured the Prince. "Naturally, however, as a +conscientious man, I could not dissuade her therefrom." + +"Conscientious! Certainly, hangmen are always conscientious--that one +knows," murmured Lensky, and stamped his foot on the ground. "Well, you +will see what you have done! Meanwhile--go. I will not longer bear +it--go!" + + * * * * * + +When Assanow hereupon wrote Natalie in Baden that the affair was +arranged with Lensky, and the separation declared he added, at the same +time: "I feel myself obliged to say to you, that Lensky in this whole +affair has acted not only honorably, but really nobly." + +To his wife wrote Sergei at the same time: "I do not understand the +man!--_figurez-vous_ that I myself for a moment, was _sous le charme_. +What a depth of nobility is in this prodigy! His is an enormous +nature!" + + * * * * * + +As long as the separation was still impending, as long as the +conferences still lasted, a kind of restless life fevered in Natalie; +she forced her being, naturally inclined to tender reliance and +dependence, to an independent strength of will, of which no one had +thought her capable. + +But when the last word was spoken, the separation at length validly +arranged, she fell into a condition of brooding sadness from which +nothing more could rouse her. + +For still three years she lived after the separation; three years, in +which every hour endlessly dragged itself along, and which flowed +together in the recollection into a single endless, cold, dull day; a +day in that northern zone where the sun, with far-extending, weak, +weary beams, tardily remains the whole twenty-four hours long, standing +on the horizon, and grudges the night its refreshing darkness and the +day its light. + +Her torment reached an exquisite culmination when Maschenka, who +idolized her father, and who, in her childish innocence, had no idea of +the state of affairs, in the beginning incessantly and anxiously asked +her mother little questions referring to the separation. Natalie gave +her no answer, frowned and turned away her head. And sometimes +Maschenka then became ungovernable and angry. Her little warm, loving +heart could not understand why they had taken away her idol. + +Once, Lensky asked for his daughter for two weeks. Maschenka, with her +English governess, was sent to Nice to her grandmother, where Lensky +daily visited her. When, loaded with presents, her heart full of sweet, +tender recollections, she came back again to Cannes, where Natalie had +meanwhile awaited her, with fearful obstinacy she insisted in relating +to Natalie endless things about the goodness and lovability of the +father, and especially how impressively and anxiously he had inquired +after mamma. Her full, deep little voice trembled resentfully thereby, +and an angry reproach darkened her large, clear child's eyes. + +For a while Natalie was quite calm, then, without having replied a word +to the child, she stood up and left the room. + +Maschenka observed with astonishment how she tottered and hit against +the furniture like a blind person. Thereupon the child remained as if +rooted to the ground, with thoughtfully wrinkled brow, her little hands +glued to her sides, standing, staring down at the carpet as if she +there sought the solution to the great, sad riddle which so occupied +her. Then with a short motion as if shaking off something, which she +had caught from her father, like so much else, she threw her little +head back and hurried after her mother. + +Natalie had retired to her bedroom. Maschenka found her deathly pale, +with helpless, stiff bearing, and hands folded straight before her, +sitting in an easy chair; her weary glance, directed in front of her, +expressed inconsolable despair. + +"Little mother, forgive me, oh, forgive me!" begged the child, +embracing her mother with her soft, warm arms. "Sometimes it seems to +me as if you love him as much as I, only you do not wish to. But why do +you cover your soul with a veil; why? Oh, why did you separate yourself +from him? He was not very much with us without that, but still it was +so lovely to expect him and to rejoice over him from one time to +another!" And Maschenka burst out in violent weeping. + +Natalie remained silent, but she raised the child on her knee and +kissed her, ah, how tenderly! Every tear she kissed away from the round +little cheeks. And Maschenka never repeated her question. + +Once, in the night--Maschenka's little room was next to her mother's +bedroom--the child awoke; from the adjoining room sounded soft, +whimpering, difficultly restrained sobs. + + * * * * * + +She wandered from Venice to Florence, from Florence to Nice, from Nice +to Pau--all the European cities of refuge for uprooted existences she +sought out. Nowhere could Natalie find rest. Sometimes she tried to +distract herself. She never visited large entertainments, but she +associated with her old friends if she met them in their different +exiles, gradually slid back into the old, aristocratic atmosphere in +which she had been brought up; but, strange! she no longer felt at home +therein, and in her inconsolable misery a feeling of insensible _ennui_ +mingled itself. + +His name never crossed her lips. Did she ever think of him? Day and +night. The more she tried to accustom herself to other people the more +she thought of him. How empty, how shallow, how insignificant were all +the others in comparison to him; how cold, how hard! + +Her health went rapidly downward. A short, nervous cough tormented her, +her hands were now ice-cold, now hot with fever. Associated with that +was something else strangely tormenting: she almost incessantly had the +feeling that her heart was torn away from its natural place; she felt +in her breast something like an uneasy fluttering, like the beating of +the wings of a deathly weary, sinking bird. + +She slept badly and was afraid of sleep, for always the whole spring of +her love, with its entrancing charm and perfume of flowers, arose in +her dreams again. Again vibrated through her soul the swelling musical, +alluring call--Asbeïn. Little trifles, which in her waking condition +she no longer remembered, came to her mind, and when she awoke she +burned with fever and hid her face, gasping, in her pillows. She +consumed herself in longing; a longing of which she was ashamed as of a +sin, and which she fought as a sin. + + * * * * * + +Gradually she became wearier and more calm. His picture began to +obliterate itself from her memory. + + * * * * * + +It was in Geneva, in a music shop. Natalie, who had gone out to attend +to a few trifles, entered and desired the Chopin Études, which she had +promised to bring the extremely musical Maschenka. While a clerk looked +for the music, she observed an elderly man--she divined the piano +teacher in him--talking about a photograph which he held in his hand, +to the woman who managed the business. + +She glanced fleetingly at the photograph--she shuddered. + +"So that is he; that is the way he looks now! _C'est qu'il a +terriblement changé_," said the piano teacher. + +"_Que voulez-vous_, with the existence which he leads?" replied the +woman. "If one burns the candle of life at both ends!" + +"But he should stop it, a married man, as he is," said the music +teacher. + +"My goodness; his marriage is so--so--he has been separated, who knows +how long, already." The woman shrugged her shoulders. + +"Ah! Who, then, is his wife?" + +"Some great lady who has made enough out of him, and to whom he has +become inconvenient," replied the old woman. + +"So--h'm! that explains much," said the musician, and laying down the +photograph, he added: "_enfin c'est un homme fini_." With that he +seized the roll of music which had been prepared for him and left the +shop. Natalie bought the photograph, without having the courage to look +at it before strangers. Arrived at home, she unwrapped the portrait. +For the first time since that evening when she ran out of the Hôtel du +Saxe she looked at a picture of him. She was frightened at the fearful +physical deterioration designated in his features. Around the mouth and +under the eyes hateful lines were drawn; but from the eyes still spoke +the deep, seeking glance as formerly, and on the lips lay an expression +of inconsolable goodness. "A great lady who has made enough out of him, +and to whom he has become inconvenient," Natalie repeated to herself +again and again. That truly was false from beginning to end. Still, a +great uneasiness overcame her. The reproofs which she believed she had +expiated once for all by the easy, tender confession that she had set +aside her beloved husband on account of her scruples, now rose sharply +and reprovingly before her. + +A nervous condition, which culminated in a long-enduring cramp of the +heart, befell her; the cramp was followed by an hour-long swoon which +could not be lifted. + +When she could again leave her bed, a great change had taken place in +her. She no longer evaded the recollection of Lensky; the old love was +dead, but a new love had risen from the ruins of the old, a new +enlightened love, which was nothing more than a warm, compassionate +pardon. + + * * * * * + +With the restlessness of those mortally ill, who in vain seek relief, +she was again driven to leave Geneva, where at first she had intended +to pass the whole winter. She longed for Rome. + +The physicians laid no difficulties in the way. In the end, a dying +person has the right to seek out the place where she will lay down her +weary head for the last time. + + * * * * * + +In Rome, it seemed at first as if she would be better again. At the end +of March, Nikolas came to visit her. He was now a young man, tall, +slender, with great dreamy eyes in an aristocratically cut face, and +with pretty, still somewhat embarrassed manners. + +Already he had twice come to foreign countries to visit his mother, but +never had she been so glad to see him. + +As the day was beautiful, and she felt better than usual, she proposed +a drive. "To the Via Giulia," she ordered the coachman. "I will show +you the Palazzo Morsini, in which we lived when your father was +betrothed to me," she said to her children. Mascha looked at her mother +in astonishment; it was the first time in quite three years that she +had mentioned her father before her. + +So they drove in the Via Giulia, on a bright March afternoon they drove +there. But Natalie in vain sought the Palazzo Morsini; she did not find +it. A pile of rubbish stood in its place, surrounded by a board fence. +Disappointed almost to tears, with that childish, foolish +disappointment such as only those mortally ill know, she turned away. +On the way, it occurred to her to order the coachman to stop at the +Trevi fountain. She quite started with delight when she saw the +irregular collection of statues again. "Here I met your father for the +first time in Rome; it is just twenty years ago," said she, and rested +a strange, brilliant, dreamy glance on the old wall. The sculpturing +was still blacker and more weather-worn than twenty years before, but +the silver cascade rushed down more arrogantly than ever in the gray +stone basin, and the sky, which arched over the time-blackened walls, +was as blue as formerly. "Ah, how much beauty, nobility, and +immortality there still is in the world, together with the bad that +passes away," murmured Natalie, softly; then passing her hand over her +eyes, and as if speaking to herself, she added: "It is thus with great +men, and therefore I think, considerately overlooking their earthly +failings, one should rejoice over that which is immortal in them!" + +Maschenka had not quite understood the words, but Nikolas sought by a +glance the eyes of his mother, and raised her hand to his lips. + +It was evening of the same day, in Natalie's pretty apartment on the +Piazza di Spagna, opposite the church of Trinità dei Monti, and the +sick woman, relieved of her constricting and heavy street-clothes, lay, +in a white, lace-trimmed wrapper, on a lounge. Mother and son were +alone. He had read her a couple of verses from Musset, which she +particularly loved--_les souvenirs_--but it had become dark during the +reading; he laid the book away. For a while they were both quiet, +silently happy in each other's presence, as very nearly related people +when they are together after a long separation; but then Nikolas laid +his hand on that of his mother and said, softly: "Little mother--do you +know that it was really papa who sent me to you?" + +The hand of the mother trembles, and softly draws itself out from under +the son's. Nikolas is silent. But what was that? After a while his +mother's hand voluntarily stole back into his, and the young man +continued: "Yes, papa sent me here, so that I might accurately report +to him how you are. You really cannot imagine how he always asks after +you, worries about you." + +The hand of the poor woman trembles in that of her son, like an aspen +leaf. After a pause, quite as if he had waited so that his words might +sink warmly and deeply into her heart, he continues: "Father +commissioned me to bring before you a request from him--namely, whether +you would not permit him to visit you?" + +Again Natalie drew her hand away from her son, but more hastily than +the first time. Her breath comes quickly and pantingly, for a few +moments she remains silent, then she says slowly, wearily: "No! it must +not be; tell him all love and kindness from me, and that I think only +with emotion of the great consideration which he always shows me, but +it must not be--it is better so!" + +After she had made this decision, which had a sad and intimidating +effect upon the inexperienced boy, she remained for the rest of the +evening taciturn and with that, out of temper and irritable, as one had +never formerly seen her. + +In the night she had one of her fearful attacks; the doctor must be +sent for. When the horrible oppression of breath and shuddering had +subsided, as usual, she fell into a condition of pale, cold numbness, +which resembled a deep swoon. + +Nikolas, who had watched by the sick one, accompanied the physician +without. He begged him, in the name of his father, to tell him the +truth about the condition of the sufferer. The physician told him that +her condition was very serious, and a recovery absolutely out of the +question. It might last a few weeks still, perhaps only a few days. + +When Nikolas, with difficulty restraining his tears, came up to his +mother's bed, she lay exactly in the same position as when he left the +room; still, something about her had changed. Her eyes were closed, but +around her beautiful mouth trembled a smile whose happy loveliness he +never forgot. + +After a while she looked up and said in a quite weak voice: "Perhaps +only a few days"--she had heard the doctor's speech. After a pause, she +added: "Write your father--write--he must hurry--only a few more days!" + +Nikolas telegraphed to St. Petersburg. + + * * * * * + +The consciousness of her near death had given her back her lack of +embarrassment toward Lensky. She insisted that he should stay in her +house, that they should prepare a room for him. + +One day she was well enough to overlook the preparations herself. But +the improvement did not last. Quite every night came on an attack, +shorter and weaker, but still very painful; in between she slept, and +always had the same dream. It seemed to her as if she could fly, but +only about two feet from the ground; if she wished to rise higher, she +awoke. Of the young happiness of her love, she dreamed never more. + + * * * * * + +Lensky had telegraphed back that he would set out immediately. They +counted the days and nights which must elapse before his arrival--Kolia +and she; they consulted railroad time-tables together--so long to +Eydtkuhnen--so long to Berlin--so long to Vienna--so long to Rome. They +were twelve hours apart in their reckoning. Natalie expected Lensky +already on the morning of the fifth day, Nikolas not until the evening. + +On the fourth day she was so well that she wished to undertake a walk. +"I would so like to see the spring once more," said she. + +Nikolas begged her to save herself until his father had come, in order +not to aggravate her heart by excitement--that great, rich heart +through which she lived, and of which she was now dying. "We will bring +the spring in to you," said he tenderly. + +They brought flowers, whatever kind they could buy, and placed them in +the pretty, pleasant boudoir in which she lay, stretched out on her +couch bed. The broad sunbeams slid like a golden veil over the +magnolias, violets, and roses. + +Dreamily the dying woman let her eyes wander over the fragrant +splendor. "How lovely the spring is!" murmured she, and then she added: +"How can one fear to die, when the resurrection is so beautiful!" The +windows stood wide open; it was afternoon; from without one heard the +rattling of carriages which rolled along in the heart of the city. + +It sounded like the rolling of a stream which forced its way to the +sea. + + * * * * * + +The night came. Nikolas sat near his mother's bed and watched. She +slept uneasily. Frequently she started and listened, then she looked at +her watch--it could not yet be! Once Maschenka came in, with little +bare feet peeping out from under her long night-dress, and face quite +swollen with weeping. On tip-toes she crept up to the dying woman's +bed. Since a couple of days Natalie had no longer permitted her to +sleep in the adjoining little room, from fear that the child might be +awakened by her painful attacks. Maschenka had dreamed that her mother +was worse; she wished to see her mother. Natalie opened her eyes just +as she entered. + +Then the child ran up to her, kneeled down near her, and sobbing hid +her little face in the covers. Natalie stroked her little head with +weary, weak hand, and asked her to be brave, and lie down and sleep; +that would give her the greatest joy. + +Then Maschenka stood up, and went with hesitating steps as far as the +door; then she turned round, and hurried back to her mother. Natalie +made the sign of the cross on her forehead, then kissed her once more, +and held her to her thin breast. It should be the last time--the child +went. + +Natalie looked after her tenderly, sadly. + +Toward morning Nikolas fell asleep in the arm-chair in which he watched +by his mother's bed. All at once he felt that some one pulled him by +both sleeves. He started up; his mother sat half upright in the bed. + +"Wake up, your father is coming!" she called quickly and breathlessly. + +"But, little mother, it is quite impossible--not before evening can he +be here." + +With a short, imperious motion she admonished him to silence. Now he +heard quite plainly--softly, then louder--the rolling of a single +carriage through the deathly-quiet, sleeping city. It came nearer +stopped before the house. + +"Go to meet him, Kolia; I do not wish him to think we did not expect +him." + +Kolia went, did, like a machine, whatever was required of him. Natalie +sat up, listened--listened. If she had been mistaken--no. Heavy steps +came up the stairs. Steps of two men--not of one--and this voice! +rough, deep, going to the heart. She did not understand a word; but it +was his voice. + +A quite numbing embarrassment and shyness overcame her. She drew the +lace cuffs of her night-dress over her thin arms, she arranged her +hair; she felt as shy as before a stranger. What should she say to him? +She would be quite calm--calm and friendly. Then the door opened--he +entered, dusty, with tumbled, badly arranged gray hair, with fearful +furrows in his face, aged ten years since she last had seen him. + +What should she say to him? + +He did not wait for that; he only gave one look at her pale face, then +he hurried up to her and took her in his arms. + +Behind the church of Trinità dei Monti there was already a golden +light, and the whole room was filled with brilliancy and light. + +"Oh, my angel! how could you so repulse me!" are the first words which +he speaks. + +She says nothing, only lies on his breast, silently, unresistingly. +Through her veins creeps for the last time the feeling of pleasant, +animating warmth which has always overcome her in his nearness. She +tries to rouse herself, to consider; she had certainly wished to tell +him something for farewell. But what was it--what---- + +Ah, truly! + +"Boris," she breathes out softly, "do you know--at that time in your +study--in Petersburg--do you still remember how you once said to me I +should show you the way to the stars?" + +"Yes, my little dove, yes." + +"I was not fitted for my task," whispers she, sadly; "forgive!" + +For one moment he remains speechless with emotion; then he presses his +lips to her mouth, on her poor emaciated hands, on her hair. + +"Forgive--I you! O my heart!" murmurs he. "How could you draw me up +when I had broken your wings! But now all is well; we will seek our old +happiness hand in hand. You shall become well, shall live!" + +"Live," whispers she, quite reproachfully; "live," and shakes her head. + +He looks at her with a long, tender glance, and is frightened. + +Her face is still angel beautiful, but there is nothing left of her +lovely form. It pains him to see the sharp, harsh lines which outline +her limbs under the covering. That is no longer a living woman who +stretches out her arms to him, it is only an angel who wishes to bless +him. It is quite clear between them, and also the last shyness, which +still held her back from him, has vanished. + +"Yes, it is over," whispers she; "only a few more days--how +many is that?--three days--five days--oh, perhaps it will last +longer--physicians are so often mistaken. We will drive out once more +together to see the spring--out there where the almond trees bloom +between the ruins--by St. Steven, do you still know?--and until I feel +it coming--the last, the end--then you will hold me by the hand, will +you not? like a child that fears the dark, you will lead me quite +tenderly up to the threshold of eternity--is it not true? No one can be +so tender and loving as you. But do not be sad--not now; to-day I feel +well, quite well. Ah!----" + +What is that? She clutches at her heart--there it is again, the strange +fluttering feeling in her heart. Her face changes, her breath fails. + +"The doctor, Kolia!" calls Boris beside himself. + +Kolia hurries away; at the door his mother calls him back once more. + +"Not without a farewell, my brave boy," she says, and kisses him. "God +bless you!" + +Then he rushes away down the stairs, to fetch the doctor--there is +haste. + +No, there is no more haste--the attack is short--only a couple of +strange shudders--then the invalid grows calm in Lensky's arms. + +"How wonderfully the trees bloom--" murmurs the dying one. "It grows +dark--give me your hand--do not grieve--my poor Genius----" + +Suddenly her eyes take on a peculiarly longing expression. A last time +the Asbeïn tones glide through her soul, but no longer an inciting, +alluring call--but as something elevating, holy. She hears the tones +quite high and distinct, as if they vibrated down to her from Heaven, +resounding strangely in a sublime, calm harmony that is no longer the +devil's succession of tones, that is the music of the spheres. + +"Boris," she murmurs, and raising her hand, points upward, "listen ..." + +The hand sinks slowly, slowly--when, a little later, the physician +enters she is dead. A wonderful smile lies on her countenance, the +smile of one set free. + + + + FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: When the Devil, banished from heaven, resolved on the +temptation of mankind, he loved to make use of music which had been +made known to him as a heavenly privilege when he still was a member of +the eternal hosts. But the Almighty deprived him of his memory, so he +could remember but a single strain, and this mysterious, bewitching +strain is still called in Arabia "The Devil's Strain--Asbeïn."--_Arabian +Legends_.] + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Asbeïn, by Ossip Schubin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASBEÏN *** + +***** This file should be named 35396-8.txt or 35396-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/9/35396/ + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Asbeïn + From the Life of a Virtuoso + +Author: Ossip Schubin + +Translator: Êlise L. Lathrop + +Release Date: February 25, 2011 [EBook #35396] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASBEÏN *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive. + + + + + +</pre> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Note: + +1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/asbeinfromlifeof00schuiala</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img border="0" src="images/front.png" alt="frontispiece"></p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>ASBEÏN</h1> +<br> +<h2>FROM THE LIFE OF A VIRTUOSO</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5>BY</h5> +<h3>OSSIP SCHUBIN</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3><i>TRANSLATED BY ÉLISE L. LATHROP</i></h3> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/title.png" alt="musical bar"></p> +<br> +<br> +<h3><span class="sc2">NEW YORK</span><br> +WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY<br> +<span class="sc2">1890</span></h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5>Copyright, 1890, by</h5> +<h4>WORTHINGTON CO.</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5>Press of J.J. Little & Co.,<br> +Astor Place, New York.</h5> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>ASBEÏN.<a name="div2Ref_01" href="#div2_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a></h1> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>FIRST BOOK.</h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"But--do you really not recognize me?" With these words, and with +friendly, outstretched hands, a young lady hastened toward a man who, +with gloomily contracted brow, wrapped in thought, went on his way +without noticing either her or his surroundings. He was foolish, for +his surroundings were picturesque--Rome, near the Fontana di Trevi, on +a bright March afternoon. And the young lady--she was charming.</p> + +<p class="normal">Although she had called to him in French, something about her--one +could scarcely have told what--betrayed the Russian; everything, the +pampered woman from the highest circles of society.</p> + +<p class="normal">The young man whose attention she had sought to attract in such a +violent and unconventional manner was just as evidently a Russian, but +of quite a different condition. One could hardly decide to what fixed +sphere of society he belonged, but one perceived immediately that his +manners had never been improved, polished, softened by society +discipline, that he was no man of the world. He was, evidently, a man +who was apart from the rank and file, a man who stood far out from the +conventional frame, a man whom no one could pass without twice looking +after him. His form was large and somewhat heavy; his face, framed by +dark, half-curled hair, in spite of the blunt profile, reminded one of +Napoleon Bonaparte, but Bonaparte in the first romantic period of his +life, before he had become fat and accustomed to pose for the classic +head of Cæsar.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was the Princess Natalie Alexandrovna Assanow; he the fêted violin +virtuoso and well-known composer, Boris Lensky.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had run herself quite out of breath to catch up with him; twice she +had called to him before he heard her; then he looked around and lifted +his hat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Boris Nikolaivitch, do you not really recognize me?" said she, now in +Russian, laughing and breathless.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You here, Princess! Since when? Why have you given me no sign of your +existence?" and he took both the slender girlish hands, still +outstretched to him, in his.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We only arrived here yesterday from Naples."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! and I go there to-day." His long-drawn words betrayed very +significantly a certain vexation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, to give three concerts there. I know; it was in the newspapers," +she nodded earnestly, and sighed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hm!" he began; "then--" he hesitated.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then you do not understand why I did not wait for the concerts?" said +she, gayly; "it was impossible."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Impossible?" said he with a short, defiant motion of the head, the +motion of a too-tightly checked race-horse who impatiently jerks at the +bridle. "How so impossible? What word is that from the mouth of a young +lady who has nothing else in the world to do but amuse herself?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"As if I were independent!" she sighed, with comic despair. "First, +mamma could not leave Naples--hm--for family reasons. My sister is +married there, you know. Then--then--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do not trouble yourself with polite excuses," he interrupted her. "I +see that you are no longer interested in my music;" and, half-jesting, +half-vexed, shrugging his shoulders, he added, "What of it? One must +put up with one's destiny!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am no longer interested in your music!" said she, angrily; "and you +venture to say that to me, even after I have run after you--yes, really +run after you, which is not proper--only to----"</p> + +<p class="normal">She stopped, her face wore a vexed, indignant expression. "Why did you +do it?" said he, roughly; "it is not becoming."</p> + +<p class="normal">Instead of losing her self-possession, she laughed heartily. "But, +Boris Nikolaivitch," said she, "you speak as if you were a true man of +the world. However, as you please, I thank you for the lecture. Adieu!"</p> + +<p class="normal">And nodding her head quite arrogantly, she was about to turn on her +heel, when her look met his. She saw that she had vexed him, remained +standing, blushed, and lowered her eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">The waters of the Acqua Nigo foamed and sparkled gayly between the +edges of the stone basin which Nicolo Salvi had made for them; the +noonday church-bells mingled their deep, solemn voices with the +caressing rippling of the waves; the sun shone full from the deep-blue, +ice-cold heaven, a glaring, unpleasant March sun, which was light +without warming, like the condescending smile of a great man, and +Natalie's maid who, grumbling and bored, stood a step behind her young +mistress, opened a round, green fan to shield her eyes, and at the same +time stamped her feet from the cold. Around, the Roman life went on in +its usual lazy way. Before a small, loaded cart stood a mule with a +number of red and blue tassels about its ears and on its forehead hung +a brass image of the Virgin. In the door of a vegetable shop, from +which came a strong smell of herbs, crouched a black-eyed, white Spitz +dog, that twitched its right ear uneasily. A fat, smooth-headed +Capuchin passed by, then came two shabbily dressed young people. The +Capuchin stopped to scratch the mule's head, the young people nudged +each other, and said in an undertone, while they pointed to the +virtuoso: "<i>E Borisso Lensky</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"There you have it," said the princess, shaking off her vexation +with a charming, pleasant smile, and her head bent one side. "Great +man that you are, and still you take it amiss in me." She said +nothing more, only raised her great blue eyes and gave him a look, a +never-to-be-forgotten look, behind whose roguishness a riddle was +concealed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I take nothing amiss in you," said he, earnestly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Really nothing? Now, then, I can tell you how much, oh! how much, I +have longed to hear you play again, that I, <i>coûte qu'il coûte</i>, seized +the opportunity to ask you to stop in Rome on your return from Naples +only to--" She hesitated, as if she were suddenly afraid of being +indiscreet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only to play something for the Princess Natalie Alexandrovna Assanow," +he completed her sentence, laughing. "Good. I will come, Natalie +Alexandrovna; in two weeks I am there. But if you are then in Florence +or Nice----"</p> + +<p class="normal">She was about to make a very positive assertion, when a slender, +fashionably dressed man, with a very high hat and faultless gloves, +passed by them, greeted the princess respectfully, and, with a slight +squint, measured Lensky from head to foot. Lensky recognized in him an +officer of the guard, Count Konstantin Paulovitch Pachotin, and +remembered last winter, during the season in St. Petersburg, he paid +court to Natalie. The scrutinizing look of the young man vexed him +beyond bounds; everything looked red before him. "Ah! he here?" he +asked the young princess with mocking emphasis. "May one congratulate +you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She frowned and turned away her head. "No!" murmured she. Then raising +her wonderful eyes to him again: "So, farewell for two weeks!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Say positively, I beg you, and throw the traditional soldo in the +fountain."</p> + +<p class="normal">"With the best of intentions, I cannot do that; I have none with me," +he laughed, now involuntarily.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was charming. She wore a brown velvet bonnet that was fastened +under the chin with broad ribbons. She had pushed back her veil, and +the transparent brown gauze shining in the sun formed a golden +background for her pretty, pale face. It was cold, although the +beginning of March, and therefore her tall figure was wrapped to the +feet in a sable-trimmed velvet cloak, beneath which a scarcely visible +silk dress rustled very melodramatically. A delicate perfume of amber +and fresh violets exhaled from her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have no soldo?" said she; "then I will lend you one." She +earnestly sought in her portemonnaie, whereupon she handed him the +coin. He threw it in the basin of the noisy, rippling Fontana di Trevi. +The water sparkled golden for a moment, when the coin sank, and tried +to form circles, but the spouting gayety of the cascade obliterated +them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will come!" said Natalie, laughing gayly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I will come," said he, not gayly as she, but gloomily, even +grumbling. "But if you are not there," he added, "or----"</p> + +<p class="normal">She had already turned to go, and without replying anything to his last +words, she called to him over her shoulder:</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Via Giulia Palazzo Morsini!</i>"</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked after her for a long time. The fashionable dress at that time +was very ugly. This little scene took place in the fifties, when the +Empress Eugenie had again brought into favor the hoop-skirt which had +disappeared quite a half-century before. But still Natalie Alexandrovna +was charming. How peculiar her walk was, so light and still a little +dragging, dreamily gliding, withal not weary, but with a peculiar +certain characteristic rhythm. He thoughtfully hummed a melody to it.</p> + +<p class="normal">Yes, he would come back. Whether he would have come back if the glance +of the officer of the guard had not angered him? He must see, must +teach this dandy!</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">"You speak just as if you were a true man of the world," the princess +had replied to his--as he angrily told himself--highly unsuitable and +tasteless advice. Now it might perhaps be small; yes, certainly it was +small, but sometimes, sometimes he would secretly have preferred to be +a true man of the world instead of being--a celebrity.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She ran after me!" he said to himself again. "Why did she run after +me? It was charming in her she would not have done it for any one else! +Bah! She is still only like all the others!" And the great artist, +whose life resembled a continual triumphal procession, of whom already +a finger-thick biography with glaringly false dates had appeared, and +concerning whom the papers every day reported something remarkable, +suddenly felt a kind of envy of Count Konstantin Paulovitch Pachotin, a +St. Petersburg dandy, whose name had never been in the papers, and whom +he despised for his narrow-mindedness.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was a great genius, but, like many other great geniuses, he was of +quite obscure parentage. Some asserted he came from that horrible +citadel of the poor in Moscow where misery intrenches itself against +progress, in filth, stupidity, and vice; others said he had been found, +a scarcely week-old child, wrapped in rags, before the door of the +Conservatory in St. Petersburg. There were really all kinds of accounts +in the papers. This one said that he was the son of a princess of the +blood and a gypsy; that one, that he descended from an old princely +family of the Czechs, and many other such romantic inventions. He +shrugged his shoulders scornfully at all such improvisations, without +refuting them by accurate personal accounts. How did the cold, hungry, +maltreated sadness of his first youth concern the world? Now he was +Boris Lensky, one of the first musicians of his time. Everything else +could be indifferent to the man. It was indifferent to them; it was +quite indifferent to them all, only not to him. The wounds which the +tormenting martyrdom of his childhood had torn in his heart had never +quite healed; therefore he showed a sensitiveness and irritability +which even the most sympathetic person could scarcely comprehend.</p> + +<p class="normal">But now he fared very well in the world. No one was so pampered, so +caressed as he.</p> + +<p class="normal">His playing exercised such a penetrating, sense-ensnaring charm that +his listeners, transported in a kind of musical intoxication, lost +their capability of judging, and even the most well-bred women crowded +around him with allegiance so exaggerated that it tore down the +boundary of every customary demeanor.</p> + +<p class="normal">Another would have enjoyed this allegiance without thinking further of +it; but for Lensky, on the contrary, it had a repellent effect. Child +of the people to the finger-tips, totally unused to the customs of +fashionable circles, his feeling of propriety was as wounded by what he +plainly called insolent shamelessness as that of a peasant who for the +first time sees a woman with bare shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">Besides his sense of propriety, there was another that was wounded by +the lack of reserve which great ladies showed him, and that was his +pride. Not only gifted with musical genius, but with a very clear head, +he soon perceived that if the ladies of the great world permitted +themselves freer manners with him than did women of a more modest +sphere of life, they still took liberties with him of which they would +have been ashamed in association with companions of their own rank. +"<i>Mon dieu, avec un virtuose, cela ne tire pas à consequence</i>," he once +heard an elegant little St. Petersburg woman say. He never forgot the +words, and in consequence received all the feminine allegiance of good +society with hostile distrust.</p> + +<p class="normal">He usually excused the tactless exuberance of a poorly cared for, badly +brought up woman of the Conservatory. In society of this kind, of +saddened womanly existence, incessantly touched with pity, he showed +kindness to the sad enthusiasts wherever he could, and laughed at their +tasteless animation. But for the great ladies, who should have known +better, who thought that they alone held the monopoly of good form, and +who still pursued a man like wild beasts--for these he had no +consideration. His roughness in intercourse with them had become almost +as proverbial as the success which he attained with them.</p> + +<p class="normal">Still, in his home he quite unconsciously accustomed himself to an +aristocratic atmosphere, and, with the refined sense of a true artist +nature, susceptible to all beauty and distinction, in association with +great ladies he felt a mixture of irritation and pleasure, while +pleasure gradually won the upper hand; and in foreign countries, where +he was received only exceptionally and with official solemnity, and +really had intimate access to salons of the second rank only, he +renounced intercourse with that refined world which he abused, like so +many others, without being able to escape its perfidious charm, and +felt, every time that he met one of his despised pretty St. Petersburg +or Moscow enthusiasts, an unmistakable joy.</p> + +<p class="normal">Two weeks after his meeting with Natalie at the Fontana di Trevi, +Lensky appeared for the first time in the Palazzo Morsini. From a very +large staircase, whose beauties he must admire by the light of the wax +matches which he had brought in his pocket, he stumbled into a large +vestibule, from which the servant conducted him through a heavy +portière, painted with coats of arms as high as a man, into an immense +drawing-room with soiled and faded yellow damask hangings and +furniture.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Monsieur Lensky!" announced the servant.</p> + +<p class="normal">The virtuoso was accustomed to a universal exclamation following the +announcement of his name, and the looks of the whole assembly should be +directed to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nothing of the sort this time. Natalie sat near an old French lady, +Marquise de C., whose knitting she kindly helped to arrange, and as the +young Russian introduced the virtuoso to her, she raised her lorgnette +and said: "Monsieur Lensky--ah! <i>vraiment</i>, that is very interesting!" +whereupon, without further troubling herself about him, she continued +to speak to Natalie of all kinds of social affairs, the marriage of +Marie X., the debts of Alexander T., the trousseau of Aurelie Z., and +the boldness of that parvenu A.</p> + +<p class="normal">For the present he could not approach the hostess. She warded him +off with a nod from the distance, for she was engaged in a very +exciting occupation. Although the universal interest for spiritualistic +table-tapping and moving was already quite over, the repetition of this +experiment, which strangely enough often succeeded in the Palazzo +Morsini, was one of the favorite pastimes of Natalie's mother, the +Princess Irina Dimitrievna Assanow. She now sat at a table in the +middle of the drawing-room between many others, most of them old +Russians, men and women; opposite her a thin, very young man with long, +straight, blond hair, a well-known magnetizer.</p> + +<p class="normal">It seemed to Lensky as if he had never seen anything more laughable +than these half-dozen almost exclusively gray-haired people who sat +with solemn bearing and attentive faces around a table whose edge they +could just surround with hands stretched out as far as possible.</p> + +<p class="normal">Those present who did not directly participate in the attempt to +bewitch the table, stood around observing the interesting round +surface.</p> + +<p class="normal">But the table continued in a state of desperately exciting passivity.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky, usually specially invited to soirées, of which he formed the +centre of attraction, felt humiliated by the four-legged wooden rival, +who, to-day, took all the attention away from him.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last the old French woman turned to the observation of the table, +which permitted the young girl to devote herself a little to Lensky, +rapidly becoming more gloomy; then the door opened and the butler +announced Count Pachotin. The virtuoso felt not at all pleasantly +toward the young dandy when he asked him unusually kindly and +sympathetically whether he was contented with the result of his last +concert tour.</p> + +<p class="normal">After Pachotin had fulfilled the condescension, which as a finely +cultivated nobleman he thought he owed to an artistic star he turned to +Natalie and from then ignored Lensky as completely as the Marquise de +C. had done. Lensky meanwhile morosely pulled long horse-hairs from the +holes in the thread-bare arms of the damask chair. He was very helpless +in spite of his already great renown. His actions in society were +solely confined to playing and permitting the ladies to rave over him. +He did not understand how to take an inconspicuous part in the +conversation, and to cross the room for any other purpose than to take +up his violin made him quite giddy.</p> + +<p class="normal">The table meanwhile still refused to move. The excitement became +general.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Voyons</i>, M. Lensky," called the Marquise de C., suddenly turning to +the young artist, lorgnette at her eyes; "if you should give us a +little music perhaps it would act upon the legs of this stiff-necked +table."</p> + +<p class="normal">A man quick at repartee would have answered the silly remark with a gay +jest. But Lensky grew deathly pale, sprang up; in that moment the +resisting sacrifice of magnetism began to totter and tremble.</p> + +<p class="normal">Even Pachotin left his place near Natalie in order to watch closely the +interesting spectacle. The magnetizers rose and, with earnest, +triumphant faces, accompanied the table, which now seemed to have +entered into the spirit of the affair and took the most remarkable +steps with its wooden legs.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Vous partez déjà</i>?" asked Natalie, coming up to the virtuoso.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am no longer needed," said Lensky, with a glance at the table, and +bowed without touching the outstretched hand of the young girl.</p> + +<p class="normal">Without, in the vestibule just as he was about to put his arms in the +overcoat which the servant held out to him, he saw the princess, who +had hastened after him.</p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/p023.png" alt="p. 23."><br> +"I cannot let you go away angry," said she. <i>p. 23</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I cannot let you go away angry," said she. "Come to-morrow to lunch. +We never receive in the morning, but you will be welcome."</p> + +<p class="normal">This time he took her hand in his, and looked in her eyes with a +peculiar mixture of anger and tenderness.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You know I do everything that you wish," murmured he; "but----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well?" She smiled pleasantly and encouragingly. He turned away his +head and went.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps in reality she is only like the others, but still she is +bewitching!" he murmured, as he stumbled down the old marble steps of +the palace in the darkness.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Yes, she was bewitching. Many still remember how charming she was at +that time. She was from Moscow, and a true Moscow woman; that is to +say, deeper, more polished, more intellectual, than the average St. +Petersburg woman, whom a pert Frenchman has described as "<i>Parisiennes +à la sauce tartare</i>." Lensky had met her the former year at her +relatives' in Petersburg, where they had sent her for the ball season, +perhaps with the idea that she would make a good match.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her domestic circumstances were quite disturbed. Her mother, a former +beauty, and who in her youth had been much admired at the court of +Alexander I., could not adapt herself to her poverty--that is to say, +she absolutely could not exist on the very moderate remains of a +splendid property which her husband had squandered. She never +complained; she only never kept within her means. She was always +planning new reforms, but her most saving plans always proved costly +when carried out.</p> + +<p class="normal">When she summoned Natalie home from St. Petersburg the former May she +had just formed a quite special resolution: she would travel to a +foreign country, in order, as she expressed it, to be unconstrainedly +shabby and economical. Her unconstrained shabbiness in Rome consisted +in living in a very picturesque <i>palazzo</i> with two maids brought with +her from Russia, a male factotum, and a number of Italian assistants; +by day, clad in a faded sky-blue <i>peignoir</i>, stretched on a lounge, +alternately reading French novels and playing patience; in the evening, +receiving an amusing assembly of <i>gens du monde</i> and celebrities, among +whom the already mentioned magnetizer enjoyed her especial sympathy, at +dinner or tea. Her economy culminated in locking up the most trifling +articles with great punctiliousness and never being able to find the +keys; for which reason the locksmith must be frequently summoned.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Russian maids naturally never moved their hands, the Italian +assistants wiped the dust from one piece of furniture to another, and +so the household would really have made quite an impression of having +come down in the world if the butler, whom they had brought with them +had not saved it by his aristocratic prestige. A Frenchman and valet of +the deceased prince, Monsieur Baptiste was not only outwardly +decorative, but of a useful nature. His principal occupation consisted +in sitting in the vestibule, with finely-shaved upper lip and imposing +side-whiskers, intrenched behind a newspaper, and overpowering the +creditors if they ventured to present their unpaid bills.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky had resolved to leave Rome the next day, and to ignore the +invitation of the princess. Returned to the hotel, he immediately set +about packing; that is to say, he in all haste wrapped and squeezed his +effects together in any manner and threw them in his trunk as one +throws potatoes in a sack. Then he ordered his bill from the waiter and +a carriage for the next morning. When the waiter at the appointed hour +presented the bill and announced the carriage he showed him out. From +ten o'clock on he drew out his chronometer every quarter of an hour; at +twelve he appeared in the Palazzo Morsini.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are punctual," said the princess, stretching out her hand to him; +"that is nice of you. I was terribly afraid that you would not come. We +are quite among ourselves; only mamma and we two. Does that suit you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Again she bent her head to one side and looked at him with that +peculiar glance, behind whose roguishness a riddle was concealed. What +was it? Something sweet, perhaps something tender, earnest--or only a +gay triumph or planned conquest?</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile it cost him the greatest self-restraint not to fall at her +feet immediately, so charming and beautiful was she. Everything about +her was beautiful: her tall but beautifully rounded figure; her pale +oval face, framed in dark hair; her remarkable eyes, usually dreamily +half closed, and then suddenly looking at one so large and full; her +long small hands and her little feet. No Andalusian had a smaller, +slenderer, more finely-arched foot than Natalie. He had scarcely time +to reply to her amiability, when the butler announced that luncheon was +served, and they went into the dining-room.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a peculiar luncheon. The old princess presided in a wrapper. The +lukewarm dishes--brought every day from a restaurant in a tin box, +which Lensky had met on the steps were served by Monsieur Baptiste on +the largely shattered remnants of a Florentine faïence service with +noticeable correctness. A broad golden sunbeam lay on the table between +Lensky and Natalie and gave the most extravagantly unsuitable colors to +the flowers which shed their fragrance from a low Japanese porcelain +bowl in the middle of the table, and over these flowers, sparkling like +diamonds, he looked at her.</p> + +<p class="normal">She ate little and talked a great deal, told all kinds of droll +stories; one witty anecdote followed the other. He could not weary of +listening to her. Yes, even if what she said had not interested him, he +would not tire of hearing her. The sweet, somewhat veiled tone of her +voice seemed like a caress to his sensitive ear.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">"I would like to ask you something, Boris Nikolaivitch," said the old +princess later, while they were taking coffee, in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am at your disposition entirely, Princess," Lensky hastened to +assure her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is about my violins," she began, in a drawling, whining voice, +which was her manner, and meant nothing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, mamma," Natalie hastily interrupted her, "this is not the +moment----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Pray, permit me," said Lensky; and turning to the princess, "so it is +about your violins?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. My husband--you know what an excellent player he was," continued +the old lady, "has left three violins. People have always told me they +were worth a small fortune, but I did not wish to part with them at any +price. I ask you--a souvenir. But finally--times are hard, and one must +not be too hard on the peasants, and, besides, as none of my children +play the violin, however musical they are--well, I would be very glad +if you would try the instruments and incidentally value them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You could perhaps advise me--yes---- What is the matter, Natascha?"</p> + +<p class="normal">For Natalie had blushed to the roots of her hair. Tears stood in her +eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">Boris guessed that she feared he would look upon the explanation of her +mother as a bid.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I remember the violins very well," he hastened to assure her; +"especially one of them excited my envy. It would please me very much +to try them again."</p> + +<p class="normal">The servant brought the violins and at the same time a pile of hastily +snatched-up violin music, smelling of dust, dampness, and camphor. The +wonderfully beautiful instruments were in a pitiable condition--half of +the strings were gone, those that remained were brittle and dry. But +still there was a small stock of them. After Boris, with the loving +patience and surgical skill with which only a true violinist handles an +Amati, had put it in a suitable condition and then tuned it, he drew +the bow softly across it. A strangely sweet, tender, sad sound vibrated +through the great empty room. It seemed as if the violin awoke with a +sigh from an enchanted sleep. A pleasant shudder passed over Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky bent his cheek to the splendid instrument like a lover. "Shall +we try something?" said he, and took from the pile of notes a nocturne +of Chopin, transposed for the violin, opened the piano, the only good +and costly piece of furniture in the room, and laid the notes on the +music-rack. "Now, Natalie Alexandrovna, may I beg you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Quite frightened by his artistic greatness--yes, trembling from +charming embarrassment--she sat down at the piano.</p> + +<p class="normal">His violin began to sing; how full and soft, so delightfully +languishing, and also somewhat veiled, as is usually the case with an +instrument unused for years.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How beautiful!" murmured Natalie, with eyes sparkling with animation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, it is a splendid instrument," replied Lensky. "You cannot imagine +what it is to play on an instrument which understands one. It is still +only a little bit sleepy, but we will awaken it."</p> + +<p class="normal">He placed a sonata of Beethoven before Natalie. They were alone. After +the first bar of the nocturne the princess had fallen asleep, at the +last she had waked, and had retired, with the remark that she could +hear much better in the adjoining room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you really tolerate my accompaniment?" murmured the young girl.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And do you wish to hear again, vain little princess, what I already +told you in St. Petersburg, that I have seldom found a more sympathetic +accompaniment than yours?" he replied.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was an uncommonly good pianist, and with an unusually fine +divination followed all the shades of his art. One piece followed the +other. After awhile a certain relaxation was perceptible in her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are tired," said he, breaking off in the middle of the first +phrase of Mendelssohn's G-minor concerto. "I should not have given you +so much to do. Pardon me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, what does that matter," said she, while she let her hands slide +from the keys. "It was splendid, only, do you see, I feel as if I am a +dragging-shoe for you. I would like to have a wish, a great immoderate +wish. I would like to hear you once alone, without accompaniment, from +your heart. Give me one glance into your soul, make your musical +confession to me!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He felt a peculiar twitching and burning in his finger-tips. He would +rather have killed himself than let her glance into his inmost soul, as +the condition of that soul had been until then.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do not ask that of me," said he, hoarsely.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was very immodest in me, excuse me," said she hastily and confused.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, that is nothing," he assured her. "Do you think that I will spare +the little bit of pleasure that I can perhaps give you, only--but if +you really wish it--as far as I am concerned----"</p> + +<p class="normal">He took up the violin.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a different affair now. Dragging-shoe or not in any case her +accompaniment had had a calming and perhaps purifying effect on his +musical instincts. With her he had played as a wonderfully deeply +sensitive and technically cultivated virtuoso; in spite of all the +heartfelt fulness of tone and vibrating passion, he had scarcely passed +the boundary of musical conventionality. It had been the highest +possibility of a quiet, artistic performance; but what Natalie now +heard was no longer art, but something at once splendid and fearful. It +was also no longer a violin on which he played, but a strange, +enchanted instrument that she had never known formerly and that he +himself had invented; an instrument from which everything that sounds +the sweetest and saddest on earth vibrated, from the low voice of a +woman to the soft, complaining sigh of the waves dying on the shore. A +depth of genial musical eloquence burst forth under his bow. +Inconsolable pain--dry, hard, cutting; tender teasing, winning grace, +mad rejoicing, a wild confusion of passion and music, the height and +depth of neck-breaking technical extravagance.</p> + +<p class="normal">But what was most peculiar about his playing, and had the most magical +effect, was neither the mad bravura nor the flattering grace, but +something oppressive, mysterious, that crept maliciously into the heart +and veins, ensnaring and paralyzing--a thing of itself, a strange +horror. Again and again, like a mysterious call, appeared in his +improvisation the same bewitching, exciting succession of tones, taken +from the Arabian folk-songs, the devil's music.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly he seemed to be beside himself; he drew the bow across the +violin as if beset by an untamable, passionate excitement. It was no +longer one violin which one heard; it was twenty violins, or, rather, +twenty demons, who howled and cried together.</p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/p036.png" alt="Page 36"><br> +With hands lightly folded in her lap and head leaned<br> +back against her chair, Natalie has listened. In the beginning she had<br> +been carried out of herself by a feeling of painfully sweet happiness,<br> +but now she felt strangely oppressed. <i>p. 36</i>.</p> +<p class="normal">With hands lightly folded in her lap, and head leaned back against her +chair, Natalie had listened. In the beginning she had been carried out +of herself by a feeling of painfully sweet happiness. But now she felt +strangely oppressed. It seemed to her as if something pulled at every +fibre, every nerve, as if her heart was bursting. She would have liked +to cry out and hold her ears, and still did not move, but listened +eagerly to that piercing, wild, passionate tone. Never had she felt +within her such hot, beating, intense life as in this hour. Her whole +past existence now seemed to her like a long, stupid lethargy, from +which she had at last been awakened. Tears flowed from her eyes. Then +his look met hers. A kind of shame at his brutality overcame him, and +his playing died away in sad, sweet, anguished tenderness. With +contracted brows and trembling hands, he laid down the violin. "You +wished it!" said he. "You should not have asked it of me. I can refuse +you nothing. God! how pale you are! I have made you ill!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She smiled at his anxious exaggeration, then murmured softly, as if +in a dream: "It was wonderfully beautiful, and I shall never forget +it--never forget it, only----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"What have you to object?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Shall I really tell you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly; I beg you to."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well," she began, hesitatingly, with a somewhat uneasy smile, as if +she was afraid of wounding his irritable artistic sensibility, "I ask +myself how one can abuse an instrument from which one can charm such +bewitching harmonies, and which one loves as you love your violin, as +you have just now abused it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He was silent for a moment, surprised, looked at the violin with a +loving, compassionate glance, as if it were a living being. Then he +passed his hand across his forehead.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do not know how it is," said he, confusedly. "Sometimes something +comes over me. Ah! if you knew what it is to have, all one's life, such +a sultry, sneaking thunderstorm in one's veins as I have. Sometimes it +bursts forth; it must have vent. I cannot rule myself. Teach me how!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He said that, so naïvely ashamed, quite pleadingly, like a great child; +he had strangely warm, touching tones in his deep, rough voice.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">When Lensky presented himself again, the next day, in the Palazzo +Morsini, and, indeed, this time to arrange the purchase of the +wonderful violin, the princess called out gayly to him:</p> + +<p class="normal">"The violins are no longer to be had. I have bought all three. I gave +all my savings for them. If you wish to play on them, you must come +here. But you may come as often as you wish!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"For how long?" asked he, with a peculiar tremble in his voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned away her head. After awhile she said, apparently +irrelevantly, with her gay, ingenuous smile, that still never quite +banished the sadness from her pale face: "Do you know that we are +really as poor as church mice? It is comical. Mamma consoles herself +with the thought that I will make a good match. If she should be +mistaken, what a tragedy!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She laughed merrily. What did she mean by that?</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">He came oftener and oftener to the old palace in the Via Giulia; came +every day, indeed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Formerly intercourse with women of rank had always formed only a short +parenthesis in his otherwise dissolute life. Now the couple of hours, +or sometimes they were only minutes, which he daily passed with the +Assanows were the key-note of all the rest of his existence. How happy +he felt with them!</p> + +<p class="normal">If elsewhere the great society ladies had raved over the artist Lensky +to an immoderate extent, they had quite ignored the man. But with the +Assanows it was different, or at least it seemed so. His fame was not +put forward from morning to night. There were days in which his +violin-playing was not even mentioned. The artist stopped in the +background, and in association with Natalie and her mother he was no +star, no lion, only a very wise, peculiar, sympathetic man, who pleased +quite aside from his artistic gifts. Besides, with them he appeared +differently than with any one else in the world.</p> + +<p class="normal">His petulant defiance disappeared, as well as the helplessness for +which it was a shield.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was completely uncultivated from the foundation. Grown up among +ignorant men who profited by his early unfolding talent, and misused it +in order to earn money thereby; sentenced consequently as a child to +just as many hours of hard musical practice as his poor still +undeveloped body could endure, he had, at fourteen years of age, when +he could barely read and write, not even the consciousness of his lack +of knowledge. That came later, came when great people began to be +interested in him. But then it was painful and humiliating beyond +measure.</p> + +<p class="normal">Whatever one can acquire in later years he acquired. Another would have +made a show of the astonishing amount of reading which he had +accomplished in the course of years, but he never learned to display +his lately won intellectual riches with grace. He had not the frivolity +of superficial men. Much too clever not to be conscious that his little +bit of supplementary cultivation was still only patchwork, even if made +of very noble, large patches, he confined his remarks in society, if +the conversation was upon anything but music, to a few heavy +commonplaces.</p> + +<p class="normal">With Natalie and her mother it was quite different. He never, indeed, +spoke very much, but everything that he said was characteristic, +stimulating, interesting, and as, in spite of his sad lack of +education, he was free from narrow provincialisms and affectations, and +with the capability of assimilation of all barbarians, understood +exactly Natalie's pure and poetic being, he never wounded her by a +coarse lack of tact, but attracted her doubly by the austere +unconventionality of his manner.</p> + +<p class="normal">Every day he became more sympathetic to her; she had long been +indispensable to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was suddenly struck with horror of his past. It seemed to him as if +everything that was beautiful in his life had just begun when her pure +bright apparition had entered it. She had brought a cooling, healing +element to his sultry existence. It was as if one had opened a window +in a room full of oppressive vapor--a great breath of sweet, spicy air +had purified the atmosphere.</p> + +<p class="normal">A large part of his intellectual self which had formerly lain fallow, +now grew and blossomed. Often, in the morning, he accompanied the +ladies to some art collection. Very frequently he occupied a place in +the carriage which the princess had hired for their drives.</p> + +<p class="normal">Every one looked after the carriage, and observed with the same +interest the wonderfully beautiful girl, and the great artist, who was +not handsome, but whose face once seen could never be forgotten.</p> + +<p class="normal">What was most remarkable about it was the difference between the +expression of his eyes and that of his mouth, a difference which +betrayed the entire quality of his inner nature. While his eyes had a +spying, at times quite enthusiastic, expression, around the mouth was a +trace of intense earthly thirst for enjoyment.</p> + +<p class="normal">This mingling predestinated him to that eternal discontent of certain +great natures who can just as little accustom themselves, on the earth, +to a condition of bloodless asceticism as to one of mindless +materialism. The first desires no enjoyment of the world, the second +pleases itself with whatever is to be had in the world. Those men only +who seek the heavenly spark in earthly joys remain forever deceived +here. He was destined never to cease to seek it. Even in gray old age, +when his finely cut lips were satiated with enjoyment, and were fixed +in a grimace of incessant, sad disgust, his eyes still sought it.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">His colleagues in St. Petersburg asked each other what kept him so long +in Rome. He wrote one of them that he was working, and indeed he did +work. Through his soul vibrated melodies full of bewitching sad +loveliness, full of the rejoicing and complaint of a longing which +could not yet attain the longed-for happiness.</p> + +<p class="normal">And there in Rome, in those mild fragrant spring nights, he wrote a +cyclus of songs which might rank at the side of the most beautiful +musical lyrics ever written.</p> + +<p class="normal">In spite of their full richness of melody, his earlier compositions had +something too glaring, overladen, and trivially pleasing; they were too +much influenced by his virtuosity to please for themselves. In his +Roman cyclus of songs he showed himself for the first time a great +musician. And as until then he had distrusted his talent as composer, +he was pleasantly astonished over his own achievement.</p> + +<p class="normal">He always worked at night. His writing-table stood in front of the +window of his room which looked out on the Piazza di Spagna. Very often +his glance wandered there. A dark-blue heaven lighted by thousands of +stars arched above the broad, irregular place, over the antique +columns, from whose height a modern art nonentity looks down on Rome.</p> + +<p class="normal">All was silent, only the water, the resonant soul of Rome, tittered and +sobbed in the basins and fountains, and spouted up jubilantly in damp +silver streams, greeting from afar the unattainable heavens, and all +the tittering, sobbing, and rejoicing united in a long vibrating broken +chord.</p> + +<p class="normal">Still vibrating in every fibre at the recollection of Natalie's +farewell smile, he sat at his shaky table and wrote. The mild night +wind, fragrant with the kisses which it had stolen from the magnolia +and orange blossoms, crept in to him and caressed his hot cheeks. He +inhaled it eagerly. He had often been warned of the Roman night air, +but he did not think of the warning, and if he had--? He was in that +happy mood in which man no longer believes in sickness and death.</p> + +<p class="normal">The hateful melancholy which as he said often pressed him down to the +ground, and tormented him with predictions of his final annihilation, +was gone. He no longer saw, as formerly, an open grave at his feet. +Heaven had opened to him. An indescribable, light, elevating feeling +had overpowered him; he no longer felt the weight of his body. Had his +wings, then, grown in Rome?</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not think what would come of all this. He did not wish to think +of it; did not wish to see clearly. With closed eyes he walked through +life--the angels led him.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the beginning of May, and he had finished his cyclus of songs. +With a beating heart he entered the Palazzo Morsini to ask Natalie +whether he might dedicate it to her.</p> + +<p class="normal">The young princess was not at home, but her mother would be very happy +to see him, they told him.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was very hot, the blinds were all lowered. The princess lay on a +lounge and fanned herself with a peacock feather fan.</p> + +<p class="normal">After she had complained of the heat, she began to speak to him of all +kinds of family affairs. Her son had the best of opportunities to make +a career for himself, said she; her eldest daughter, who was far less +pretty than Natalie, added the princess, had married very well; her +husband was indeed a wealthy diplomat. "<i>Mois, je suis pauvre</i>," +concluded the old lady; "but I could live quite without care, if +Natalie were only married. But she will hear nothing of that. She lets +the best years of her life pass, and if you only knew what good matches +she has refused. Pachotin has already offered himself twice to her, and +if you please----"</p> + +<p class="normal">Just then a gay voice interrupted the inconsolable elegy. "Mamma, how +can any one boast so?" Natalie had entered, a large black hat on her +head, in her arms a huge bunch of flowers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I did not boast--I complained," replied the old woman, sighing.</p> + +<p class="normal">After Natalie had greeted Lensky with her usual friendliness, she laid +the flowers on the table and arranged them in the vases which an +Italian chambermaid had brought her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah, Natalie, why will you have none of them?" sighed the princess.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Little mother, I can love but once," replied Natalie, bending her +brown head over the flowers. "I have told you I will not marry until I +have found some one quite extraordinary--a hero or a genius."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Am I dreaming, or did she look at me with those words?" Lensky asked +himself. "But why did she turn her eyes away so quickly when they met +mine?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile the princess said: "Yes, if all girls wished to wait thus!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am not like all girls," said Natalie, laughing. "Most girls have +hearts like hand-organs, which every one can play; others have hearts +like Æolian harps, on which no one can play, and still they always +vibrate so sympathetically for the world; and still other girls--" she +interrupted herself to break a superfluous leaf from a magnolia twig.</p> + +<p class="normal">The princess, who seemed to lay little weight on Natalie's naïve +comparisons, fanned herself indifferently with her peacock fan, but +Lensky repeated, "Well, Natalie Alexandrovna, other girls----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Other girls have hearts like Amati violins; if a bungler touches them +there is a horrible discord; but if a true artist comes who understands +it, then----"</p> + +<p class="normal">This exaggerated remark she had made in a voice trembling between +mockery and tenderness, and incessantly occupied with the arrangement +of her flowers.</p> + +<p class="normal">Without ending the last sentence, she broke off, and bent her head to +the right to observe a combination of white roses and heliotrope with a +thoughtful look.</p> + +<p class="normal">The princess yawned from heat and discontent. "Leave me in peace from +your musical comparisons, Natascha," said she. "Besides, I can assure +you that no one spoils a fine instrument quicker than one of your great +virtuosos. When I think how Franz Liszt ruined our Pleyel in a single +evening; it was no longer fit even for a conservatory."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Violins are not ruined as quickly as pianos," said Natalie, laughing; +then, still speaking to the flowers, she said: "Don't you think, little +mother, that if such a piano had a soul, a mind, it would rather +rejoice to really live for once under the hands of a great master, +and even if it were to die of the joy, than merely to exist for a +half-century in a noble, charming room, as a carefully preserved +showpiece?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Again it seemed to Lensky that she looked at him, and again she +turned away her head when their looks met. "You are astonished at this +great expenditure for flowers?" she remarked. "We expect guests this +evening--my cousins from St. Petersburg, the Jeliagins. You know them, +and I shall try to draw their critical looks away from the holes in the +furniture covering to these beautiful color effects. So! Now I have +finished; here are a few May-bells left for your button-hole. Ah! +really, you never wear flowers!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Give them to me," said he, contracting his brows gloomily. She smiled +at him without saying anything. Then something scratched at the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Please open it, Boris Nikolaivitch," she asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">He did so; her large dog, a gigantic Scotch greyhound, came in, and +immediately springing up on his beautiful mistress, he laid both front +paws on her shoulders. She took his heavy head between her slender +hands, and murmuring tender, caressing words to him, she kissed him +twice, three times, on the forehead.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky took leave soon after without having mentioned his song cyclus. +His mind was in an uproar. "Is she only coquetting with me?" he asked +himself, "or--or--" A passionate joy throbbed in his veins, then +suddenly an icy shudder ran over him. "And if she is only like all the +others!"</p> + +<p class="normal">At his departure Natalie had said to him: "You will come this evening, +Boris Nikolaivitch, in spite of this boring Petersburg invasion? I beg +you will, <i>vous serez le coin bleu de mon ciel!</i>"</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The evening came.</p> + +<p class="normal">A Roman sirocco evening, with an approaching thunderstorm that hung +heavily around the horizon and would not lift.</p> + +<p class="normal">The heavily perfumed sultry air penetrated through the drawn curtains +into the Assanows' drawing-room. The Jeliagins had brought a couple of +Parisian friends with them, and naturally Pachotin was not missing. A +deathly <i>ennui</i> reigned. They spoke of Parisian fashions, of the +Empress Eugenie's new court; they complained of the new cook in the +Hotel de l'Europe, and of the heat.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then they spoke of national dances. The Jeliagins had recently +travelled in Spain and were enthusiastic about the fandango. The +Parisians had heard there was nothing more graceful than a well-danced +Polish mazurka; could none of the Russian ladies dance one for them?--a +very bold request, but they were all friends.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Jeliagins announced that Natalie danced the mazurka like a true +woman of Warsaw. They left her no peace.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, I will put on no more airs," said she, "if one of the ladies will +take a seat at the piano, so----"</p> + +<p class="normal">To go to the piano, even were it only to play dance-music, in Lensky's +presence! The ladies swooned at the mere thought.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well, then you must give up the mazurka," said Natalie, +decidedly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ask Boris Nikolaivitch," whispered one of the St. Petersburg women. +"If he is the first violinist of his time, he is also an excellent +pianist."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, no," said Natalie, firmly, and then her great brilliant eyes met +Lensky's.</p> + +<p class="normal">Although at that time he maintained his artistic dignity with quite +childish exaggeration, he smiled very good-naturedly and said, "I see +very well that you place no confidence in me; you think I cannot catch +your mazurka music."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, no, no!" said Natalie. "You shall not degrade your art."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And do you really think it would be degrading to improvise a musical +background for your performance? I should so like to see you dance." +And he stood up and went to the piano.</p> + +<p class="normal">Such pretty little phrases were formerly not his style. He had, as +Natalie had often laughingly told him, no talent for <i>fioriture</i> in +conversation.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Petersburg ladies looked at each other. "How polite he has become! +You have changed him, Natascha," whispered they.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile Pachotin gave Natalie his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky had seized the opportunity of admiring her grace with joy. He +had never thought how painfully it would affect him to see her dance +with another man. He did not take his eyes off her, and meanwhile +improvised the most bewitching devil's music.</p> + +<p class="normal">She wore a white dress, her neck and arms were bare, and around her +waist was a Circassian girdle embroidered with gold and silver. One +hand in her partner's, the other hanging loosely at her side, her head +slightly on one side, she moved safely over the dangerously smooth +surface of the marble floor. At the beginning, pale as usual, except +her dark-red lips, she looked quite indifferent; gradually she became +warmer and more animated, a slight blush crept into her cheeks, her +eyes beamed as if in a happy dream, around her lips trembled the sad +expression which the feeling of intense pleasure often causes us, and +her movements at the same time had something indescribably gentle and +supple.</p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/p056.png" alt="p. 56."></p> +<div style="margin-left:25%; margin-right:25%"> +<p class="normal">At the beginning, pale as usual, except the dark-red +lips, she looked quite indifferent; gradually she became warmer and +more animated, a slight blush crept into her cheeks, her eyes beamed as +in a happy dream---- <i>p. 56</i>.</p></div> + +<p class="normal">Pachotin, most correctly attired, with a collar which reached to the +tips of his ears and faultless yellow gloves, hopped around her in the +true affected knightly grimacing Polish-mazurka manner.</p> + +<p class="normal">"An ape!" thought Lensky to himself; "but how handsome, how +distinguished he is! almost as handsome as she!" and suddenly the +question occurred to him: "Is it my music or his presence which +animates her? And if it were my music! Nevertheless, she will still +marry him; yes, even if she were in love with me, still she would marry +him, and not me! What a fool I was to imagine----"</p> + +<p class="normal">After Pachotin had soberly placed his heels together and acknowledged +his deep devotion to the lady by a suitable courtesy, the mazurka was +at an end.</p> + +<p class="normal">Quite beside themselves with enthusiasm, the Parisians surrounded +Natalie. When she wished to thank Lensky he had disappeared. It was his +manner many times to withdraw without taking leave, but still to-day it +made Natalie uneasy. She was vibrating with a great excitement, the air +seemed to her suffocatingly hot, she drew off her gloves; the noise of +the prattling voices became unbearable to her, and she passed through +the second empty drawing-room, into the arched loggia set with blooming +orange-trees, from which one looked across the court-yard to the Tiber.</p> + +<p class="normal">The storm still hung on the horizon. Heavy masses of clouds, shot +through by pale lightning, towered, on the other side of the river, +above the gloomy architecture of the Trastevere. They had not yet +reached the moon, which, palely shining, stood high in the heavens. Its +light illumined the court, with its statues and bas-reliefs. The air +was sultry.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie drew a deep breath. Suddenly she discovered Lensky. He was +staring down on the Tiber, which, rolling by in its bed, incessantly +sighed, as if from sorrow at its sad lot, which compelled it +continually to hasten past everything.</p> + +<p class="normal">Could one really take it amiss in the stream if it sometimes overflowed +its banks in order to carry away with it some of the beautiful objects, +near which, condemned to perpetual wandering, it might not remain +standing?</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! you here?" said Natalie. "I thought you had taken French leave. I +was vexed with you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, because--because I was sorry not to be able to thank you. It was +really----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do not speak so," said he, quite roughly; "just as if you did not know +that there is nothing in the world, nothing in my power that I would +not do for you!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She bent her head back a little and smiled at him in a friendly way, +but as if his words had not surprised her in the slightest. "You are +very good to me," said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">He felt strangely thus alone with her in this sweet-perfumed, +melancholy, intoxicating sultriness, alone with this happiness that was +so near him, and which he was afraid of frightening away by an unseemly +imprudence. He felt by turns hot and cold. Why did she not go?</p> + +<p class="normal">She rested her hands on the marble balustrade of the loggia and bending +over it she murmured: "How beautiful! oh, how wonderfully beautiful! +And it is so tiresome in there; do you not find it so, Boris +Nikolaivitch?"</p> + +<p class="normal">His throat contracted, he felt that he was about to lose control of +himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Shall I play?" he asked. "I will do it willingly for you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, no! Why should you play to those stupid people in there?" replied +she. "I would be prepared to hear, in the middle of the G minor +concerto, the question: 'Before I forget it, can you not give me the +address of a good shoemaker in Rome?' You know how such things vex me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is she coquetting with me, or--?" he asked himself again.</p> + +<p class="normal">She stood before him with her enchanting face, and her tender glance +met his. She did not know that she tormented him. In spite of her +twenty-one years, she had the boundless innocence of a girl whose mind +has never been desecrated by the knowledge of passion, a degree of +innocence in which men do not believe.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is she coquetting?" His heart beat to bursting, and suddenly, when she +quite unconstrainedly came one step nearer him, he took her hand. "Oh, +you dear, dear girl!" he murmured, with hoarse, scarcely audible voice, +and pressed it to his lips.</p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/p061.png" alt="p. 61."></p> +<div style="margin-left:25%; margin-right:25%"> +<p class="normal">"Oh, you dear, dear girl!" he murmured, with hoarse, +scarcely audible voice, and pressed it to his lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">Crimsoning. She tore away her hand. <i>p. 61</i>.</p></div> + +<p class="normal">Crimsoning, she tore away her hand. "For Heaven's sake, what are you +thinking of?" said she, and started back with a proud, almost scornful +gesture.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then a horrible anger overcame him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was stupid, I was mistaken in you. You think no more nobly or better +than the others!" he burst out.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do not understand you. What do you mean?" murmured she.</p> + +<p class="normal">What else had she to ask? Why did she not go, but stood before him, as +if paralyzed, with her pale, seductive loveliness, surrounded by +moonlight?</p> + +<p class="normal">"I mean that if you observe our relations from this conventional +standpoint, your behavior to me was a heartless, arrogant abomination."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, Boris Nikolaivitch, that is all foolishness. You do not know what +you are saying," she stammered, quite beside herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So! I do not know what I am saying?" He had now stepped close up to +her. "And if I, mistaking your coquetries--yes, that is the word; blush +now and be a little ashamed--if I, mistaking your coquetries, have +permitted myself to petition for your hand? Oh, how you start! +Naturally, you had never thought of such a thing!"</p> + +<p class="normal">His voice was hoarse and rasping, his face very calm and as if +petrified by anger and such a mental torment as he had never before +experienced. "But go! Why do you stay and torture me? I will no longer +look at you. I abominate you, and still I love you so passionately, so +madly!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Yes, why did she still not go? He could endure it no longer--he clasped +her to his breast and kissed her with his hot, burning lips. Then she +pushed him from her and fled.</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked after her. Now all was over. For one moment he remained +standing on the same spot, then, with deeply bowed head, dragging his +feet along slowly, he passed through the vestibule and left, without +thinking of his hat, which he had left in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p class="normal">For the remainder of the evening Natalie's whole being betrayed only +haste and uneasiness. She spoke more and quicker than formerly, laughed +frequently, and told the gayest stories.</p> + +<p class="normal">When her Petersburg cousins wished to tease her with Lensky's +enthusiasm for her, and laughingly called him "your genius," she +mentioned him indifferently, quite disapprovingly, shrugged her +shoulders over his talent as composer--yes, even found fault with his +playing. She was friendly, quite inviting, to Pachotin; she no longer +knew what she did, only when he wished to give the conversation a more +earnest turn she broke it off suddenly and remorselessly.</p> + +<p class="normal">When at last, at last, the drawing-room was empty and she might +withdraw, she locked herself in her room, threw herself down before the +holy picture before which she always said her evening prayer. But, +however she tried to pray, she could not. She did not know for what she +should pray. Her cheeks burned with dreadful shame. How could he have +so far forgotten himself with her!</p> + +<p class="normal">She threw open a window. What did it matter to her that they said the +Roman night air was poisonous? She would have liked to take the Roman +fever, would have liked to die. Her window opened on the street. The +Via Giulia was divided by the moonlight into two parts, one light and +one dark. All was quiet, empty, deserted. Then there was a sound of +slow, dragging steps, and two lowered voices whispered down there in +the silent solitude. It was probably a pair of belated lovers, and +suddenly there was a soft, tender sound through the mild May night. She +caught her breath, closed the window, and turned back to her room. +Half-undressed, she sat on the edge of her little cool white bed and +thought again and again--of the same thing--of his kiss.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why has 'your genius' so suddenly tired of Rome? He leaves to-day," +remarked the Jeliagins, who had come to lunch the next morning in the +Palazzo Morsini.</p> + +<p class="normal">They were staying at the same hotel as Lensky--that is to say, in the +"Europe"--and had spoken to him in the court of the hotel. "He looked +miserably," they added, with a haughty glance. "Either he has Roman +fever or you have broken his heart."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then they spoke of other things. Soon after lunch they went away.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile Lensky stumbled up and down, up and down, in his room. A sick +lady whose room was beneath his, at last sent up by the waiter and +begged him to be quiet.</p> + +<p class="normal">His departure was fixed for seven o'clock; it struck one, it struck +four.</p> + +<p class="normal">Should he leave without having made a parting call upon the Princess +Assanow run away like any fellow who has borrowed thirty rubles? "But +they will not receive me," he thought, "if the princess has told her +mother. But, no, she will have said nothing; she is too proud. What a +lovely being! How could I only-- Oh, if I might at least ask her +pardon! But what kind of a pardon would it be? Such a thing a woman +pardons only if she loves, and how should she love me, a beast as I am? +She must have an aversion for me."</p> + +<p class="normal">He resolved to take leave by letter. He tried it in French and Russian, +but could complete nothing. Ashamed of his laughable incapacity, he +tore up the different sheets of letter-paper adorned with "<i>Des +circonstances imprévues</i>," or "<i>La reconnaissance sincère que</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">Five o'clock! He hastened across the courtyard, sprang into a carriage. +"Palazzo Morsini, Via Giulia," he called to the coachman, and commanded +him to drive fast.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he ascended the well-known stairs he asked himself a last time if +he would be received.</p> + +<p class="normal">The servant conducted him to the boudoir of the old princess. She broke +off her game of patience to greet him, only betrayed a slight +astonishment at his sudden departure, and said that she and Natalie +should soon follow his example and go North, probably to Baden-Baden, +for the heat in Rome began to be unbearable. Then she rang for the +maid, whom she commissioned to tell the princess that Boris +Nikolaivitch had come to take leave.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky waited in breathless excitement. The maid came back with the +decision: The princess was very ill and had lain down with a headache.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Quite as I expected," thought Lensky, while the princess remarked +politely, "She will be very sorry."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he kissed the old lady's hand, she touched his forehead with +her lips in the Russian custom, wished him a pleasant journey, he +thanked her a last time for all the friendship she had shown him, and +went--went quite slowly through the large empty room, in which the dust +danced in a broad sunbeam which lay across the marble floor, and in +which the flowers which she had arranged so charmingly yesterday now +stood withered in their vases.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Shall I never see her again, never--never?" he asked himself. He would +have given his life for a last friendly glance from her. What use was +it to think of that--it was all over!</p> + +<p class="normal">Then suddenly he heard something near him like the rustling of an +angel's wings. He looked up. Natalie stood before him, deathly pale, +with black rings around her eyes, with carelessly arranged hair. A +passionate pity, a tender anxiety overcame him. "How she has suffered +through my offence!" he told himself and rushed up to her. "Natalie, +can you forgive me?" he called.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her great, sad eyes were raised to him with an expression of helpless, +ashamed tenderness, as if they would say, "And you ask that!" She moved +her lips, but no word came.</p> + +<p class="normal">He held her little hands trembling with fever in his. She did not draw +them away. He grew dizzy. For one moment they were both silent, then he +whispered, drawing her closer to him, "Do you love me, then? Could you +resolve to bear my name, to share my whole existence?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Scarcely audibly she whispered, "Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">We are sometimes frightened at the sudden fulfilment of a wish which we +have believed unattainable.</p> + +<p class="normal">And as Lensky under the weight of his new, strange happiness sank at +the feet of his betrothed and covered the hem of her dress with tears +and kisses, in the midst of his happiness he felt an oppressed anxiety, +a great fear.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">A few days after Natalie's betrothal there was a short, imperious ring +at the door of the artistic gray anteroom, in which the imposing +butler, as usual, sat majestically intrenched behind his newspaper.</p> + +<p class="normal">Monsieur Baptiste raised his eyebrows; he did not like this imperious +manner of ringing a bell, and did not hurry at all to open the door. +Only when the ring was repeated did he unlock it. His face changed +color from surprise, and he bowed quite to the ground when he +recognized in the entering gentleman the young prince, the eldest +brother of Natalie, Sergei Alexandrovitch Assanow.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are the ladies at home?" he asked shortly in a high, somewhat vexed +voice without further noticing the respectful greeting of the servant.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The princess is still in bed, but the Princess Natalie is already up."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good. Do not disturb the princess, and announce me to Princess +Natalie," said Assanow, and with that he followed the butler, who was +hastening before him, into the drawing-room. There he sat down in a +mahogany arm-chair upholstered in faded yellow damask, crossed his +legs, rested his tall shining hat on his knee and looked around him. On +one of his hands was a gray glove, the other was bare. It was a long, +slender, aristocratic hand, very well cared for, too white for a man's +hand, but bony, and with strongly marked veins on the back--a hand +which one saw would certainly hold firmly what it had once grasped, and +a hand which was capable of no caress. For the rest it would have been +hard to judge anything from the exterior of the prince. He was a tall +slender man of about thirty, with light-brown hair that was already +thin on the top of the head, and a face--smoothly shaven except a long +mustache--which in the cut of the delicate regular features resembled +his sister's not unnoticeably. But the expression, that animating soul +of beauty which lent Natalie's pale face more charm than the regularity +of the lines, was lacking in him. Everything about him was as correct +as his profile--his high stiff collar, the drab gaiters which showed +beneath his trousers, his light-gray gloves with black stitching. He +was the type of the Russian state official of the highest category, the +type of men who in public life only permit themselves to think as far +as will not injure their advancement.</p> + +<p class="normal">As he was a very clever, sharp, judging man withal, he revenged himself +for the discomfort which the systematic crippling of his intellectual +capacity in the service of the state caused him, by devoting all the +superfluity of his unneeded intellect to shedding an unpleasantly +glaring intellectual light about him, and condemning as absolute +foolishness all those little poetic, pleasant trifles which make life +beautiful.</p> + +<p class="normal">He called this manner of pleasing himself doing his duty.</p> + +<p class="normal">Strangely enough, with all his sterile dryness he was a true lover of +music. He played the cello as well as a man of the world can permit +himself to--that is to say, with an elegant inaccuracy, together with +pedantic bursts of virtuosity, and in consequence had cultivated +Lensky's acquaintance assiduously.</p> + +<p class="normal">While he waited for his sister he looked around the room distrustfully +with his handsome dark but unpleasantly piercing eyes. He grew uneasy. +The atmosphere of the whole room was quite permeated with happiness. +Everything seemed to feel happy here--the shabby furniture, the music +which lay somewhat confusedly on the piano. On the table near which +Sergei Alexandrovitch sat stood a basket of pale Malmaison roses, under +the piano was a violin case.</p> + +<p class="normal">Sergei Alexandrovitch frowned. Then Natalie entered the room; he rose, +went to meet her, kissed and embraced her. It seemed strange to her +that she did not feel as glad to see him as formerly, but rather felt a +kind of chill. Which of them had changed, he or she?</p> + +<p class="normal">"What a surprise!" said she, and felt herself that her voice had a +forced sound. "It has not formerly been your custom to appear so +unexpectedly."</p> + +<p class="normal">"My journey was only decided upon last month," replied he, somewhat +hesitatingly; and with his dull smile he added, "I hope I do not arrive +inopportunely, Natalie?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"How can you ask such a thing!" said she. "But sit down and put your +hat away--you are at home."</p> + +<p class="normal">He remarked the uneasiness of her manner. He coughed twice, and then +sat down again near the table on which the basket of roses stood.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie sat down. Both hands resting on the red surface of the mahogany +table, she bent over the flowers, and slowly with a kind of tenderness +inhaled the dreamy, melancholy perfume.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Have you had a pleasant winter?" began Sergei Alexandrovitch.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do not know," replied she without looking at him; "I have forgotten, +but the spring was wonderfully beautiful, wonderfully beautiful," and +she bent over the flowers again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hm! So you prefer Rome to Naples?" said he condescendingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You seem to have been very comfortably fixed here," he remarked, with +a glance around. "You have very pretty rooms. Those are beautiful roses +which you have there."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Boris Lensky sent them to me," said she, while she at the same time +pulled a rose from the basket to fasten it in the bodice of her light +foulard dress. Then she sat down opposite Sergei. War was declared.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Lensky seems to be a great deal with you," said Assanow, +condescendingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I heard of it through acquaintances in Petersburg," began the prince. +"It did not quite please me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie only shrugged her shoulders, with an expression as if she would +say: "I am very sorry, but that does not change matters at all." In +spite of that she secretly trembled before her brother. The +announcement which she had to make to him would not cross her lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is hard to speak of certain things to you," he continued, while he +tried to make his thin high voice sound confidential. He did not wish +to make his sister refractory by overhasty roughness. "I have no +prejudices." It had recently become the fashion in his set, and +especially for the upper ten thousand, to boast of a kind of harmless +liberality. "No one can accuse me of smallness. I am always in favor of +attracting young artists into society--first, because they form an +animating element in our circles, and secondly, because one should give +them an opportunity to improve their manners a little; but all in +moderation. Too great intimacy in such cases is bad for both parties. +You are too much carried away by the generosity of your heart. I know +that in reality your immoderate kindness to Lensky does not mean much, +but----"</p> + +<p class="normal">Her wonderfully beautiful eyes met his.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am betrothed to Boris Nikolaivitch," said she wearily but very +distinctly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Betrothed!" he burst out. "You to Lensky? You are crazy!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not at all."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Does mother know of it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And she has given her consent?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"At first she was surprised; she cried a whole afternoon. I was very +sorry to pain her. Then she gave way. She is very fond of him. Every +one must be fond of him who learns to know him well." Natalie's eyes +beamed with animation.</p> + +<p class="normal">Sergei Alexandrovitch pulled at his mustache. "Hm, hm," he murmured; +"we will leave that undecided. As it happens, I am one of those who +know him well; there are few in our set who know him as intimately as +I, and--hm--I do not know that he has caused me any very enthusiastic +feelings. As artist I rank him very high, not so high as has been the +fashion lately, for as a <i>beau dire il manque de style</i>, he lacks +style! But that has nothing to do with this. But if he united in +himself the genius of Beethoven and Paganini, I would still look upon +the possibility of your alliance with him as unheard of, and I tell you +frankly, that I shall do all that is in my power to prevent it." He had +taken up again the hat which he had formerly laid down, and held it on +his knee as if paying a call of state. While he spoke the last words, +he knocked on the top of it with malicious decision.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie crossed her arms.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I knew that you would oppose the mésalliance," said she, "but----"</p> + +<p class="normal">He would not let her finish. "Mésalliance!" said he, and laughed very +mockingly, quite shortly and softly, to himself, and began to drum on +the top of his hat again. "Mésalliance! I cannot say that the marriage +of my sister to this Mr. Lensky would be especially pleasant--no, that +I cannot say. What must be my horror at your undertaking if I scarcely +think of my opposition on account of the unequal birth!" He was silent, +but then as Natalie remained obstinately silent, he continued: "That +you will in consequence change your social position is your affair. But +do not believe that this will be all that you give up. You sacrifice +not only your position, your whole personality, all your habits of +life, but more than all these, you sacrifice all your formerly so +spared and guarded womanly tender feeling if you insist upon marrying +this violinist. Oh, I know what you will say," said he, while he +noticed the glance which Natalie gave the roses on the table. "He is +full of poetic attentions for you. When they are in love, the roughest +men speak in verse. And I believe that he loves you. But his enthusiasm +for you is still only a passing effervescence. What will remain when +that is gone? I ask you, what would remain in a man without principles, +without a trace of moral restraint, who has grown up amid surroundings +which have forever blunted his feelings for things which would horrify +you, and others of which you have no suspicion?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Again he paused, but this time Natalie spoke: "May I ask you," began +she, with the calm behind which irritation bordering on uncontrollable +anger concealed itself--"may I ask you to tell me exactly, without any +more finely veiled insinuations, what you have against Boris +Nikolaivitch, except that he is of lower birth and has enjoyed no +careful bringing up?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"My God! If it is a question of my sister's future husband, that is +enough and more than enough!" said Assanow.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it all?" asked Natalie, and looked at him penetratingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it all?" she repeated, while she slowly rose from her chair. "Have +you anything else against him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have really nothing against him as long as it is not a question of +my sister's husband," he hissed; "but in that case everything. And if +instead of Lensky he were called Prince Dolgorouki, I would still say, +as a husband for you he is impossible!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why--I wish to know it--why?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why? Good. I will tell you, as far as one can tell you--because he is +a wild animal, with bursts of roughness of which you cannot form the +slightest conception," said Assanow; and, striking his thin hands +together, he added, with evidently genuine excitement: "<i>Mais, ma +pauvre fille</i>, you have no suspicion to what humiliations, what +degradations, you expose yourself."</p> + +<p class="normal">He stopped. He looked at his sister triumphantly. She still stood +before him with her hand resting on the top of the table, staring, pale +and without a word. It would be false, to say that his speech made no +impression on her. It had made an impression on her. Still, she +ascribed all that he said to boundless, passionate opposition. While he +spoke it seemed to her as if little pointed icicles were hurled in her +face. And weary and wounded from this hailstorm of fruitless prudence, +she longed with all her heart for a reconciling delusion.</p> + +<p class="normal">He misunderstood her apparently great excitement, and in the firm +conviction that she already secretly began to fall in with his opinion, +he began, this time in a kindly, playful tone: "My poor Natalie, my +poor, unwise but always charming sister, you are like children who see +that they are wrong and are ashamed to acknowledge it. Well, we will +not press you too much. At first it is always painful to be undeceived; +but time cures everything, and when you are married to a distinguished +and reasonable young fellow--<i>un garçon distingué et raisonnable</i>--who +will rationally cure you of your romantic ideas, you will only think of +this youthful foolishness with a smile."</p> + +<p class="normal">She threw back her head and measured him from head to foot. At this +moment he seemed to her quite pitiable. How poverty-stricken, how sad +was his whole inner life, his feelings, his thoughts, to those to which +she had recently accustomed herself! "And you really believe that it +could occur to me to give up Boris Nikolaivitch?" said she slowly with +proudly curved lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think, after what I have said to you--" He tried to be patient, and +even wished to take her hand, but she drew it back; the touch of his +cold, bloodless fingers was unpleasant to her. Yet it had never been so +before. What had changed in her?</p> + +<p class="normal">The prince's face took on a hard, vexed expression. "I think after what +I have told you--" he repeated.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it not true, after what you have told me, after the consolation you +have offered me, you cannot understand that I keep my word?" said she, +challengingly. "What will you, I am now so foolish?" Her voice, veiled +at first, became warmer and stronger, while she continued: "You take +away summer from me, and offer me winter as consolation--that is, you +ask of me that I should refuse everything in the world that blooms and +bears fruit, only because sometimes a devastating thunderstorm bursts +over this wealth of beauty and life! I know that in a normal winter +there are no thunderstorms, and in spite of that I prefer the summer!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But it is a tropical summer!" exclaimed Assanow.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That may be," she replied, calmly; "but for that very reason it is +more magnificent--yes, even because of the dangers involved in it--more +magnificent than any other."</p> + +<p class="normal">He stood up. "It is useless to speak to you," said he, coldly; "the +only thing that remains for me is to speak to Lensky. He has a clear +head in spite of all his genius. He can be talked over."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then Natalie was startled out of her proud calm. "You would be +indelicate enough to say to him what you have said to me!" she burst +out.</p> + +<p class="normal">"In such cases it is not only wisest, but most humane, to use pure +prudence instead of foolish sentimentality," announced Assanow; and, +bowing to his sister as to a stranger, he left, with all his vexation, +still elevated by the thought that he had again had opportunity to +display his "prudence" in a brilliant light. He loved his prudence as +an artistic capability, and was glad to give proofs, by all kinds of +virtuoso performances, of its extent and unusual pliability. Whether +these productions were exactly suited to the time troubled the virtuoso +little, and that by his last threat he had attained exactly the +opposite with Natalie from what he wished, did not occur to him at all, +momentarily.</p> + +<p class="normal">He had gone. Natalie still stood in the middle of the room, her hand +resting on the table, and trembling in her whole body. Suddenly the +memory of the "musical confession" arose in her, which Lensky had laid +before her the morning when he tried the Amati, the confession which +had frightened her. And through her mind vibrated, piercingly and +cuttingly, the mysterious succession of tones from the Arabian +folksongs which echoed lamentingly through all his compositions--the +devil's music: Asbeïn.</p> + +<p class="normal">As long as she had to defend herself from her brother, she had not +realized how deeply he had wounded her. She felt at once miserable, +wounded, and discontented with life--as a young tree must feel, over +whose fragrant young spring blossoms a hailstorm has passed. Then +Lensky came in. He perceived in a moment what had happened.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They have tormented you on my account," said he. "Poor heart! if I +could only take all this vexation upon myself."</p> + +<p class="normal">She smiled at him. "Then I would not be worthy of you," replied she.</p> + +<p class="normal">He drew her gently toward him. Her discouragement had disappeared; +warm, strong life again pulsated in her veins.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Everything has its recompense," whispered she; "it is sweet to bear +something for any one whom----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, for any one whom--please finish," he urged, and drew her closer +to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You know it without."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I would so love to hear you say it once."</p> + +<p class="normal">She raised herself on tiptoes and whispered something in his ear.</p> + +<p class="normal">He held her tighter and tighter to him. "Oh, my happiness, my queen!" +he murmured, and his warm lips met hers.</p> + +<p class="normal">She felt as if wrapped in a sunbeam, in a warm, animating atmosphere, +through which none of the critical sneers and opinions of those who +stood without the consecrated magic circle of love could penetrate.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Six weeks later Natalie and Lensky were married, and at the Russian +Embassy in Vienna. Her dowry consisted of a very incomplete trousseau, +in part lavishly trimmed with lace; of a mortgaged estate in South +Russia that had brought in no rents for three years; and of three +Cremona violins.</p> + +<p class="normal">While her elder brother silently concealed the true despair which the +marriage caused him behind stiff dignity, the younger, an officer of +the guard, with a becoming talent for arrogant impertinences, pleased +himself by jesting over this adventurous marriage, and describing the +"strange taste" of his sister, with a shrug of the shoulders, as a case +of acute monomania. When he spoke of his brother-in-law, he called him +nothing but "<i>cette bête sauvage et indécrottable</i>," even when he had +long made a practice of borrowing money of him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Neither of Natalie's brothers or her married sister appeared at her +wedding. Only the old princess accompanied her daughter to the altar.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>SECOND BOOK.</h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">They trifled away the summer on the Italian coast and in Switzerland. +In the autumn Lensky made a concert tour through Germany and the +Netherlands, on which his young wife accompanied him, and attempted +with humorous zeal to accustom herself to the role of an artist's wife. +In the beginning of December Lensky and she came to St. Petersburg. The +residence had been prepared for the young pair by a friend of Natalie. +Natalie made a discontented face when she entered her new kingdom. How +new, how glaring, how unsuitable and tasteless everything looked. "It +is as if one bit into a green apple," said she; and turning to Lensky +she added, gayly, with a shrug of her shoulders: "The stupid Annette +did not know any better; but do not trouble yourself. In a couple of +weeks it will be different. You shall see how comfortably I will +cushion your nest. You must feel happy in it, my restless eagle, or +else you will fly away from me. What?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She said this, smiling in proud consciousness of his passionate love. +What pleasure would it give him to fly away? And teasingly, jestingly, +she pushed back the thick hair from his temples.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ah, how pleasant and yet tantalizing was the touch of her slender, +delicate fingers, which made him at once nervous and happy! As he +expressed it, it "almost made him jump out of his skin with rapture." +At first he let her continue her foolish, tender playfulness to her +heart's content; then he laughingly put himself on the defensive, +preached a more dignified manner to her, and when she did not yield, +but gayly continued her lovely, teasing ways, he at length seized her +violently by both wrists and quite crushed her hands with kisses.</p> + +<p class="normal">If in the first weeks of their married life both had been quite solemn, +thoughtful, and confused in their manner to each other, now they often +frolicked together like two gay children.</p> + +<p class="normal">While he took up again his long-interrupted duties at the Petersburg +Conservatory, she built him "his nest." She did not go lavishly to +work. Oh, no! She knew that one must not press down a young artist with +the burden of material cares. She imagined she was very economical. She +did not cease to wonder over the cheapness with which she could get +everything that was needed, beginning with the flowers--flowers in +winter, in St. Petersburg! He never enlightened her as to how much the +footing on which she maintained her "simple household" surpassed his +present circumstances.</p> + +<p class="normal">Every time that he came home he found a new, attractive change. She +accomplished great things in artistic arrangement of the so-called +"confused style," which at that time was not so common as to-day, but +was still a bold innovation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>C'est tres joli, mais un peu trop touffu</i>," said he to her once when +she met him, quite particularly conscious of victory and awaiting +praise, with the knowledge of a new, costly improvement in the +arrangement of the drawing-room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, my love; but a drawing-room is neither an official audience-room +nor a gymnasium," replied she, somewhat offended.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nor a ball-room nor riding-school," completed he, jestingly; +"but--h'm--still one should be able to move in it. Do you not think +so?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is as one looks at it. I have nothing to do with it if you cannot +brandish around too freely in it."</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">They went out in society quite frequently--in Natalie's society. That +many people, especially Natalie's near relations, made comments on the +marriage of the spoiled child of a prince with a violinist is easily +understood. But scarcely had they seen Boris and his young wife +together a few times when the comments ceased. A full, true, young +human happiness always causes respect, and, like every achievement, +bears its triumphant justification in itself. The leader of fashion, +Princess Lydia Petrovna B., declared publicly, and, indeed, in the +highest court circles, that in her opinion Natalie had acted very +wisely.</p> + +<p class="normal">Countess Sophie Dimitrievna went a step further when she energetically +declared that she envied Natalie. From that time every one vied in +fêting the young couple and distinguishing them.</p> + +<p class="normal">They both enjoyed society, but the best part of it was not entering the +brilliantly illuminated reception-rooms or being surrounded by +wondering strangers. Oh, no! the best of all was the last quarter of an +hour before they left their home, when Lensky, already in evening +dress, entered the dressing-room of his young wife. Each time he felt +anew the same pleasant excitement when he, slowly turning the knob, +after a teasing, "May I come in, Natalie?" entered the cosey room. +How charming and attractive everything was there! The room with the +light carpet and the comfortable, not too numerous articles of +cretonne-upholstered furniture; the two tiny gold-embroidered slippers +on the rough bear-skin in front of the lounge; not far off, Natalie's +house-dress, thrown over a chair, exhaling the warmth of her young, +fresh, fragrant personality. Then there on the toilet-table, with +clouds of white muslin over the pink lining, and with sparkling silver +and crystal utensils, a pretty confusion of half-opened white lace +boxes, and on the table dark velvet jewel-cases. The pleasant, mild, +and still bright light of many pink wax-candles, which stood about in +high, heavy silver candelabra, and the warm, strange, seductive +atmosphere which filled the whole room--an atmosphere which was +permeated with the fragrance of greenhouse flowers, burning +wax-candles, and the pleasant, subtle, spicy Indian perfume which clung +to all Natalie's effects.</p> + +<p class="normal">And there, before the tall cheval-glass, Natalie, already in evening +toilet, almost ready, her beautiful arms hanging down in pampered +helplessness; behind her a maid, just finished fastening her corsage, +and a second, with a three-branched candelabra in her hand, throwing +the light upon her mistress.</p> + +<p class="normal">Was that really his wife? This splendid, queenly being in the white +silk dress--she wore white silk in preference--really the wife of the +violinist, in whose life, not so far back, lay all kind of need, +humiliation, trouble of all kind?</p> + +<p class="normal">Then she looked around. She had a charming manner of holding her small +hands half against her cheeks, half against her neck, and turning +slowly from the glass and looking at him with lowered eyelids, and a +kind of mischievously proud and yet tenderly suppressed consciousness +of victory. "Are you satisfied, Boris?"</p> + +<p class="normal">What could he answer?</p> + +<p class="normal">"You come just as if called," then said she. "You shall put the +hair-pins in my hair. Katia is so awkward." Then she sat down in a low +chair, and handed him the hair-pins. They were wonderful hair-pins, the +heads of which were narcissi formed of diamonds, a bridal present from +Lensky. He took them with gentle fingers, and the celebrated artist was +proud if his young wife praised him for the taste with which he +fastened her diamonds in her hair.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">"Natalie!" exclaimed Boris, in a tone of the greatest surprise--a +surprise made up of the greatest astonishment and not of joy--"you +here?"</p> + +<p class="normal">It was in his study, and nine o'clock in the morning. At this hour, +daily, in crying opposition to his former proverbial unreliability, he +had long been sitting at his writing-table. But that Natalie should +leave her bedroom before ten o'clock had hitherto been an unheard-of +occurrence.</p> + +<p class="normal">But to-day, just as he was about to go to the piano, to try on that +modest representative of an orchestra a completed musical phrase, he +discovered her. Quite unobserved, she had mischievously crept in, and +now crouched comfortably in a large arm-chair, which formed a very +picturesque frame for her silk wrapper, bordered with black fur. She +sat on one foot; one tiny gold-embroidered Caucasian slipper lay before +her on the floor, and she smiled tenderly at her husband with her +great, proud eyes. But the pride disappeared from her glance at his +ejaculation, an ejaculation which expressed so much perplexity, so +little joy. She started and, embarrassed, reached out for her slipper +with the tip of her foot.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do I disturb you?" she asked, anxiously. "Must I go?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Formerly he could not bear to have any one about him when he worked. +His face wore a forced, smiling expression, while he assured her:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, not in the slightest--pray sit down." Whereupon he pushed his +chair up to hers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, if you are going to treat me so!" said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How, then?" asked he.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Like--like any visitor," she burst out, and hastened to the door. He +brought her back. Then he saw that her eyes were full of tears.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But what is the matter?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am ashamed of my intrusion, that is all. Adieu--I will not disturb +you further!"</p> + +<p class="normal">With that she wished to free herself from him. But that was not so +easy. He took her, struggling in his arms like a child, and carried her +back by force to the immense chair which they had left. "So now, sit +there, and don't spoil my mood, you witch. Why should I not enjoy your +company for a little? Do you think, then, that I am not glad to see +you? But you do not expect that I should bend over the table, and spoil +paper, while a charming little woman sits behind me? The temptation to +talk to you is too great."</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her head. "You wish to be good to me, but you pain me," +murmured she. And she added, flatteringly, "Can you really not work +when I am with you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Would you like it if I could?" he asked, and looked at her with a +quite new, penetrating expression in his eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">He drew his brows together humorously; he was now kneeling before her, +and held both her hands in his. "You are not only a charming little +woman, Natalie," said he, "but, what very few such beautiful and +seductive women are, of a good heart. But still I have noticed one +thing in you, namely, that you do not like to be second anywhere. And, +do you see, everywhere else you are not only the first, but the only +one in the world for me; but here, Natalie, here it must please you +that I should forget you for my art!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And do you think that I would wish it otherwise?" said she, and there +was an earnest, solemn expression in her eyes which he never forgot. +"Oh, you blind one, you do not yet know me at all. Do not kneel there +like a hero in a romance; in the long run, it looks not only awkward +but uncomfortable. Sit down by me--there is room enough in this immense +chair for us both. So! and now--now I will confess to you what I have +already so long had on my heart. Do you see, you love me, I do not +doubt that, how should I? but--do not be angry with me--sometimes I +wish that you loved me differently; I wish to be not only your petted +wife, your plaything----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"My plaything!" he interrupted her, very reproachfully. "Oh, Natalie! +my sanctuary!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, then, as far as I am concerned, your sanctuary. That, looked at +in one light, is also only a plaything, even if of the most +distinguished kind." She laughed somewhat constrainedly. "It is +certainly immoderate," she continued, and hesitated a little, +"horribly immoderate, but still it is so--I--I do not want to be only +your plaything, but also your friend--do not be horrified at this +audacity--yes, your friend, your confidante. I wish to be the first to +share your newly arising thoughts. Lately, it has often hurt me that +you busy yourself so much with all kinds of trifles only to give me +pleasure. I know it is my fault; at first I was afraid of your genius, +which soared heavenward, and wished to accustom you to the earth, +and chain you close to me. But then--then I was ashamed of my +smallness--ah, so ashamed. You shall not stoop down to me; let me try +to rise to you. Spread out your mighty wings, and fly up to the stars, +but take me with you!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He could not speak--only kisses burned on his lips. He pressed them on +her wonderful eyes, whose holy light humiliated him. Then, after a +while, he murmured, softly: "You are nearer the stars than I, Natalie. +Show me the way, show me the way!"</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">From then, she daily passed a couple of hours in his study. How happy +she felt in the great, airy room, which was almost as empty as a shed. +In here she had not ventured with her soft, seductive, decorative arts. +All had remained as sober and plain as he had always been accustomed +to have his surroundings while at work. High shelves almost breaking +under their weight of music, a piano, a couple of stringed instruments, +the arm-chair in which he had established her, and two or three +cane-bottomed chairs constituted the whole furniture. On the +writing-table stood a picture of Natalie, painted in water-colors by a +young French artist in Rome. The room could show no other ornament. +Still, there in the darkest corner hung a single laurel-wreath. No +large one, such as one lays to-day at the feet of great artists, but +poor and small, and in the middle of the wreath, in a common wooden +frame, drawn with a hard lead-pencil, the face of a woman, with a white +cloth on her head, from beneath which fine, curly hair fell over the +forehead. Without being beautiful, the face was strangely attractive, +and Natalie would have liked to ask the history of the laurel-wreath +and the picture. But she did not venture to. She never, by a single +question, touched upon Lensky's past.</p> + +<p class="normal">He only continued to remain in solitude during the hours which he +devoted to technical practice. At other times he quietly let her stay. +She sat behind him, quite soberly and still, in the large, worn-out +patriarchal chair, and did not breathe a word. She never even took a +book in her hand, for fear of irritating him by the rattling of turning +pages, but busied herself with pretty, noiseless handiwork.</p> + +<p class="normal">The feeling of her presence was unendingly sweet to him. His whole +activity was increased; he worked more intently than formerly. A +fulness of music vibrated in his head and heart. And if the inward +vibrations became too dreamily sweet, too luxuriant and exuberant, he +stopped writing, sat awhile in silence, and then, without taking the +slightest notice of Natalie, walked up and down a couple of times, +hummed something to himself, made a sweeping gesture, in conclusion +took up the violin--then----</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie raised her head and listened--how wonderful that sounded! He +had unlearned the madness, but still in his melodies always sounded the +strange Arabian succession of tones, the devil's music: Asbeïn!</p> + +<p class="normal">She became, as she had wished, the confidante of his work. When he had +sketched on paper the plan of a composition, he played it to her, now +on his violin, which he passionately loved, now on the piano, which he +did not love; for its short tone, incapable of development, repulsed +him, but which he respected and made use of as the most complete of all +instruments. Although he played the piano, not with virtuosity, but +with the helplessness of the composer, he could still bring out +something of the "warm tone" which made his violin irresistible.</p> + +<p class="normal">How eagerly she listened to his compositions! How much she rejoiced in +them, and how severe she was to him! She would not let him pass over a +single musical flaw. That she rejoiced and wept over the beauties in +his compositions, that she boldly placed his genius near Beethoven and +Schumann, that is to say, near what she ranked highest in the world, +that was another thing! For that reason she was so severe. He laughed +at her sometimes for her tender delusion. Then she took his head +between her hands, and said, triumphantly: "That is all very well; only +wait a little while, then the whole world will say that you have been +the last musical poet: the others are only bunglers."</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">In the beginning of March he made a short artist tour through the +interior of Russia. Naturally, he could not drag her around with him, +for she could not endure the exhausting fatigues of his quick journeys, +especially at that time. But how horrible, how unbearable the parting +seemed to him! He wrote her every day. His writing was ugly and +irregular, his orthography as deficient in French as in Russian; but +what tenderness, what passion and poetry spoke from every uncultured, +stormily written line. No one could better impress his whole heart in a +short, insignificant letter than he; and what rapture, what wild, +almost painful rapture at seeing her again! She had missed him much +less than he had missed her. He reproached her for it, complained that +the new love which now began to fill her whole existence left no place +for the old. But then she measured him with such a tender, and, at the +same time, a so deeply hurt look, that he was ashamed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must not take it so," he whispered to her, appeasingly. "It is an +old story that if two hearts hasten forward together in a race of love, +one will naturally outdo the other, and still will be vexed that it is +so. But it is quite natural and in order that I should cling more to +you than you to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">She smiled quite sadly. "We will see who will win the race in the end," +murmured she.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie no longer went into society. Her health was much impaired. She +passed the entire month of April stretched on her lounge, in loose +wrappers. She now reproached herself with having been foolish not to +have spared herself before. The time of tormenting fancy approached for +the young wife, the time of concealed anxiety for them both. In spite +of the consoling assurances of the physician, Lensky was no longer +himself, from anxiety and despair. But he did not let her notice it. +When he was with her he had always a gay smile on his lips and a droll +story for her diversion. He cared for her like a mother.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then, toward the end of May, came the most tormenting hour he had ever +lived through, until at last--when he already believed that all hope +was lost--a little, thin, shrill sound smote his ear. It startled him, +his heart beat loudly; still he did not venture to move, but listened, +until at last the doctor came out of the adjoining room, and called to +him: "All is over."</p> + +<p class="normal">He misunderstood the words. "She is dead!" he gasped.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, no! Boris Nikolaivitch; everything is as well as possible. Come!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He felt as would a man buried alive, if one should raise the lid from +his coffin.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the door of the bedroom a fat old woman, with a large cap, came +toward him. "A son, a very fine young one!" said she, triumphantly, +while she laid something tiny and rosy, wrapped in white cloth and +lace, in his arms.</p> + +<p class="normal">Tears fell from his eyes, and his hands trembled so that the nurse was +horrified and took the child away from him.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went up to Natalie, who, deathly pale and exhausted, but with a +lovely, indescribable expression on her face, at once of tenderness and +of a certain solemn pride, lay among the high-piled pillows. Quite +softly, with a kind of timidity which his violent love had hitherto +never known, he pressed her pale hand to his lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you content?" she whispered, dreamily and scarcely audibly. "Are +you content?"</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">She recovered rapidly. Her beauty had lost none of its charm, but had +rather won an earnest--one might almost say consecrated--loveliness.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her face reflected her happiness. That also had become a shade deeper, +nobler. In spite of all her pampered habits, she insisted upon caring +for the child herself. He let her have her way.</p> + +<p class="normal">The former dressing-room was changed to a nursery. Sometimes, in the +long, transparent twilight of the spring, he entered the room in which, +in winter, he had passed so many charming hours by candle-light, and +where now everything was so changed. A cradle stood in the place which +formerly the toilet-table had occupied--ah, what a cradle--a dream of a +cradle! A basket with a canopy of green silk, hung with a long, +transparent lace veil, a costly nest for a young bird whose little eyes +must be shielded, by all kinds of tender devices, from the bright +light, which perhaps later would pain him so!</p> + +<p class="normal">The air, quite filled with a pleasant, mild, damp vapor, was permeated +by a weak perfume of iris and warming linen, and, besides that, with +something quite strange, quite peculiarly sweet, stirring--the breath +of a healthy, fresh, carefully cared-for little child.</p> + +<p class="normal">And there, where the cheval-glass had formerly reflected to him the +lovely form of a proud queen of beauty, now sat in the same large +arm-chair, a tender young mother, her child on her breast. The lines of +her neck, from which the loose, white dress had slipped down a little +so that the outline of the shoulders was visible, was charming; but +what was it, to the lovely, attentive expression with which she looked +down at the child?</p> + +<p class="normal">Everything about her expressed tenderness: her look, her smile, the +hands with which she held the child to her. It was just these small, +white hands which Lensky could not cease to observe. How helpless they +had formerly been--and now! She would scarcely let the nurse touch +baby. He was never weary of watching how untiringly she touched the +tiny, frail body of the infant, and did a thousand services for it +which all resembled caresses.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is all very beautiful, but you have a manner of ignoring me in this +little kingdom," said Lensky, jokingly, to the young mother, while he +threw a look of humorous vexation at the young despot whom she just +laid in the cradle.</p> + +<p class="normal">She bent her head a little to one side, and whispered roguishly, while +she came up to him and played with the lapel of his coat: "Do you see, +Boris, this is my study. Everywhere else you are not only the first but +the only one in the world for me; but here you must be content if I +sometimes forget you for my calling."</p> + +<p class="normal">He laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you know that you once said something similar to me; that time when +I, for the first time, dared to enter your sanctuary?" she murmured, +and repeated petulantly: "Do you know it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He kissed both of her hands, one after the other. "Do you then believe +that I could ever forget such a thing, my angel?" whispered he. "I am +no such spendthrift; oh, no! If you knew how I cherish this dear +remembrance! That is pure happiness which we will keep for our old +days, when the sun no longer seems to us to shine as brightly, and we +must light a poor candle in order to find our path again to a suitable +grave."</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie still thought of the poor laurel wreath in his study. But she +did not venture to ask him a direct question about it.</p> + +<p class="normal">He himself, of his own accord, at last told her the history of the +pitiful relic.</p> + +<p class="normal">He had never spoken to her of his childhood, but once a great impulse +came over him to tell her the whole; to lay bare before her all the +pitiableness of his past. What would she then say to it?</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a clear summer night, out on the terrace of the country house +near St. Petersburg, which they had hired for the summer, the terrace +which looked out on the small but pretty and shady garden. They sat +there, hand in hand; around them the dull, gray light of a day that +will not die, sweet perfume of flowers, and in the tree tops the gentle +rustling of the kissing leaves. She talked of gay, insignificant +things; gave him a droll, laughing description of a visit to one of her +friends. At first it amused him; then something, he could not have said +what, irritated him against this monstrous principle of gliding so +triflingly and mockingly through life without ever glancing into it +more deeply.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What would she say if she knew?" thought he. "Perhaps she would shun +me!" A kind of madness overcame him. He felt the wish to risk his +happiness in order to convince himself of its durability, to put his +petted wife to the test. "How you butterflies, floating over flowers in +the sunshine, must be horrified at the miserable worms who creep over +the earth!" he began bitterly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What are you thinking of?" asked she, astonished.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing especial, only that I was originally just such a worm, +creeping over the earth."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! that is long past!" she interrupted him hastily. She wished to +keep him from long dwelling on an unpleasant thought, but he suspected +that his insinuation of his humble antecedents vexed her, and that she +felt the need of forgetting his derivation. He looked at her from head +to foot, with an angry, wondering glance. Her richly embroidered white +dress, the large diamonds in her ears,--how the diamonds sparkled in +the dull evening light!</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he began to speak of his childhood, dryly, with a smile on his +lips as if it was a question of something quite indifferent and +amusing.</p> + +<p class="normal">In a large tenement at Moscow, overcrowded with all kinds of human +vermin, had he grown up; in the half of a room that was divided by a +sail, behind which another poor family hungered. His father he did not +remember. His mother sang to the guitar in wine rooms. When he was five +years old she had bought him a fiddle for four rubles, and then some +one, a dissolute musician, who often came to them, had taught him to +scrape on it a little. From that time he accompanied his mother when +she sang in the wine rooms,--or even on the streets, as it happened.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had been pretty; the drawing which hung in the laurel wreath, and +which an artist in their horrible dwelling-place had made of her, was +like her. Only she had quite unusually beautiful teeth which one could +not see in the picture. He remembered these teeth very well, because +she laughed so much, especially if there was little to eat and she made +him take it all, and declared she had spoiled her appetite at a +friend's house with fresh <i>pirogj</i>. Once the thought had occurred to +him that she only said so because there was not enough for two, and +then he could not eat anything more. If there was nothing at all to +eat, either for him or for her, she told him a story.</p> + +<p class="normal">Had he loved her? Yes, he believed so--how could it be otherwise? But +the consciousness of what she really had been to him only came to him +when he was no longer with her. How that happened he really did not +know, but one fine day she took him in a part of the city which he had +never known until then, in a handsome residence that seemed so +beautiful to him that he only ventured to go around on tiptoes. At the +door a fat, yellow man, with long, greasy, black hair, received him, +and told his mother it was all right. Then she kissed him a last time, +told him she would take him away in an hour, and went.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was taken in a room with gay furniture, and there greeted by a fat +woman with a thick gold chain over the bosom of her violet silk dress, +and with rings on all her short, stumpy, wrinkled fingers, and was +entertained with tea, cake, and honey. He had never before enjoyed a +similar repast. He felt in an elevated frame of mind.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the fat man--he was a mediocre musician who had married a rich +merchant's daughter, who gave him none of her money, however--told him +that he should always stay with him, and never go back to his mother, +he was glad, and felt the consciousness of having taken a step forward +in the world.</p> + +<p class="normal">Did that surprise Natalie? He could not help it, it was still so. +"Strange what roughness men show before a little bit of civilization +has taught them to conceal it," he added reflectively.</p> + +<p class="normal">Did he not feel anxiety later? Natalie wished to know. Yes, for his new +life contained nothing of that which he had promised himself. That he +should live in the beautiful rooms with the master and mistress and eat +with them, as he had thought at first, had been an illusion. Only the +two children of the fat daughter of the merchant could tumble around on +the sofas, with their fiery-red, woolen, damask covering, and could +help themselves from all the dishes.</p> + +<p class="normal">He lived on charity; they told him that every day. The musician had +bought him of his mother for fifty rubles, as Lensky afterward learned, +as a speculation, in order to make money out of him as a prodigy. The +time which he did not devote to his musical practice he must spend +helping the maid in the kitchen.</p> + +<p class="normal">He slept, with an old sofa pillow under his head, on the floor, in a +gloomy little room, without window, only with dirty panes of glass in +the door--a room in which the cook put all kinds of rubbish. Dampness +ran down the walls, and every evening from all corners crept out a +whole regiment of black beetles, and spread themselves over the boards. +The food? Well, it was sparing. Sometimes he only received what the +family had left on their plates.</p> + +<p class="normal">Was he not angry at this treatment? No. He found it quite in order at +that time. The well-fed, warmly dressed people impressed him, +especially the cap of Vauvara Ivanovna--that was the name of his +mistress. He felt a respectful shudder pass over him every time he saw +this structure of blonde, red flowers, and green ribbon. Except the +Kremlin, nothing impressed him so much as this house.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the whole family, in festival attire, went to church on Sunday, he +stood at the door, quite oppressed by the feeling of modest wonder, and +looked after the well-dressed, well-fed people. He did his best to make +himself useful and agreeable, and to please them. Yes, he was just so +small and pitiable, as a half-starved six-year-old pigmy. And then, +in conclusion, one day he simply could bear it no longer and ran back +to his mother. He found the way. With that quite animal sense of +locality and traces, which only children of the lowest classes of men +have, he found it. His mother was at home; she was frightened when +she saw him. Had they turned him out? Yes, she was frightened. In +the first moment she was frightened; then--here Lensky stammered +in his confession--naturally she was glad; for, what use of losing +words?--naturally she was glad. How she kissed him and caressed him +with her poor, rough, toil-worn, and still such gentle, warm hands. He +still felt her hands sometimes on him, in dreams, especially behind his +ears and on his neck. Then she fed him. She spread a red and white +flowered cloth over the table in his honor, and after that she gave him +a holy picture. Then she said it could not be otherwise; he must go +back to Simon Ephremitsch; it was for his own good. When he had become +a great artist, then he would come to fetch her in a coach with four +horses.</p> + +<p class="normal">That impressed him. And in order to calm him completely, she promised +to visit him very soon.</p> + +<p class="normal">But she did not come; and when he ran back to her, after about a month, +she was no longer in her old abode; he never found her! Soon afterward +she sent him two pretty little shirts, delicately embroidered in red +and blue. But she herself did not come. Never!</p> + +<p class="normal">At his first appearance in public--he had performed his piece +with the anxious assiduity of a little monkey that fears a blow, he +asserted--to his great astonishment, he was applauded. In the midst of +the hand-clapping he suddenly heard a sob. He was convinced that his +mother had been at the concert.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the conclusion they handed him a laurel wreath, the same which now +hung in his room; quite a poor woman had brought it, they said. He +guessed immediately that the wreath came from his mother; and suddenly, +just as a couple of music-lovers had stepped on the stage, in order to +see the wonderful little animal near by, he began to stamp his feet and +clench his fists, to scream and to sob, until every one crowded around +him. His principal threatened him with blows; a very pretty young lady +in a blue-silk dress took him on her lap to quiet him; but all was of +no use.</p> + +<p class="normal">He saw his mother once more--in her coffin.</p> + +<p class="normal">His benefactor told him that she was dead, and that, after all, it was +suitable that he should show her the last honors. The coffin stood on a +table, surrounded by thin, poorly-burning candles, and she lay within, +so small and thin, her hands folded on her breast, in a poor shroud, +that they had bought ready made for a few copecks.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the beginning, Natalie had interrupted him with questions, but now +she had long been silent. He looked at her challengingly, at every +pitiful, repulsive detail, especially if it brought forward a trace of +his own insignificance. It was quite as if he expressly tried to pain +her. But when he came to speak of the death of his mother, whose form, +in the midst of his glaring, sharp description, he drew so tenderly and +vaguely, obliterating everything disturbing, as if he saw her, in +remembrance, only through tears, he closed his eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly he heard near him a suppressed sound of pain, then something +like the falling of the over-abundant load of blossoms from a tree +among whose spring adornment there yet moves no breath of air.</p> + +<p class="normal">He started, looked up--there was Natalie on her knees before him, the +beauty, the queenly, proud one, and had embraced him with both arms, as +if she would shield him from all the woes of earth, and sobbed as if +she could not console herself for his past suffering.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Natalie! my angel, do you really love me so?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"One cannot love you enough, or recompense you enough for all that you +have missed," whispered she.</p> + +<p class="normal">And he had really for one moment suspected that----</p> + +<p class="normal">He raised her on his knees. They did not speak another word. Through +the garden at their feet the birches rustled in the mild night breeze, +and from the distance one heard the sad voice of a marsh bird, who with +heavy beating wings flew to the neighboring pond.</p> + +<p class="normal">The most beautiful love will always be that which has been sanctified +by a great compassion. In that mild summer night, while all around them +was fragrance and veiled light, Natalie's love had received its +consecration.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Three, four years passed; a second little child lay in the pretty, +veiled cradle, from which little Nikolai first made his solemn +observation of the world--a dear little plump maiden, whom they +baptized Mascha, after the grandmother, and whom Boris particularly +idolized. There was still nothing to report of Natalie's married life +but love, happiness, and beauty. Lensky kept every unpleasant +impression far from her, surrounded her with the most touching care, +overwhelmed her with the most poetic attentions. Her life at his side +unrolled itself like a long, secret, passionate love-poem.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie's family had reconciled themselves to her marriage. Even for +the wise and arrogant Sergei Alexandrovitch it had the appearance that +he had been mistaken in his discouraging prediction, as happens even to +the wisest men, if with their predictions they have only the sober +probability in view, without thinking of the possibility of some +underlying miracle. After four years of married life Natalie was as +happy as a bride.</p> + +<p class="normal">Still, Lensky's happiness was not as unclouded as that of his wife. A +great unpleasantness became ever more significant to him, the quite +universal coldness of his artistic relations.</p> + +<p class="normal">It would be wrong to believe that Natalie, with systematic jealousy, +had wished to estrange him from the world of artists. On the contrary, +she had complied with his wish to make her acquainted with his +colleagues and their families, had herself asked it of him, +flatteringly.</p> + +<p class="normal">The world of artists interested her. There, everything was more +animated, more meaning, than the eternal sameness of good society which +she knew by heart, quite by heart, she assured him tenderly. She made +it her ambition to win his acquaintances for hers. But strangely +enough, in spite of all her seductive loveliness, she succeeded only +very incompletely.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had already known the <i>élite</i> among the artists. There is nothing +further to be said of her relations with these favored of the gods, +exceptional existences, than that she always felt honored by +intercourse with them, and pleased, and that, when with them she ever +vexed herself over the worn-out old commonplace, that one should avoid +the acquaintance of famous men in order to prevent disappointment--a +commonplace which was probably invented for the consolation of those +who, in advance, are excluded from intercourse with celebrities. That +Natalie always succeeded in winning the sympathies of these exceptional +natures stands for itself.</p> + +<p class="normal">But when it was a question of that great crowd of artists, of the +mixture of sickly vanity, embarrassed affairs, depressing relations, +etc., then it was hard to build up a friendship between Lensky's wife +and his old colleagues.</p> + +<p class="normal">Envy of Lensky, envy which had reference largely to his artistic +results, and in a less degree to his marriage and social position, +peeped out everywhere from these people, and had its own results in +soon completely embittering the not very pleasant relations between +them and Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">In a truly friendly, touchingly friendly manner, they only met her in +quite modestly circumstanced families--families of a few true artists +who yet could accomplish nothing with their work but to honestly and +poorly provide for their seven or eight children. Families of simple +people, who had formerly been good to Lensky in the difficult beginning +of his career, and to whom he always showed the most faithful +adherence, the most prodigal generosity. She also felt happy among +these plain people.</p> + +<p class="normal">What wonder that these people would all have gone through fire for him! +They would also have all given of their best for Natalie, whom without +envy they worshipped with enthusiasm as a queen. They rejoiced that +Lensky, their pride, their idol, possessed such a beautiful and +distinguished wife--in their eyes the daughter of the emperor would not +have been too good for him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie thanked them for their great attachment, as well as she could; +she reckoned it a special favor to receive these modest people in her +home, to invite them with their wives and children, to entertain them +with distinction, to stuff all the children's pockets full of bonbons, +and give them little parting presents.</p> + +<p class="normal">But intercourse with these poor devils was in reality only a +sentimental game, even as intercourse with the artistic <i>élite</i> was +nothing but an ideal recreation. Neither the one nor the other sufficed +to firmly knit the band between Lensky's wife and his former world, or +to keep up his popularity in that world.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Of all the opposition and difficulty which would arise therefrom for +Lensky's future and especially for his yet to be won future as +composer, Natalie still suspected nothing. For her, the whole heaven +was still blue.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then the first deep shadow fell on her happiness. Lensky, to whom every +long separation from her was unbearable, when he undertook a long tour +through central Europe, in spite of her express request, could not +resolve to leave her behind with the children, in St. Petersburg. The +little children were left under the care of their grandmother.</p> + +<p class="normal">For the first time, Natalie was no amusing, but a dull and nervous, +travelling companion. An unbearable anxiety followed her like a +foreboding. All his attempts to console her were in vain.</p> + +<p class="normal">In Dusseldorf, she received, by telegraph, the news that little Mascha +was ill with diphtheria. When she arrived in Petersburg, half dead from +anxiety and breathless haste, the child lay in her coffin.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was almost as desperate as she. He overwhelmed himself with +self-reproaches;--who knows, if they had watched the child better, if +they had thought of this or that in caring for it.... What torment, to +be obliged to say that to one's self! A reproach never passed her lips, +she even concealed her tears lest they should sadden him. But from that +unhappiness on, something in her formerly so elastic nature, so capable +of resistance, was broken forever. The first jubilant time of their +marriage was at an end.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Together with the evermore unpleasant friction with his colleagues, and +the great pain for his lost child, still another worry announced itself +to Lensky--something gnawing, and incessantly tormenting: a daily +increasing money embarrassment. Natalie decidedly spent too much, but +quite naïvely, with the firm conviction that she could not exist more +economically; wherefore it was doubly hard for him to be finally +obliged to tell her that he could not raise the money to continue the +household on the footing to which she had been accustomed.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was quite touching to see how frightened she was when he made her +the first communication in reference to it--frightened, not at the +prospect of having to save, but only at the thoughtlessness by which +she had burdened Lensky with cares. She immediately showed herself +ready for the most exaggerated reforms. But to live with his wife like +a proletary, in St. Petersburg, among her brilliant relations and +friends, he could not bring himself to do.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the autumn of the same year, he moved with his family to ----, a +large German capital, where he had accepted the direction of a +significant musical undertaking.</p> + +<p class="normal">But here the conflict between his artistic and family life which had +arisen through his alliance with Natalie, came to light with more +detestable clearness.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was in his element, as an artist whose powers have found a wide, +noble sway.</p> + +<p class="normal">The great musical undertaking, at whose head they had placed him, +flourished wonderfully under his lead. The fiery earnestness with +which he undertook it won him all musical hearts. Also the atmosphere +in ---- was sympathetic to him for other reasons. He had a crowd of old +connections there, acquaintances of his first virtuoso period, people +who surrounded him, distinguished him, with whom he could speak of his +art--which always remained sacred and earnest to him, and never, for +him, deteriorated to a more or less noble means of earning his living, +or to a social pedestal--in quite a different manner than with the +elegant dilettantis who had gradually crowded out every other society +from his house in St. Petersburg. They gave one artistic festival after +the other in his honor, and all this entertained him.</p> + +<p class="normal">His wife appeared with him a couple of times on such occasions, then +she excused herself--she had no pleasure in them. She felt isolated, an +insurmountable home-sickness tormented her.</p> + +<p class="normal">Without confessing it, for the first time since her marriage the +position which she occupied with Lensky angered her.</p> + +<p class="normal">In St. Petersburg she had always remained with him the Princess +Assanow, he had ascended to her world; here she must suddenly satisfy +herself with his world. She was too vexed, too angrily excited to seek +in this world all the true interest, earnestness, and nobility that +were to be found therein.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had intimate intercourse only with an old friend of her youth, a +certain Countess Stolnitzky, who went out but little and consequently +had time enough for Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky begged Natalie to open her drawing-room one or two evenings a +week, that is to say to his friends. Natalie's drawing-room became a +meeting-place for all kinds of artistic leaders, among which the +dramatic element formed the principal contingent, and this chiefly +because Lensky wished to have an opera performed.</p> + +<p class="normal">For him, intercourse with dramatic artists had no unpleasantness; he +had been accustomed to it from youth. But it became unpleasant to +Natalie after she had satisfied that superficial curiosity which every +woman living in severely exclusive circles feels concerning these +theatrical people.</p> + +<p class="normal">The only people that were still more unpleasant to Natalie, in her +drawing-room, than this crowd of people still smelling of freshly +washed-off paint, were the aristocrats who came there to meet the +artists. And many of these came--very many, all who coquetted with a +little bit of musical interest--yes, and many others. "Very +interesting, these <i>soirées</i> at Lensky's," they always said, when these +were spoken of; "very interesting; they always have very good music +there, and then one meets a crowd of amusing people whom one never sees +anywhere else. And the wife is really charming--quite <i>comme il faut</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is a Russian princess," a foreigner interrupted, who belonged to +the diplomatic corps.</p> + +<p class="normal">The native women turned up their noses repellently. They placed no +great confidence in the distinction of Russian princesses who married +artists.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie was so ignorant of their rooted prejudices that she greeted the +ladies who came to her house with the greatest frankness as her equals. +She caused offence by her naïveté, and noticed it. People came to +Lensky, not to her--if she would only understand that they wished +to be as polite as possible to her, in the somewhat narrow limits of +well-bred society--but she must understand it.</p> + +<p class="normal">She did understand. When she observed that most of the ladies accepted +her invitations without returning them, yes, when it happened that the +art-loving Princess C. sent Lensky an invitation to a <i>soirée</i>, and +overlooked his wife, then she understood. It began to tell upon her, to +aggravate her.</p> + +<p class="normal">She fulfilled her duties as hostess with displeasure, did the honors +negligently, and did nothing to animate her receptions. My God! people +came there to hear music and to rave over her husband,--she was no +longer necessary. She became quite foolish and childish.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was used to the homage that was paid her husband, she would have +been fearfully angry if they had not paid him enough; but in Russia, +this homage was shown in quite a different, much nobler, intenser form; +in Russia he was a great man, before whom every one removed his hat, a +sacred being of whom the nation was proud; men and women of the highest +rank showed him the same respect.</p> + +<p class="normal">But in ----, except one or two particularly enthusiastic lovers of +music, none of the nobility appeared in his house, with the exception +of the ladies. Why did he ask them? He ridiculed them--but yet their +flattery pleased him. He had dedicated a composition to more than one +of them.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie was almost beside herself with rage. For the first time she +felt a certain jealousy. Among others, there was a little dark Polish +woman, married to a Swedish diplomat, and separated from him, a +Countess Löwenskiold. She purred around him like a kitten.</p> + +<p class="normal">Formerly he would have noticed the change in Natalie immediately, but +for the first time since their marriage he forgot, not only in his +study but elsewhere, his wife for his art. He was so happy in his art, +so completely occupied with it, that he scarcely noticed the pitiful +social pin-pricks which formerly would have caused him vexation enough, +and consequently did not consider the importance they had for Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">The study of his opera, for which they had placed at his disposal the +best facilities at the command of the ---- Theatre, went steadily +forward. The artists liked to work under his direction, and with +enthusiasm did their utmost to do justice to his work. Joy fevered in +every vein when he came home from the rehearsals.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">It was toward the end of the carnival. One of Lensky's musical +<i>soirées</i> had been visited by quite an unusual number of brilliant +visitors. A very large number of ladies of the best society had been +there.</p> + +<p class="normal">They had all appeared in brilliant toilets, with bare shoulders, and +diamonds and feathers in their hair. Natalie was also in evening dress, +while the wives of Lensky's colleagues and all the ladies present not +belonging to the court circle had come in high-necked dresses.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the aristocratic ladies, with profuse thanks for the musical treat +offered them, had withdrawn before eleven o'clock, because they must, +"alas!" still go "into society," into Natalie's social world, but which +was closed to her in ----, Natalie remained the only woman in her +drawing-room with bare shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky, who had just accompanied some tedious Highness politely out of +the room, now returned to the music-room, closed the door, behind which +the noble patroness had disappeared, and cried gayly: "So, children, +now we can be among ourselves, and enjoy a comfortable evening."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Among ourselves!" These words pierced Natalie like a poisoned +stiletto. "Among ourselves!" She bit her lower lip, angrily.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile, pushing back the hair from his temples with both hands, +Lensky asked: "Would the gentlemen like to play the Schumann E-flat +major quartette with me before we sit down to supper?" Then he looked +over at Natalie and smiled. She knew that he proposed this wonderful +quartette for her sake, because it was her favorite, but she was +already so over-excited that the touching little attention made no +impression on her. She remained as defiant and bad-tempered as before.</p> + +<p class="normal">While they played she let her eyes wander gloomily over the already +empty hired cane-bottomed chairs, which stood around in regular rows. +She asked herself bitterly, what really was the difference between her +"reception evenings" and any other concert?--that the people paid their +admission with compliments instead of money! And while she made these +useless and vexing observations, the most noble music that was ever +written vibrated around her heart, like an admonition of how small all +these worldly, outward vanities were in comparison with the lofty, +god-like being of true art! And her obstinate heart had already begun +to understand the sermon and to be ashamed, when she observed two bold +eyes of a man staring from across the room at her bare shoulders. The +eyes belonged to a certain Mr. Arnold Spatzig, the most influential +musical critic and journalist in ----. Scarcely had he noticed that her +look met his when he left his chair, in order, crossing the room, to +take his place near Natalie, and continue his insolent scrutiny from +near by. He was a disagreeable man, with thick lips, spectacles, and +boldly displayed cynicism. Natalie, who could not endure him, had +formerly tolerated him on Lensky's account. Now she felt so insulted by +his manner, that, with the vehement impoliteness of a spoiled woman +whose pride is wounded and who is excluded from her natural sphere, she +sprang up, and turning her back directly to Mr. Arnold Spatzig, +hastened away from him.</p> + +<p class="normal">And now the quartette was over, and also the supper which followed, +exquisite and over-abundant as ever, at which Lensky did the honors +with that heartiness, not overlooking the least of his guests, which +was peculiar to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was two o'clock, and the house was empty; the lights still burned. +Lensky was busy arranging the music on the piano, Natalie stood in the +middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, evidently trying to +suppress a nervous attack. She held her handkerchief to her lips--it +was no use. Suddenly she cried out: "Must I receive these people? I +would rather scrub the floor!" And with that she made a gesture as if +she would tear something apart.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He had become deadly pale, and his +voice trembled.</p> + +<p class="normal">She only drew her brows gloomily together and continued to gnaw at her +handkerchief.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he lost patience. He seized a large Japanese vase, and threw it +with such force on the floor that it broke in pieces; then he left the +room, slamming the door behind him.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Natalie looked after him, offended, and broke out in fierce, +whimpering sobs.</p> + +<p class="normal">A few minutes later when she, still weeping and trembling in every +limb, leaned against a sofa, in whose cushions she had buried her face, +she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up, Lensky had come up +to her. The traces of his difficultly mastered irritation were still on +his deathly pale face, but he bent down anxiously to her and said +gently: "Calm yourself, please, Natalie; it is no matter. Poor Natalie! +I should have thought of it sooner. You shall never again receive any +one--not a person--who does not please you, only stop crying; that I +cannot bear."</p> + +<p class="normal">At the first friendly word that he said to her, her whole ill humor +changed to tormenting remorse and shame. "You will not take what +I said to you in earnest," said she. "It is not possible that you +should take this madness in earnest. I am so ashamed--ah, I cannot tell +you how ashamed I am! I acted unjustifiably, but I was so tired, so +nervous--scold me, be angry with me, and only then forgive me, or else +your indulgence will oppress me too heavily," and with that she kissed +his hands and sobbed--sobbed incessantly.</p> + +<p class="normal">He caressed her like a little child whom one wishes to soothe, and she +continued: "I will suit myself better to my position, I will be +friendly to every one--as if I could not make that little sacrifice to +your artistic position!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he interrupted her: "I will accept no sacrifice from you, not the +slightest, that I cannot do," said he. "What have you to trouble +yourself about my artistic position? You have nothing at all to do but +to love me and be happy--if you still can," he added softly, with a +tenderness that for the first time since his marriage had a bitter +savor.</p> + +<p class="normal">But she looked up at him in the midst of her tears, with glorified +happiness. "If I still can?" she whispered, drawing his head down +to her--he now sat on the sofa beside her, with his arm around her +waist--"if I still can!" His lips met hers, her head sank on his +shoulder.</p> + +<p class="normal">The candles in the chandeliers had burned low down, one of them went +out, and in going out threw a couple of sparks down on the pieces of +the Japanese vase which Lensky had broken in his anger. He had sent it +to Natalie filled with roses, in Rome, while they were betrothed, +therefore she loved it and had brought it with them to ----.</p> + +<p class="normal">His eyes rested on the pieces with a peculiar sad look. "And now lie +down and see that you sleep after your excitement," said he to the +young wife. She followed him like a little child. He mixed her the +sleeping potion of orange essence, to which she was accustomed, and +calmed her with pleasant patient words. A happy smile lay on her lips +when she at length fell asleep.</p> + +<p class="normal">But he did not close his eyes during the whole night, he did not even +lie down; but sat in his room at the writing-table. He wished to work +on something, but the music-paper remained untouched beneath his pen.</p> + +<p class="normal">How could she so give way, at the first little trial which she had ever +had? Why had she spoken of a sacrifice? sacrifice! he would take no +sacrifice from her.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie's reception days were given up under pretext of the illness of +his young wife. From that time, Lensky saw most of his friends only +outside of his house--his "patronesses" he saw no more.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie was ashamed of her small, pitiful discontent, was ashamed of +the scene she had made her husband, and still was foolish enough to +rejoice over her victory, and to fully profit by it.</p> + +<p class="normal">She offered all her intellectual, flattering, charming lovableness to +recompense for the loss she had caused him, and to quite win him again +for herself. She thought of all his preferences in her housekeeping, +which, in the beginning, she had somewhat neglected in ----; with half +unconscious slyness, she knew how to profit by his small as well as his +great qualities; to attain her aim, knew how to touch his heart as well +as to flatter his vanity. In full measure she attained what she strove +for. Forgetting all the prudence which his position demanded, he laid +just as enthusiastic homage at her feet as in the very first time of +his marriage. But she was so charming! And how well her defiant +arrogance became her! that arrogance which would bend to no one and +only with her loved one melted into passionate submission.</p> + +<p class="normal">What did the great artist coterie which his wife had repulsed say to +all this? Oh, who could trouble one's self about all these people?</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile, during this happy intoxicated period he had met with one +vexation that concerned him very nearly. Three weeks before the +appointed date for the production of his "Corsair," the prima donna of +the ---- opera, Madame D., an artist of the first rank, for whom he had +quite specially written the principal feminine <i>rôle</i>, declared that +she would not sing it under any consideration. Lensky knew very well +that he had to thank the senseless arrogance of his wife for the sudden +opposition of this irritable leader; it was bitter to him; but without +telling Natalie a word of it, he choked down this unpleasant affair, +and submitted to seeing the part which the artiste had thoroughly +learned and brought to such splendid perfection intrusted now to the +weak powers of a talented but awkward beginner.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The evening of the representation came. They were both feverish, he and +she; but she fevered in expectation of a great triumph, he trembled +before a defeat.</p> + +<p class="normal">He knew that his work had three things against it: a libretto that, for +an opera, was over-finely poetic, and poor in dramatic effect, the weak +representation of the principal <i>rôle</i>, and the whole coterie of +artists and bohemians in the audience excited against him by the +arrogance of his wife. Perhaps his music would save the situation. The +music was beautiful, that he knew; he must build on that.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie made the sign of the cross on his forehead and hung a +consecrated Byzantine saint's picture, in a strange gold and black +enamel frame, around his neck before he went into the fire, that is to +say, before he drove to the opera-house to take the baton in his hand. +He smiled at this superstitious action and let it happen.</p> + +<p class="normal">The greatest heroes like to avail themselves of a little celestial +protection before a battle.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the opera-house he found everything in the best condition, +courageous, ready for battle. An hour later he mounted the director's +rostrum.</p> + +<p class="normal">Once he turned his head to the audience, and his eyes sought Natalie. +There she sat near the stage in a box in the first row, which she +shared with the Countess Stolnitzky. She wore a black velvet dress, in +her hair sparkled the diamond narcissi which he had given her as +bridegroom; around her neck was wound a thick string of pearls which +the Empress of Russia had sent him for her once when he played at +court. In the whole theatre there was no woman who could compare with +her in proud, beaming, and yet indescribably lovely beauty. She smiled +at him constrainedly. What was not hidden in that scarcely perceptible +smile! For the last time a kind of happy, proud delirium of love lay +hold upon him. He knocked on the desk, raised his arm, and the violins +began.</p> + +<p class="normal">With a kind of magnificent, fiery earnestness, and with that, quite +classically severe in the musical roundness and connection of the +motives, the overture sounded through the crowded hall. It was rather +too long, and as the learned ones among the audience remarked, was +better suited for the first movement of a symphony than the +introduction of an opera. But what of that! the music was beautiful, +wonderfully beautiful, full of sad sweetness and quite demon-like, +ravishing power. Here, also, sounded the strange Arabian succession of +tones again, which was the characteristic of all his compositions, the +devil's tones: Asbeïn.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie did not hear a sound, the buzzing in her ears, the beating of +her heart was too loud.</p> + +<p class="normal">The last piercing chord resounded through the hall. What was that? An +immense burst of applause, unending bravos; the overture had to be +repeated.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was with difficulty that Natalie could keep from sobbing aloud. +Again her smile sought his. A beautiful expression of noble, earnest +peace was on his features, but his glance did not answer hers, he had +forgotten her for his work.</p> + +<p class="normal">The curtain rose. Natalie scarcely breathed, her hot blood crept slowly +through her veins like chilling metal, her ears no longer buzzed, on +the contrary her hearing was uncommonly sharp; only she could not take +in the music, but listened to all kinds of other things. The rustling +of a dress, the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a voice caused her +such excitement that it seemed to her, each time, as if she had been +shot through the heart by a pistol. The unexpected result of the +overture had increased her nervous tension still further.</p> + +<p class="normal">During the first two acts the opinion remained favorable. After the +second act, the Russian ambassador presented himself to Natalie to +congratulate her.</p> + +<p class="normal">While she received his congratulations, still trembling with +excitement, she suddenly heard quite loud talking, in a box not far +from her.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the box of that same Princess C., who was mentioned as +particularly musical, and who had invited Lensky to a <i>soirée</i> and +passed over Natalie. Between her and another art-loving woman sat Mr. +Arnold Spatzig. Up to a certain point, he had access to the highest +circles of society, that is to say, he was patronized by a couple of +ladies who were bored in their "world," and who consequently liked to +attract men from some "other world" to them for a short entertainment, +not a long engagement, to be amused by them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"These plebeian men at least take pains to amuse," the ladies were +accustomed to remark, and Arnold Spatzig decidedly took pains to amuse.</p> + +<p class="normal">Once he raised his opera-glass to his eyes, and stared long and boldly +in Natalie's face.</p> + +<p class="normal">The third act began with an aria by Gualnare, that is to say, with a +kind of duet between her and the ocean, which was represented by the +orchestra. For a concert piece the number was interesting and original, +but peculiarly unsuited to the beginning of the third act of an opera. +Only the splendid vocal powers and the poetic comprehension of Madame +D., for whom the aria was written, could have saved it; the powers of +the beginner who sang the part of Gualnare that evening were not at all +equal to her task, her voice, wearied by the exertions of the two +preceding acts, sounded almost extinct, her acting was awkward.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie observed the bad impression which this number made on the +audience. Anxiously she looked around the theatre: the people were +patient, had too much sympathy for the virtuoso Lensky to +inconsiderately insult the composer.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the stage, still continued the endless ocean duet. Still, in the +same monotonous time, Gualnare advanced to the waves and retreated from +them, quite as if she were dancing a <i>pas de deux</i> with the sea. Then +Natalie heard laughing; the laughing sounded from the box of Princess +C.</p> + +<p class="normal">Dr. Spatzig bent over to her, smiling, whispered something to her. She +laughed--how heartily she laughed! The opera-glasses of many ladies in +the boxes sought the Doctor's critical glance; Spatzig laughed, the +Princess laughed, the whole theatre laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">The aria was at an end, the gallery applauded. "Ss--ss--ss." What was +that cutting, piercing sound which killed the applause?</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie became white as chalk; her friend sought her hand; Natalie drew +it away; no human sympathy could be of use to her.</p> + +<p class="normal">From that moment the enthusiasm of the audience rapidly declined. The +lack of dramatic action in the libretto became more and more +significant. More and more difficultly the poor music dragged along +amidst a succession of glaring spectacular effects, which monotonously +made place for each other without ever forming an interesting contrast. +And the music was so beautiful. There was something so heavily majestic +in the rhythm, here and there at once a trifle monotonous and +over-laden, but in the accompaniment so wonderfully beautiful in spite +of all, and furnished with a richness of melody unattainable by any of +the other composers of the time, never approaching the trivial, but +always remaining noble.</p> + +<p class="normal">The audience was weary, and like every wearied audience, mocking; its +musical comprehension was worn out. From the middle of the fourth act +people began to leave the theatre, and when the curtain fell at the +close, not a hand moved.</p> + +<p class="normal">Countess Stolnitzky accompanied Natalie silently down the steps. +Natalie got into her carriage and directed it to the stage entrance. +She had promised to call for Lensky after the opera. More dead than +alive she sat in the pretty coupé and waited. The air was sharp, it was +a frosty March night, the stars sparkled as if in cold mockery from the +unreachable heavens, quite as if they were laughing to think that once +more a child of man had tried to storm this heaven and had so pitiably +failed.</p> + +<p class="normal">A half-hour had passed; at last Natalie sprang from the carriage and +hastened up the narrow stairs. There she met Lensky. He was deathly +pale, his hat was put on his head differently from usual, in a kind of +enterprising and challenging manner; his walk had something negligent, +swinging; there was a vagabond trace in his carriage that Natalie had +never before perceived in him. He held his cigarette between his teeth +and had the little singer on his arm who had to-day impersonated +Gualnare in his opera. Many of the singers, as well as the members of +the orchestra, came down the steps behind him, a gaudy, witty, +whispering throng. For the first time, Natalie remarked a certain +similarity, one might almost say a common family resemblance, between +her hero and these other "artists." The men all had the same manner of +wearing their hats and swaggering in their walk as he had to-day.</p> + +<p class="normal">Although these men were more than ever repulsive to her, she greeted +them with anxious politeness. "I was afraid you were ill," she said, +while she glanced sadly and anxiously at Boris. "I have already waited +half an hour for you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So! I am very sorry," replied he, and his voice sounded rougher than +formerly. "I sent a messenger to you, he must have missed you. I cannot +go home with you this evening, we"--he looked over his shoulder at the +following crowd--"are going to have supper together. After a lost +battle the commander must care for the strengthening of his troops." He +laughed harshly and forcedly, and touched the hand of the singer who +hung on his arm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A lost battle!" said Natalie. "Lost--but the first two acts were a +great success!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Don Juan' did not succeed at the first representation," remarked some +one behind Lensky. He turned around and looked at the man with a +comical, threatening gesture; then he said, with the expression of a +man with a bad toothache, who yet bursts out with a witticism: "Who +laughs last, laughs best!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie still stood, helpless and desperate, in the middle of the +narrow stairs. Her splendid fur cloak had half slipped down from her +shoulders; her simple, distinguished toilet stood out in strange relief +from the glaring, tumbled, inharmonious, motley evening adornments of +the singers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will take cold, wrap yourself up better," said Lensky, while he +came up to her and drew the fur up around her neck.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you take me with you to your supper? I would come with the +greatest pleasure; <i>je serai gentille avec tout le monde!</i>" she +whispered, softly and supplicatingly to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What an idea!" said he, repellently. "No, to-night I sup as a +bachelor. You bar the passage. Drive home quite calmly. Adieu!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He pushed her into the carriage, and went. She put her head out of the +window of the coupé to look after him. She saw how he got into a fiacre +with the singer; one of the men crawled in after him; then she heard +some one laughing, harshly, gipsy-like, was that he? Then came a great +rattling of windows, and creaking and rolling of wheels. Her way and +his parted. Hurrying by a row of ghostly gas-lights, which all seemed +red to her, she rolled away in a great, cold, black darkness. And ten +minutes later, weary and miserable, she crept up the steps of her +residence. She knew that something terrible had happened, something +that not only embittered her present, but would darken the future, that +for her much more had gone wrong than the result of an opera.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who knows, perhaps the thing will pull through; even the best operas +have sometimes not immediately found approval with the public," said +Lensky, with the awkward, forced smile that had not left his lips since +the morning after his fiasco. The challenging, gipsy humor with which, +in the beginning, he had sought to bluster over his disappointment, had +not lasted long. Quiet, weary, and depressed, he dragged himself around +as if after a severe illness. Natalie did what she could to be +agreeable to him; her heart bled with pity, but she did not venture to +approach him.</p> + +<p class="normal">He avoided her, and if she spoke to him his answers sounded forced or +vexed.</p> + +<p class="normal">To-day, for the first time since the fatal evening, he turned to her +with a remark in reference to his work. It was the third day after the +first production of the opera, and at breakfast. Natalie had just read +to him many criticisms from the newspapers which had arrived. In many, +Lensky's magnificent musical gifts were praised.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps the thing will pull through," said Lensky, and Natalie +replied:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Naturally, the opera will make a career for itself. You must yourself +have forgotten how beautiful your music is, if you can doubt that."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it really beautiful? I really do not know," murmured he. "One is so +seldom able to believe it if others shrug their shoulders. To improvise +variations on the old theme <i>mon sonnet est charmant</i> is a tasteless +occupation."</p> + +<p class="normal">There was a ring at the door-bell; he listened.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you expect anything?" asked Natalie, and then she accidentally +looked at the clock. It was already very late, and the hour at which he +formerly had been accustomed to sit down to work was long past. She saw +very well that he only trifled with time like a man who is too +tormented by inward unrest to be able to resolve on an earnest +occupation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he replied. "I do not understand why the <i>Neue Zeit</i> has not yet +arrived."</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie lowered her eyes. The <i>Neue Zeit</i> was the journal in which Dr. +Arnold Spatzig's musical criticism, or rather his musical +<i>feuilletons</i>, usually appeared.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That"--Lensky motioned to the pile of other papers "is all very pretty +and pleasant, but it is not decisive. I am anxious to see what Spatzig +will say."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you consider Spatzig decisive?" asked Natalie, constrainedly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you told me yourself that his judgment was always one-sided, +prejudiced, and superficial; that he was really only a wit and no +critic," murmured Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I still think so, but nevertheless he has here taken upon himself the +monopoly of musical good taste," replied Lensky. "The most intellectual +part of the public, that is to say all the subscribers, fancy they can +only consider an article of his as true. He has taken out a patent for +it, like Marquis, in Paris, for good chocolate. He is witty, which +these people like. A criticism is so easily noticed, one always appears +intellectual if one cites it, the more malicious it is the better. +Until now, Spatzig has spared me, hm--hm--" Boris smiled forcedly. "He +even once compared me to Beethoven, but recently he has seemed to avoid +me. Have you had anything with him, Natalie?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie blushed to the roots of her hair. "I cannot endure him," said +she; "and it is possible that he has noticed it; in fact, in reference +to a certain point, one cannot have patience with a man."</p> + +<p class="normal">"He surely has not presumed upon you?" Lensky started up angrily.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, no! He did not have an opportunity," said Natalie, very +arrogantly. "Not that: but he has a way of forcing himself upon one; of +looking at a woman----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is to say he has bad manners," said Lensky. "Now----"</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment there was another ring at the door-bell. Shortly after +the servant brought on a salver a whole pile of newspapers in their +wrappings, which had just come by post. Lensky opened them hastily; +they were all copies of the same paper--of <i>Fortschritt</i>, and in every +copy there was a twelve-column-long notice marked with a blue or black +pencil: "A musical enjoyment by design and intention," and with the +motto, for title, "From whence the great discord arises which rings +through this world (read opera)."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hastily, Lensky looked at the signature.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Arnold Spatzig," murmured he, dully. "I did not know that he also +wrote for <i>Fortschritt</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do not read the thing," said Natalie, who, with feminine quickness, +had already glanced over the article. "I beg you; why should you +swallow the poison?"</p> + +<p class="normal">But he shook her roughly from him, bent over the paper, and read half +aloud: "If there were a musical 'Our Father,' the last supplicating +request would be: deliver us from all evil, but especially from all +virtuoso music. By his opera, Lensky has again given us a significant +example of how greatly the reproductive activity of an artist hinders +the development of his creative powers. His first smaller compositions +really had always a certain melodic freshness. But in this last work, +Lensky, like all men poor in invention, has shown himself a follower of +that inconsolable musical pessimism which regards <i>ennui</i> and a feeling +of universal, oppressive discomfort as a <i>sine qua non</i> of every +distinguished musical work.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The public, in a sympathetic frame of mind with the loved and +distinguished master, in the beginning of the opera strained their good +taste so far that they desired the repetition of the extremely tiresome +overture, made up of badly connected motives, reminding one of +Meyerbeer, Halévy, Gounod. But with the best intentions, the +cut-and-dried wonder brought with them was not proof against the +yawning monotony of the never-ending fourth act. Only the grotesque +side of the unfortunate opera, which ever became more prominent in the +course of the evening, helped the ill-used public over the dry +emptiness of this musical desert. One could at least laugh heartily. +What a consolation that was for the spectator, but hardly one for those +who took part.</p> + +<p class="normal">"One cannot understand how such an artist of the first rank as +Mr. ---- could submit to make himself laughable in the <i>rôle</i> of +<i>Conrad</i>...."</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky became paler and paler; he reached for a glass of water.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do not read any further," begged Natalie. "What does it matter what +the liar writes? your music speaks for itself. This evening you will +see how the public will applaud you, will receive you, to recompense +you for this pitiful insult."</p> + +<p class="normal">The second representation of "The Corsair" was fixed for that evening.</p> + +<p class="normal">There was another ring at the door-bell; the servant brought a letter. +Lensky broke it open hastily, and with a furious gesture threw it away, +struck his fist on the table, and sprang up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is it?" called Natalie, beside herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing; a trifle; the opera is postponed; the tenor has announced +himself ill," said Lensky, cuttingly. "He has no pleasure in making +himself laughable a second time. It is over;" passing the palm of his +hand under his chin, with the gesture by which one understands that +some one has been executed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie rushed up to him, but he impatiently motioned her away, and +hurried by her to the door. All at once he remained standing, reached +under his collar, tore off the little gold chain with the saint's +picture which Natalie had hung round his neck before the first +representation of "The Corsair," and flung it at her feet. Then he went +into his study. She heard how he locked the door behind him.</p> + +<p class="normal">How benumbed she still stood on the same spot where he had shaken her +off from him--he had shaken her off!</p> + +<p class="normal">How he must suffer to pain her so! Then she bent down to the poor +little amulet which he had thrown away. She understood him. She had +never been lacking in sentimental-poetic manners, but when it was +necessary to sacrifice a humor for him, her love had not sufficed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her fault was great, but the punishment was fearful.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THIRD BOOK.</h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">A short time after the fiasco of his opera Lensky resigned his office +in ----. His position there had become unbearable to him. He had made +no plans for the distant future; for the present he travelled with his +family to Paris.</p> + +<p class="normal">How happy Natalie could have felt here if the still depressed mood of +Lensky had not caused her such heavy anxiety. Not that he had further +shown himself in the slightest degree disagreeable to her--no, not a +single direct reproof crossed his lips; he even, without speaking a +word about it, begged her pardon for his momentary roughness by a +thousand silent attentions. But what good did that do her? His +happiness was gone; he was gloomy and taciturn. Faint-hearted, like all +very self-indulgent men, even doubting his formerly revered talent as +composer, for the moment he had completely lost his belief in himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">She did what she could to distract him--all was in vain. And all might +have been so pleasant! The Parisian artist world was so large that she +quite easily, avoiding all impure elements contained therein, could +associate only with those who were lovable, interesting, and +sympathetic. Besides, she was now ready for the most exaggerated +concessions. If Lensky had wished to write a ballet she would have +invited the ballet dancers to breakfast, and been intimate with the +première danseuse. The lovely imprudence which, even with her uncommon +intellectual gifts, still made the foundation of her petted, +undisciplined being, drove her from one exaggeration to another.</p> + +<p class="normal">He gave a succession of concerts, and all Paris lay at his feet. +Natalie sat in one of the first rows in the concert hall and rejoiced +over the triumphs of her husband. Occasionally, if the hour for the +concert was early, she brought her little son with her and taught him +to be proud of his father. Little Nikolai looked charming in his +Russian costume, with the broad velvet trousers and silk shirt. He +always sat there quite brave and quiet, with the solemn expression of +face of a child whom one has taken to church for the first time; only +if the applause burst out quite too loudly, he became very excited +and stood up on his chair in order to see his father better. Then +Natalie kissed him, and blushed at her lack of restraint. And around +them the audience whispered: "That is his child"--"<i>Tiens! il a de la +chance!</i>"--"<i>Ils sont adorables tous les deux!</i>"--"<i>On dit qu'elle est +une princesse!</i>"</p> + +<p class="normal">After the concert she went with the little fellow in the green-room to +fetch her husband. The most beautiful women in Paris crowded around +him. He received their homage quite coolly, and while Natalie, smiling +and polite, did honor to his fame, he played with his boy, whom he +overwhelmed with caresses, without being at all confused by the +presence of strangers. "Admire this if you must admire something!" he +burst out once, angry at the intrusive enthusiasm of a very pretty +American woman, and with that he raised the child on a table to show +him to her. "He is worth the trouble," he growled, and truly such was +the case!</p> + +<p class="normal">One day, about the middle of May, when Natalie, somewhat out of breath, +holding her boy with one hand, and a bunch of red roses in the other, +came home to lunch, she found Lensky with two strangers in the little +hotel drawing-room. One of them was a young man with long hair and +short neck, in whom she recognized a famous piano virtuoso; the second, +a small, dried-up man, with a yellow, hard, sharp face, she saw for the +first time.</p> + +<p class="normal">At her appearance they both withdrew. Lensky accompanied them out.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How you have hurried," said he smiling, when he reëntered the room. +"You are quite heated!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I hurried very much; I was afraid I would be late to lunch. I +know how you hate unpunctuality." And then she sat down on the sofa, +and handed her hat and shawl to the nurse, who had come in to get +Nikolinka--a nurse by the name of Palagea, in a Russian national +costume which created a furore on the boulevard.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why did you not take a carriage, little goose?" asked he.</p> + +<p class="normal">"To economize, Boris Nikolaivitch," replied she, with mischievous +earnestness. Then laughing up at him with her great tender eyes, she +added: "Besides, the doctor has expressly advised me to take more +exercise."</p> + +<p class="normal">"The doctor?" said he, anxiously. "Do you feel ill? Why did you consult +a physician?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, why?" murmured she, softly. "Sit down on the sofa by me, so that +I can whisper something to you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What are you talking about?" said he, hoarsely, without stirring. +"What do you mean? What?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are fabulously uncomprehending to-day," laughed she, and went up +to him. "One cannot scream such a thing across the whole room, and as +the mountain will not come to Mahomet"--she had now become very red; +laying her hand on his shoulder, she whispered: "O Boris; can you still +not guess?... I am so glad!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Natalie!" he burst out. "You do not mean to say" ... He shook her from +him, stamped his foot, and with a furious exclamation left the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ten minutes later, when he entered the little dining-room where they +had served lunch, Natalie's maid announced that he must not wait for +her mistress, as she was feeling ill. He hurried to her bedroom. She +sat on a sofa, her hands in her lap. Her great eyes stared into the +distance, she looked like a corpse.</p> + +<p class="normal">He sat down by her, drew her on his knee, and overwhelmed her with +caresses.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are right to be angry, quite right. I was detestable," said he; +"but you know what a bear you have for a husband. It is only because I +love you so dearly that now, just now, the thing is so inconvenient. +Oh, my little dove, my heart!" He pressed the palms of her hands to his +lips and stroked her cheeks.</p> + +<p class="normal">Every vexation melted away in the warmth of his manner. She suddenly +began to sob, but not from grief.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you think, then, that I would not have been glad?" he said to her +tenderly. "But now, do you see, just now----"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he told her the state of affairs. The man in the Havana brown +overcoat was the famous impressario Morinsky, with whom Lensky had just +made an engagement for a concert tour in the United States. Morinsky +had offered him a small fortune. "You know how hard it is for me to +part from you," he concluded. "I wished to take you with me--you and +the boy, for he can put off school for another year. I thought it was +the most favorable moment, and now--it is so stupid, so horribly +stupid!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She had listened very quietly; now she raised her head and said +uneasily:</p> + +<p class="normal">"And now you naturally will have to give up the American project?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is impossible," replied he, turning his face from her, "but I +will try--that is, I will put off my departure in any case until the +great event is over."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And then?" She had slipped down from his knee and walked up and down +the room uneasily. "And then?" she repeated, while she beat on the +floor quite imperiously with the tip of her little foot.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then," said he slowly. "Well, then you must either decide to accompany +me and leave the children behind, or I must go alone."</p> + +<p class="normal">"How long will you stay away?" she asked with short breath.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Eight months, ten months."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So--ten months!" she spoke slowly. "And you will part from +me--voluntarily, without compelling necessity--for ten months?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Her face had become ashy, the words fell harsh and cutting from her dry +lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must not take the thing so desperately," replied Lensky, with an +embarrassment which did not escape her. "Ten months are soon over."</p> + +<p class="normal">Something that sounded half like a laugh, half like a cry of anguish +escaped her lips. She stroked the hair back from her temples with both +hands. Her eyes had suddenly become unnaturally large, and were opened +uncommonly wide. They were no longer the eyes of a usually wise woman.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ten months!" she murmured, with extinguished voice, like one who +speaks in the midst of an oppressive dream, "ten months--do you no +longer remember how you used to miss me, if it was only a question of +weeks, of days, and not--ten months! But this is no separation, this is +a final parting, this is the end of all! Oh, do not look at me so!--I +am not crazy, I know what I am saying--I know very well! You will come +back--certainly you will come back, if no malicious illness snatches +you away during your journey; but how will you come back? Like a +stranger you will return under your own roof, and a stranger, from that +hour, will you remain. You will have acquired other customs, other +needs; the tender restrictions of family life will confine you like a +forced burden! The good, and magnificent, and beautiful in you will +still exist, because it is immortal like everything that is god-like; +but it will be grown wild and soiled, and I will no longer be able to +force my way through what has towered between me and your heart! And, +more than all that, the sweet voice which, until now, has whispered +such wonderful songs within you, will be silenced in the confusion of +your wandering life; your genius will no longer be able to express +itself, it will from then burn in you like a great unrest, and you will +feel the treasure which Providence has implanted in you as an +oppressive burden, and will no longer be able to find the magic word +which can lift this treasure!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He stared gloomily before him. +"Ah, Boris! do not sin against yourself, because I have sinned against +you," Natalie began once more, with hoarse, broken voice. "Do not let +your wings be broken by this first disappointment. Your opera was +wonderfully beautiful--yes--but it was not the best that you can give! +Give your best, it will stand so high that the hand of envy can no +longer reach it. Have patience, sacrifice the virtuoso to the composer +in you, and you will see what a splendid reward you will reap!"</p> + +<p class="normal">With heavily contracted brows, he listened to this speech, vibrating +with desperation. When Natalie had ended, he remained silent. She +believed she had conquered. Leaning against him she laid both arms +around his neck, and whispered to him: "You will stay, Boris--will you +not?--you will stay!"</p> + +<p class="normal">For a little while he let her stay, then he freed himself from her +arms, as one frees one's self from a shackle, and called out: "It +cannot be--torment me no longer--I must go!" With that he sprang up to +leave the room. At the door he turned round to Natalie, and said: "Are +you coming? Lunch will be cold."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Presently!" said Natalie, "presently!" She shivered, she felt the +chill of a great fright in all her members. It was worse than she had +believed! Something allured him away. After the first unpleasant +surprise at the frustration of his plans had disappeared, he rejoiced +at the opportunity of being able to free himself from the chain, and to +separate himself from his family for a time. What she had feared for +the future had already arrived--the gypsy element in his nature had +awakened!</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The agreement between Lensky and the impressario was really completed, +the contract was signed, Lensky's departure fixed for the beginning of +October. Meanwhile, he would pass the summer quietly with his wife, in +the country, in the vicinity of Paris.</p> + +<p class="normal">The place which Natalie chose was about an hour's journey from Paris, +and perhaps fifteen minutes from the railway-station, a charming old +house in the shadiest corner of a park, in the midst of which a large +castle stood empty. The castle was modern; the house, on the contrary, +a carefully reconstructed ruin of the time of Francis First. The castle +was called "Le Château des Ormes," and the small house "L'Erémitage." +The last owner had restored it, in order that his favorite daughter +might pass her honeymoon there. Since the daughter had died the +Hermitage stood empty, and to reside in the castle was painful to the +owner. Both were to let. Lensky left the choice to his wife. What would +she have done with the large castle? The Hermitage pleased her better. +The windows were all irregular, one small and narrow, another very +broad, all surrounded by artistically carved and voluted stone +framings. The trees grew up high above the roof, and through the whole +day sang sweet, dreamy songs, to which a little brook, that ran close +by the house, furnished a harmonic accompaniment.</p> + +<p class="normal">The ground floor was built in accordance with the architecture of the +early Renaissance period, with brown beams across the ceilings of the +room, and artistic wainscoting on the walls. Gigantic marble mantels, +iron chandeliers and sconces, and heavy furniture did what they could +to transport the spectator's imagination back to the much sung old +times of gay King Francis. At the right and left of the entrance door, +set far back in its carved niche, grew lilies, tall and slender; they +were in full bloom when the married pair moved in, and their white +heads nodded in a friendly manner through the windows of the rooms even +with the ground. Sage, lavender, and centifolias bloomed at their feet, +tall rose-bushes nodded a fragrant greeting to them from above. The +branches of the old trees before the windows were thick enough to +partially exclude the sunbeams if they became too intrusive; not thick +enough to completely bar the way for them.</p> + +<p class="normal">In this lonely solitude, Natalie fought a last time for her happiness. +She tried to make her whole home as attractive and poetic as possible, +so that in Lensky's remembrance something might remain for which he +must long. She no longer tormented him with jealous, isolating +tenderness, but cared for his distraction and intellectual as well as +artistic recreation. She knew how to allure not only the first +musicians in Paris, but celebrities of the most different kinds from +the capital and surrounding villas, to the Hermitage; earnest men of +lofty aims and noble endeavors, together with an animation and +susceptibility which did away with the hindering respect which towers +between every plain, modest child of man and great people. It always +gave Natalie pleasure to see Lensky in the company of these prominent +men. He grew in such surroundings.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was never very talkative; his intellectual capabilities were of a +heavy calibre, unsuited for the purposes of small talk. But how he +listened, what questions he asked! Then, quite without haste, he would +make some remark so peculiarly sharp and far-reaching in reference to +some impending political, artistic, or literary question, that, every +time, an astonished silence would follow.</p> + +<p class="normal">One of the guests once remarked: "If Lensky mingles in the +conversation, it is as if one fired a cannon between pistol shots."</p> + +<p class="normal">He was not one-sided in his interests, as other musicians. When one +learned to know him more intimately, for every accurate observer it had +always the appearance that his musical capabilities formed only a part +of his universally abnormally gifted nature.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Quietly and still animatedly passed the days, weeks, and months. +Natalie never spoke of the approaching separation.</p> + +<p class="normal">An inexplicable discomfort tormented Lensky. Natalie had guessed +rightly--he had concluded the engagement with Morinsky with quite +precipitate haste, not only in order thereby to win the opportunity of +acquiring with one stroke a large sum of money which would put an end +to his pecuniary difficulties, but because in intercourse with the old +friends of his bachelor days in ---- he had first significantly +realized how much he had had to restrain himself to live morally and +uprightly at the side of his wife; and because his gypsy nature, bound +for years, now demanded its rights.</p> + +<p class="normal">Still it vexed him that Natalie remained so calm in the face of the +approaching parting. Now, when the farewell drew near, his heart failed +him. Did she, then, no longer love him?</p> + +<p class="normal">The thought was unbearable to him, prevented him from working. He wrote +everything wrong on the note paper.</p> + +<p class="normal">The lilies were dead, the days became short, and the first leaves fell +in the grass, but the foliage was still thick, only here and there one +saw a yellow spot in a bluish green tree, and the rustling had no +longer the old soft sound.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The trees have lost their voice, they have become hoarse, the old +melting sound is gone!" said Natalie. The roses, in truth bloomed more +beautifully than in summer; still one saw, significantly, the approach +of autumn, and Lensky had the repugnant feeling that near by something +lay dying.</p> + +<p class="normal">His work did not please him. Three times already he had heard Natalie +pass by his door; each time he had thought, now she will come in; he +had already stretched his arms out to her, but she did not come. He +threw away his pen and sprang up to look for her.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a late September afternoon. It had rained for three days, and +the air was cool.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie sat in the brown-wainscoted ground-floor sitting-room, in one +of the gigantic, high-backed arm-chairs near the chimney, in which +flickered a gay wood fire. The windows were open. The noise from +without of the rain drops softly gliding down between the leaves, the +blustering of the high swollen brook, mingled with the crackling and +popping of the burning wood.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the middle of the room, on a large table with a dark-red cover, +stood a copper bowl filled with champagne-colored <i>Gloire de Dijon</i> +roses. From without came the melancholy odor of autumnal decay and +mingled with the sweet breath of the flowers.</p> + +<p class="normal">The veil of twilight sank down from the mighty rafters of the ceiling. +The corners of the large, somewhat low room were already, as it were, +rounded off by brown shadows. Freakish, pale reflections slid over the +dark wainscoting, and over the brass and copper dishes which adorned +it.</p> + +<p class="normal">Little Kolia crouched on a stool before his mother, and with both tiny +elbows rested on her lap, gazed earnestly and attentively up at her.</p> + +<p class="normal">One could think of nothing more charming than this mother and this +child. Involuntarily Lensky's heart beat high in his breast. "How +beautiful my home is, how happy I am here. Why am I really going away?" +he asked himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!" cried Natalie when he entered, pleased and at the same time +surprised, for his appearance at this hour was something quite unusual. +"Do you wish anything?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He shook his brown, defiant head silently and sat down near the chimney +opposite her. The little boy had sprung up, embarrassed, and now leaned +against his mother, with his little arm round her neck.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have been telling him fairy tales," began Lensky.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, no! I told him of the ocean, and how one lives and is housed on +the wide boundless water--of the ocean and of America. Before it was +too dark we were busy with something much more important," said +Natalie, and she pointed to a low child's table which was covered with +writing materials and lined paper. "Show papa what we have finished, +Nikolinka."</p> + +<p class="normal">The little boy became very red and drew his brows together. "But, +mamma," said he, excitedly stamping his foot, "why do you tell that? It +is a surprise."</p> + +<p class="normal">His mother stroked the offended child's cheek soothingly. "We will not +give papa your letter to read, only show it to him, so that he can be +pleased with it. Bring it, Nikolinka."</p> + +<p class="normal">Resistingly the little fellow freed himself from his mother, then he +brought the document, which was concealed behind a vase, and carried +it, with importance as well as embarrassment, to his father. On the +already extensively sealed envelope, between three lines, stood the +unformed, but neatly and industriously written letters:</p> +<br> + +<p style="text-indent:10%">À</p> +<p style="text-indent:11%">MONSIEUR BORIS LENSKY,</p> +<p style="text-indent:21%">EN</p> +<p style="text-indent:26%">AMÉRIQUE.</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"The letter is to be sent to you when you are over there," explained +Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How nicely the wight writes for his five years," said Lensky touched, +looking at the envelope. "You guided his hand, Natascha?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, no!" declared Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you prompted him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly not; he thought it out all by himself; did you not, +Nikolinka?" said Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">The little one nodded earnestly; he was quite crimson with pride and +embarrassment. His father took him between his knees, called him +"Umnitza," which in Russian means paragon of wisdom, kissed and +caressed him, then rang the bell for Palagea, and told him he must go +now and wash his hands, and have his curls brushed smooth, and then he +should take dinner with his parents, because he had been so clever.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the child had tripped out at the nurse's hand, Lensky threw +himself down on the stool at his wife's feet. It had now become quite +dark. The heavy, regular-falling rain still rustled in the foliage +without, in a dreamy, melancholy cadence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Listen; how sweet, how sad!" said Natalie, turning her head to the +window, through which the landscape, behind its double veil of rain and +twilight, looked to one like a greenish-gray chaos only, without any +distinct outlines.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The D-flat major prelude of Chopin," said Lensky.</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her head. "No, I did not think of that," whispered she. "But +see! Sometimes it seems to me that the ghost of the poor young wife who +died here creeps around the Hermitage, and sighs for the happiness +which she might not finish enjoying. She died after the first year, +while I, Boris--I was happy six years. It is too much for one human +life. Sometimes--it is a sin; I know it--and still, sometimes I quite +wished I might die, but I dare not; Kolia still needs me."</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Soon after this she brought a little girl into the world, who was +baptized Marie, after the grandmother and the little dead sister.</p> + +<p class="normal">A few weeks passed, she convalesced rapidly. The day of farewell came, +on which everyone hastened, with everything overhurried, incessantly +imagined there was too much to do in preparing for the journey, and +finally had nothing more to do. The day on which all the usual +occupations were sacrificed in honor of the pain of parting, when one +aimlessly trifled away the hours, tormented by nervous unrest, which +finally expressed itself in the dullest <i>ennui</i>.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">They sat together; now here, now there, and did not know what to do. +Lensky was to take the six o'clock train to Paris; from there, the same +evening, he would travel with Morinsky's troupe to Boulogne, for they +would take ship in Liverpool for America.</p> + +<p class="normal">The dinner-hour was changed from seven to four, lunch and breakfast +were combined at ten o'clock. These irregular hours took away one's +appetite, accustomed to regular hours, and increased the general +discomfort.</p> + +<p class="normal">In order to kill the last half-hour before dinner they took a walk +through the immense, solitary park. Kolia went with them.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a beautiful October day, with a blue heaven over which only +filmy white clouds spread themselves, and from which the sun looked +down so sadly and mildly as only the October sun looks down on the +dying beauty of the year. Masses of foliage still hung on the trees, +but it was already withered--it no longer lived. And in the midst of +the windless peace, one heard, again and again, the gentle sighing of a +dead leaf that fell on the turf.</p> + +<p class="normal">Both the parents were silent, only the little boy asked, from time to +time, tender, important questions of his father, whom he loved very +much, although he felt a kind of shyness of him. At first Lensky led +the child by the hand, then he took him in his arms, in order to have +the pleasure of holding the supple little body quite closely to him and +feel the soft, warm little arms round his neck.</p> + +<p class="normal">They hurried back to the house so as not to delay dinner, and naturally +arrived much too early.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Play me something for a farewell," begged Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"One of the Chopin nocturnes which I transposed for your sake?" asked +he.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, just what you have in your heart," replied Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">He took up his violin. It was the same violin which he had tried in the +Palazzo Morsini, the Amati which Natalie had given him when they were +betrothed. He was very excited, and became paler with every stroke.</p> + +<p class="normal">The whole desperation of a great nature which feels an unavoidable +degradation approaching, spoke from his improvisation, and in the midst +of the passionate and painful madness rose melodies so pure, so +beautifully holy, like the resting in heart-felt prayer of a nature all +in uproar.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he had finished and wished to put the violin back in the case in +which he should take it with him to America, Natalie took it from his +hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you wish with it?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">She kissed the violin and then handed it to him. "Here you have it," +said she, very softly. "It will never sing so again until you return."</p> + +<p class="normal">At last the servant announced that dinner was served. They sat down to +the executioner meal, the executioner meal for which all his little +favorite dishes had been prepared, at which everything was so abundant +and so good, only the appetite was lacking.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was still light when they went to dinner. The light slowly died in +the course of the meal. The words fell seldomer and more seldom from +Lensky's lips; there was a leaden silence; the brook sobbed without.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky held his wine-glass toward Natalie. "To a happy meeting!" said +he; "to a happy meeting!" She repeated, dully: "I will await you here +next year when the roses bloom." He pressed her hand; he could not +contain himself during the whole meal, but got up before the dessert +and began to walk up and down restlessly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have still time," Natalie assured him; "the coffee will come +immediately."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thanks; is baby asleep? I would like to give her a kiss before I go."</p> + +<p class="normal">They brought little Maschenka. He kissed and blessed the tiny, rosy +child, bundled up in lace and muslin. He has kissed Kolia, loudly +crying from excitement, and commissioned him to be brave and not to +grieve his mother.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now he goes up to his wife. They have brought the lamps; he wishes to +see her distinctly before he goes. She tries to smile; she raises her +arms to stretch them out to him--the arms sink.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My heart, be reasonable," says he, and draws her to him. A fearful +groan comes from her lips; she presses her mouth against his shoulder +so as not to scream aloud; her form shook.</p> + +<p class="normal">He held her to him so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. For one +moment he is all hers--it is the last in her life! She knows it! The +happiness of her love rallies once more in a feeling of awful, +delirious happiness, and dies in a kiss!</p> + +<p class="normal">Now he has gone! She accompanied him to the house-door. There she now +stands and gazes along the street, through the twilight, where he has +disappeared between the trees. It did not seem to her that she had +parted from a dear man who was about to make a journey. No; as if they +had carried a corpse out of the house. It is all over--all! Whatever +further comes is only more dry bitterness and inconsolable torment of +the heart. She sees his footprints in the half darkness. Why had she +not accompanied him to the railway? she asks herself, why--why? From +stupid anxiety, from pride of giving the few loafers at the station the +sight of her despair had she renounced the pleasure of enjoying his +presence until the last moment? She steps outdoors, hurries her steps, +wishes to hurry after him, to see him once more, only one moment--then +the loud voice of the railroad bell breaks the universal silence--a +shrill whistle--it is over! She falls down, buries her face in the cool +autumn grass at the edge of the garden path, and sobs as one sobs over +a fresh grave.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">About three hours later, Lensky, with his colleagues and Morinsky, sat +penned up in a coupé of the first class. The train was over-full, there +were eight of them in the small compartment.</p> + +<p class="normal">In one corner slept Morinsky, his fur collar drawn up over his ears, +his head covered with a fez, whose blue tassel waved to and fro over +his left ear, which lent his sharp yellow face a diabolical expression.</p> + +<p class="normal">Opposite him sat an old woman with a copper colored skin, and held a +basket of lunch on her knees. At first she had uninterruptedly chewed +and smacked her lips, now she snored. She was the mother of a famous +staccato singer, who, large and blond, with her head and shoulders +prudently wrapped in a red fascinator, embroidered with gold, and +painted, and smelling of cosmetics, coquetted with the 'cellist, a very +effeminate young man who looked like an actor. They had spread a shawl +over their knees, and the diva laid the cards for him, which gave +occasion for the most entertaining allusions.</p> + +<p class="normal">The accompanist of the troupe, a pedantic young pianist, afflicted with +a chronic hoarseness, which alone prevented him from becoming a tenor +of the first rank, formed the public to the beautiful duet, while he +laughed loudly at every particularly poor witticism.</p> + +<p class="normal">The 'cellist and the diva were very familiar with each other, and both +constantly made use of expressions of the commonest kind.</p> + +<p class="normal">The laughter of the diva became ever shriller, while that of the +'cellist sounded ever deeper from his boots.</p> + +<p class="normal">Opposite Lensky, the short-armed, fat piano virtuoso of the troupe, a +very solid father of a family, who tried to sleep, and from time to +time looked round angrily at the disturbers of his rest; and near +Lensky, wrapped in furs to the tip of her nose, sat a new prima donna, +Signora Zingarelli, of whom Morinsky promised himself the highest +success, a beautiful, red-haired Belgian, with long, narrow sphinx +eyes. She had tried to enter into conversation with Lensky, but he had +turned from her, monosyllabic and coarse.</p> + +<p class="normal">The train sighed and groaned. Fiery clouds flew by the window in the +black night. The close atmosphere in the coupé, the odor of paint, +musk, fat meat, hot fur and coal, maddened Lensky; he wished to open +one of the windows--the singers protested, Morinsky awoke, settled the +dispute:--the window remained closed.</p> + +<p class="normal">A terrible longing for his love, for his beautiful, poetic home, came +over Lensky. He thought of his last night journey, with wife and child, +quite alone in a coupé. He saw the charming serpentine lines which the +slender, supple figure of his young wife described on the cushions. She +slept. Her little head rested on a red silk cushion which she took +about with her on all her travels. How tender and delicate her profile +stood out from that colored ground! She coughed in her sleep; he stood +up to draw the fur mantle which covered her closer up around her +shoulders. Drunk with sleep, she opened her eyes and with half +unconscious tenderness rubbed her smooth, cool cheeks against her hand. +The sweet fragrance of violets which exhaled from her person smote his +face. Then--a jolt!--He started up--he must have slept. In any case he +had dreamed. His travelling companions all slept now; their heads on +their breasts, only the pretty red-haired head of the Zingarelli lay on +Lensky's shoulder. She opened her long, narrow eyes, smiled at him--a +shrill whistle--the train stopped.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Amiens!" cried the conductor. "Amiens!" All got out.</p> + +<p class="normal">While his colleagues plundered the restaurant, Lensky, smoking a +cigarette, wandered around the platform alone. The others had all taken +their places again, when Morinsky, who had gotten out to look for him, +and saw him wandering to another coupé, called after him: "Here, +Monsieur Lensky, here!"</p> + +<p class="normal">But Lensky only stamped his foot impatiently: "Leave me in peace, I am +not obliged to make the whole journey in the same cage with your +menagerie!" he said.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Six weeks later not a trace of his homesickness remained. At the artist +banquet, which usually followed the concerts, symposiums which began +with bad witticisms and ended with an orgy, he was the most +unrestrained, the wantonest of all.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was like one who, suddenly relieved from the pressure of iron +fetters, at first, unaccustomed to every free movement, can scarcely +move his limbs, but afterward cannot weary of stretching them, and +moving them in unlimited freedom.</p> + +<p class="normal">He broke every bond, indulged every humor. He no longer thought of +Natalie and the children, he did not wish to think of them. Remembrance +was ashamed to follow him on the way he now went.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was hard for him to write to his wife, but it was still harder for +him to read her letters. And yet she wrote so charmingly, so lovingly! +She did not say much of herself, but so much the more of the children, +especially of Kolia. With what shining eyes he listened, when she read +the reports of the triumphs of his father to him, she wrote, and how he +seized every newspaper that he saw, and then asked her: "Is there +anything in it about papa?" and how, with his little playmates--she +passed the winter with her mother, in Cannes--he boasted importantly of +the homage which fell share to his father, and how she did not have the +heart to reprove him for it. How he drew ships incessantly, and how she +made use of the interest which he took in his father's journey to give +him his first lessons in geography, and many other such tender trifles.</p> + +<p class="normal">These letters vexed him; when he had read them, he despised himself and +his surroundings, and for two, three days, remained melancholy and +unsociable.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last he no longer read them, at most only glanced over them, +convinced himself hastily that "all was as usual," and then folded them +up and laid them aside.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then came the time when he told himself it was foolish to have such +scruples. He was what he always had been, an exceptional man, a Titanic +nature. He could not be judged like the others, he could not have +exercised his compelling charm over the masses without the fiery +violence of his temperament. His success was wonderful. Since they had +celebrated the reception of Jenny Lind with discharge of cannon in New +York or Boston--history differs as to which, is always careless in +relation to prima donnas--no artist had received more homage than Boris +Lensky. The women especially seemed as if bewitched by him.</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not take the situation sentimentally, but rather cynically; +still he accustomed himself to the horrible noise of the public, which +followed his performances, to the cries of the crowd which accompanied +him without, when he left the concert hall, to the illuminated streets +in which every window was filled with gazers when he drove home.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the excitement was once over, a kind of shame overpowered him. +What signified these virtuoso triumphs? People always applauded the +stupidest piece the loudest. He attained no such effect with a sonata +of Beethoven, or Schumann, as with a mad tarentella which he had +composed long ago for his wonderful fingers, and of which he was now +ashamed.</p> + +<p class="normal">In Boston, he omitted this tarentella, which had become a nightmare to +him, from the programme.</p> + +<p class="normal">The people remained lukewarm, and so much already did his over-excited +nerves desire the shrill storm of applause, that he voluntarily added +the trivial and wearying piece of artifice--he, who had formerly so +despised his virtuoso triumphs!</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The lilies stand straight and slender, with golden hearts in their +deep, white calices, right and left of the door of the little +Hermitage, into which Natalie has again moved when the first roses +bloom.</p> + +<p class="normal">It is July. Lensky has fixed his return for the fifteenth. "Afternoon, +with the first train that I can catch; but do not worry if I should be +late," said his letter.</p> + +<p class="normal">Not at the station, no, only to the hedge which incloses the park, will +Natalie go to meet him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kolia quivers with impatience. Natalie counts the hours, draws out her +watch--it has stopped. She hurries in the dining-room to consult the +clock on the mantel, and discovers Kolia, who, kneeling on a chair, +moves the hands.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What are you doing?" says she, laughing.</p> + +<p class="normal">The boy sighs impatiently. "I am fixing the clock, mamma. I am sure it +must be sick, it goes too slowly to-day."</p> + +<p class="normal">How she kisses him for it! How pleased she will be to tell Boris of it!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hark!"</p> + +<p class="normal">A shrill sound of a bell, a penetrating whistle; the train has come.</p> + +<p class="normal">She fetches her little daughter, who has had a charming little white +dress put on her, in honor of her father's arrival.</p> + +<p class="normal">With the little one on her arm, and Kolia at her hand, she steps out +under the lindens, which are in full bloom, and throw a sunlit shadowy +carpet over the path. Oh, how her poor heart beats! She kisses the tiny +hands of her little daughter from excitement, looks scrutinizingly at +the little child. Will he think her pretty?</p> + +<p class="normal">She stands at the hedge of the park, looks out on the street, gazes, +waits, sees the people return from the railroad. Now he must come! but +no, the white, dusty street is empty; a scornfully whispering breeze +blows away the footprints of the last passer-by, a couple of white +linden-blossoms fall from the tree-tops--he has not come!</p> + +<p class="normal">And with slow steps, as one wearily drags himself along after a great +disappointment, she turns toward the house. Kolia gives a deep sigh. "I +don't understand it, mamma," says he.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Papa will come with the next train; he has missed this one," his +mother consoles him.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a while he trips silently beside her, then suddenly raising his +head and looking at her with his earnest, thoughtful child's eyes, he +says:</p> + +<p class="normal">"We would not have missed the train, would we, mamma?"</p> + +<p class="normal">And once more the bell sounds in the solemn quiet, and Natalie's heart +beats loudly--and he comes not.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ever sadder, she wanders through the empty rooms, into which the +sunlight presses through a shady, cool, perfumed curtain of foliage.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How can one stay an hour longer than one must in the sultry, dusty, +sunny, wearying Paris?" she asks herself.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile Lensky sits with his colleagues in the <i>Trois Frères</i> at a +breakfast which began at one o'clock, and now at five o'clock has not +yet ended. A breakfast at which all laugh and make jokes--only he +broods silently.</p> + +<p class="normal">He is satiated with this rope-dancer's existence--heartily satiated--he +longs for his home, for his dear, incomparable wife, but he delays the +moment of meeting as long as he can. A kind of shame contracts his +throat at the thought of meeting her eyes. He knows she will ask him no +questions, but still----</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Once more the railway bell has in vain startled Natalie and her little +son. Evening has come. The excellent little dinner which was prepared +in honor of the return has been served and taken away quite untouched. +Kolia incessantly pulls his mother's sleeve and asks ever more +importunately: "Why does not father come? Why does he not come?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Maschenka has long been divested of her white muslin finery, and lies +in her cradle. Kolia obstinately refuses to go to bed until his father +has returned. Weary and tearful he wanders from one corner of the +drawing-room to the other and will not play.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now, with little head on his arm, he has fallen asleep over his picture +books at a low child's table.</p> + +<p class="normal">The roses which Natalie arranged so carefully in the vases wither. The +white draperies of her dress are limp and tumbled.</p> + +<p class="normal">Once again the bell rings. It is the last train to-day. She does not +wake Kolia. Why should he uselessly vex himself this time also?</p> + +<p class="normal">Softly she steps on the porch. The moon stands in the heavens; the +trees are black. A gray, transparent mist arises from the earth which +obliterates all contours. The flowers smell unusually sweet, and, in +luxuriant melancholy, confess so much to the pale, cold moon that they +have shamefacedly been silent about to the sun.</p> + +<p class="normal">Why does the little brook sob so loudly? Can it not be silent a moment? +Natalie's whole being is now only a strained, longing listening. Why +does her heart beat so loudly? Why does her strong imagination charm up +things in the stillness which do not exist? Or--no--no; she hears a +sigh, a step, slow, slow! Who can that be? No man walks so slowly who +after long, oh, how long absence, returns to wife and child! It is a +messenger of misfortune, who delays to announce some ill news to her.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then, from out the shadow, in the foggy moonlight, comes a +broad-shouldered form.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Boris!" calls Natalie, half to herself. She cannot go to meet him--she +cannot. Trembling in her whole body, she stands there, in the carved +Gothic portal, against the bright golden background of the lighted +hall; stands there in her white dress, between the tall, pale lilies, +like an angel before the door of a church, into which a wicked sinner +would like to slip.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it you, at last?" she breathes out.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes; I am somewhat late. You know, with one's colleagues, one must +offend no one; it is always so."</p> + +<p class="normal">How rough his voice sounds! How fleetingly, how hastily he kisses her. +Is she dreaming?</p> + +<p class="normal">"How are you; how are the children?" He steps in the hall, blinking +uneasily in the light.</p> + +<p class="normal">Is this really the man to whose coming she has so foolishly, so +breathlessly looked forward? This irritable, heavy man with the tumbled +clothes, the badly arranged hair, the fearfully altered face, with a +new expression of God knows what! Her feet refuse her their service; +she catches hold of a support, and sinks down in a chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How pale you are, Natalie!" says he. "Are you ill?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No--no--only--I have waited for you since five o'clock. I--I thought +you would never find the way back to us."</p> + +<p class="normal">For an instant he hesitates; then he sinks at her feet, embraces her +knees with both arms. He, who at parting had not shed a tear, now, at +their meeting, sobs like a desperate one. What pretext, what falsehood +can he utter? As if his colleagues could have withheld him if he had +only really wished to come home!</p> + +<p class="normal">"O Natalie! Natalie! Pardon me. We all fear to return to Heaven when we +have accustomed ourselves to Earth. Natalie! be good to me; never let +me leave you again."</p> + +<p class="normal">He had plunged a dagger in her heart, but her whole tenderness is +awakened.</p> + +<p class="normal">She bends over him, strokes his rough hair with her tender, white hand. +"My poor genius!" she whispers gently. "My poor, dear genius!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Papa!" calls a silvery voice, joyfully. "Pa--pa!" he repeats, +hesitatingly, frightened. Kolia has run up.</p> + +<p class="normal">If he lives to be a hundred years old he will never forget how he saw +his father sobbing at his mother's feet after the first long +separation.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he did not understand, but later he understood--understood only +too well.</p> + +<p class="normal">How sad life is: how sad!</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the morning after his arrival. Lensky stood at the window of his +room, and looked down in the quiet garden. The little brook which +tumbled down the hill at the side of the Hermitage with exaggerated +violence, quite like a little waterfall, in front of the house from +whence Lensky looked down on it, plashed quite calmly, earnestly, and +dreamily along its here scarcely susceptibly descending bed, and bore +away on its dark waves only as much of the sunshine as could reach it +between the lindens. A cool breeze rose from the water, all around was +dark green, dewy and luxuriant--luxuriant without the slightest +indication of decay, without the least trace of approaching withering.</p> + +<p class="normal">And what an abundance of roses stood out in gay, blooming colors +against the sober, dark-green background! Great Maréchal Niel roses, +with heavy, earthward-bent heads, dark-red Jacqueminot, fiery Baroness +Rothschild, delicate pink, capriciously crumpled La France. The Gloire +de Dijon roses climbed quite in the window of his room in their race +with the quite small, pert little running roses.</p> + +<p class="normal">Light steps crunched the gravel, large and small steps. Natalie stepped +out from the shady lindens in front of the house. She held her little +daughter in her arms. Kolia walked near her, and with the important +earnestness of six years carried a basketful of strawberries, which he +had evidently just helped his mother pick. One could think of nothing +more charming than the young woman in her white morning-dress, with its +lilac ribbons, and the tiny, rosy being in her arms. The little thing +was bareheaded, and her little arms and feet were also bare. She +quivered and danced with animation. There she discovered a butterfly, +cried out gayly, and clapped her little hands.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, are you ready so soon?" called Natalie, when she saw her husband +at the window. "Come to breakfast; I have had the table laid in the +garden."</p> + +<p class="normal">He hurried down. The breakfast-table stood in a shady spot, over which +the blooming lindens reached their branches.</p> + +<p class="normal">Oh, what a table! How very pretty the Rouen service made it! a service +whose old-fashioned gayness combined harmoniously the most incongruous +colors, set out on the dazzling white damask table-cloth. How inviting +and appetizing everything was! These curiously shaped dishes, with +their fragrant burden of still warm golden cakes and rolls of pale +yellow butter between glittering pieces of ice, and ham covered with +transparent aspic! Around the greenish twilight, fragrant, cool, only +here and there the reddish glimmer of a sunbeam curiously wandered into +the shadow, and now held captive by the lindens.</p> + +<p class="normal">When she saw her father coming, little Mascha became quite unruly, +almost danced out of her mother's arms, and, without resisting, let +herself be taken, hugged, and kissed by him. While he held her in his +arms, Kolia seized her little bare legs, and pressed his mouth to her +tiny pink feet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is charming, a beauty! Is that really my daughter, can something +so wonderfully pretty have such an ugly man for father?" he said from +time to time, laughingly, tenderly, while he kissed her bare shoulders, +and especially the dimple in her neck, again and again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She looks very like you, your pretty daughter," jested Natalie. "More +than the boy! It vexes him if I say that, and I also would prefer it to +be the other way."</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky laughed somewhat constrainedly. The nurse came up to get baby.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Just a moment," said Lensky, swinging the little thing high in the +air, to its great delight, "so--and one more kiss on the eyes, the +neck, on these dear, sweet little hands, so----"</p> + +<p class="normal">The nurse already had the little thing in her arms, when the sweet +little rogue looked round at her father.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Natalie busied herself with the samovar, which stood on a +small stand near the breakfast table. No servant was near, Kolia helped +mamma serve tea, and waited with a sober expression until his mother +had confided the cup for his father to him. Carefully, as if he held +the Holy Grail in his hands, he carried it over to Lensky. Natalie sat +down opposite her husband, and buttered him a piece of bread.</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked at her with a peculiarly sad, touched look. "You are all much +too good to me," he murmured; then he added, tenderly: "Either I had +really forgotten during my absence how beautiful you are, or you have +really gained in charm."</p> + +<p class="normal">How awkwardly that came out! how stumblingly! He had wished to say +something loving to her, but he had not succeeded well. He felt it +himself. A petulant smile shone in her sad eyes at his well, or much +rather, badly put little speech. Some reply trembled on her lips, then +she suddenly closed her lovely mouth, as if she feared her husband +would take what she wished to say somewhat ill, and busied herself in +fastening a napkin round Kolia's neck.</p> + +<p class="normal">After a while Lensky began anew: "How charming my home is. Ah, Natalie, +how have I renounced it all for so long! How could I exist so long +without you!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"If you only are really pleased over your return we will make no +further remarks about your absence," said Natalie very lovingly, and +then hesitated with embarrassment and blushed to the roots of her hair.</p> + +<p class="normal">Breakfast took its course. Here and there, by turns, Natalie and Lensky +made a remark, but the conversation did not become fluent. A strange +irritation vibrated in every nerve of the virtuoso. Formerly there had +been no end of talking between them, and now-- What was she thinking +of, to speak about the weather as if he were any guest to whom one +feels obliged to be polite, and to whom one does not know what to say, +because no common interest unites him with us?</p> + +<p class="normal">He remembered the words which she had spoken in the Hotel Windsor at +that time before the conclusion of his contract with Morinsky: "As a +stranger you will return to us, and a stranger you will remain among us +from that time."</p> + +<p class="normal">Was she right? Foolishness! She had only become a little too +distinguished among the wearisome crowd with whom she had passed the +winter. The forced mood which reigned between them was her fault, not +his.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are so stiff and formal, Natalie," he remarked at last, vexedly, +quite irrelevantly. "You have again accustomed yourself to such +fearfully aristocratic manners."</p> + +<p class="normal">"How can you say anything so foolish?" she answered him, laughing +constrainedly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, it is not laughable to me," he growled, and suddenly, without any +reason, only to air his inward uneasiness, he burst out: "It is painful +to me, I cannot endure it--cannot bear it." He pushed his cup away with +an involuntary motion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, Boris!" Natalie admonished him. "My poor, unaccountable, dear +genius!" She looked at him so roguishly therewith that his anger was +scattered to the four winds.</p> + +<p class="normal">He stretched out both his hands to her across the table; she took them. +He bent somewhat forward, wished to draw her hands to his lips, when a +light step was heard on the gravel. Natalie blushed, and with a quick, +almost frightened movement, drew them away from him. He scowled +angrily. Before whom was she embarrassed then?</p> + +<p class="normal">A young woman in a very elegant <i>negligé</i> costume, profusely trimmed +with Valenciennes lace, without hat, and a yellow parasol in her hand, +stepped up to the breakfast table. She resembled Natalie, although she +was smaller, stouter, and the features of her pretty face were coarser. +Lensky recognized in her his wife's sister, Princess Jeliagin, a person +whom he detested from the bottom of his heart, even if he had until +now only known her slightly, before his marriage with Natalie. Kind +friends had told him that she had described his alliance with her +sister as <i>une chose absurde</i>. Wife of a rich, quite incompetent +diplomat, she had during her ten years' life in foreign countries made +all the most absurd aristocratic prejudices her own, and was always +addressed as "Princess," although her husband had no title. With all +these Western-Europe grimaces she combined something of her Russian, +half Asiatic exaggeration, by which she became still more grotesque and +tactless. In spite of her boasted exclusiveness she had never quite +learned to understand the shades of foreign society, and made frequent +mistakes in her choice of acquaintances.</p> + +<p class="normal">Besides this, with all her weaknesses and affectations, she was good +natured to silliness, and hospitable to prodigality.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So early in the morning, Barbe what a surprise!" Natalie called to +her, while she tried not to let it be perceived how inopportune her +sister's visit was to her just at that moment. "That is charming, I +must introduce my husband to you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"We know each other already, at least I hope that Boris Nikolaivitch +remembers me--once in St. Petersburg, at the Olins. In any case, I am +very happy to renew the acquaintance," remarked the Jeliagin, and at +once reached him her fat little hand, in a buckskin garden glove. Her +voice was guttural and rough, her whole face, as Lensky could now see +plainly, was painted.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How are you, Nikolas?" She turned to little Kolia, while she stroked +his head in a friendly manner. "Please greet a person, or have I fallen +as deeply in your displeasure as my Anna? I assure you that I cannot +help it if she talks foolishly. Only think, Boris Nikolaivitch, he +cudgelled my daughter Anna, day before yesterday, because she ventured +to assert that a prince was greater than a genius. He answered her that +not even an emperor was greater. A genius came next to the dear God, +and as she would not agree to that, he struck her, and hard."</p> + +<p class="normal">The Jeliagin laughed. Lensky also laughed involuntarily, but remarked +in a tone of admonition to his son, who had shyly concealed himself +behind his mother: "A boy should never strike a girl; that is not +proper."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But why did she say such foolish things?" little Nikolas defended +himself, while he wrinkled his small forehead. "I cannot bear that, and +then she is larger than I, so much"--he measured the width of his hand +above his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She gave him quite a scratch, she was not defenceless," said Barbara +Alexandrovna, while she sat down and closed her umbrella. "But to come +to something more interesting," she continued; "we have, in spirit, +followed you on every step of your American triumphal march, Boris +Nikolaivitch; the newspapers gave us the guide thereto. I hope we will +now see very much of you. Natascha can tell you how well all artists +are received at our house,--and h'm!--and if it is a question of a +relation--<i>à propos</i>, could you not come and dine with us this evening? +We are quite <i>entre nous</i>, only Lis, Princess Zriny, that eccentric +Hungarian, Marinia Löwenskiold, a good friend of yours, you remember +her, a few diplomats, etc.; and we are bored as only <i>gens du monde</i> +are bored if they have been together under the same roof for ten days. +Natalie can tell you how bored we are--merely people from our coterie, +who know each other by heart; if you please. And how stupid we are! ha, +ha, ha! In desperation we arranged a race in the drawing-room +yesterday. Arthur de Blincourt, while jumping a barrier, dislocated a +joint, and now lies on a lounge, and lets himself be looked after. But +we all long for a new element--<i>on vous attend comme le Messie</i>, Boris +Nikolaivitch. You will come, will you not? We dine at eight o'clock."</p> + +<p class="normal">While she chattered on with self-satisfied fluency, it seemed to Boris +as if some one scratched a knife on a porcelain plate.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why does she roll her eyes so incessantly when she speaks? They do not +look more beautiful when one sees so much of their orange-yellow +whites," he thought to himself. Aloud he only remarked: "Do you really +believe that I would amuse you better than a drawing-room race?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed she. "That is splendid! I must repeat it to +Marinia Löwenskiold, who raves about you. You will come, will you not?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, I will not come," replied he sharply. "I do not feel myself equal +to the task of amusing a dozen <i>gens du monde</i> who are bored."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, as you will," said the Jeliagin, shrugging her shoulders. "Try +to persuade him before evening, Natalie, and come, or send me word. I +must go, we wish to ride out <i>en bande</i>, at eight. Adieu! Give me your +hand, please, Kolia, and come and lunch with us. Anna will be pleased, +and you shall have strawberries and whipped cream. Adieu!" With that +she went away.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky stared gloomily before him for a while, then he struck his +clenched fist on the table so that all the dishes rattled: "From whence +did this goose drop down so suddenly?" asked he.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She lives in the castle in the park," said Natalie. "She has hired it +for the summer."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So!" grumbled Lensky. "Now if I had known that, I should never have +thought of coming here."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I wrote you of it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not a word."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly, in many letters; did you not have time to read them?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Instead of replying to this, for him very unpleasant remark, Lensky +said, in increasing rage: "Oh! now I understand the change which has +taken place in you. She is horrible, your sister! For what does she +hold me, that she takes this tone with me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I cannot help her lack of tact," replied Natalie, gently and +reproachfully.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah, you are still influenced by your relations, by that narrow stupid +crowd," he growled, crimson with rage. "You are condescending to me, +yes, that is the right word, condescending, indulgent. Why do you start +back from me when this silly machine comes near? Are you then ashamed +of our love before her?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Our love!" repeated Natalie, with broken voice, strangely emphasizing +the word "our."</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not suspect anything from the trembling sadness of her voice, +and did not once look at her.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile he felt the anxious touch of a silky, soft child's hand. +Little Kolia had come up to his father, and whispered to him shyly and +pleadingly: "Papa, mamma is crying."</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky looked up, frightened. Yes, she had done her utmost to +courageously smile through the unpleasant scene, but her overexcited +nerves could not bear it; she sobbed convulsively.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But Natalie, my angel, my little dove!" He could not see any woman +weep, least of all his wife, whom he loved. He sprang up, took her in +his arms, covered her eyes, her mouth, her whole face with kisses. "Do +not torment yourself, my treasure! You are much, much too good to me; +you are an angel! How could you ever take such a rough clown as I am? +We are not suited to each other, Natascha."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, Boris! do you mean that?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I mean it," said he, gloomily. "Better, a hundred times better, +would it have been for you if you had never seen me! You are so +charming, so good, and I love you so idolatrously; but I am a fearful, +a horrible man, and I cannot always govern myself--I cannot! I will yet +torment you to death, my poor Natalie!" And he did not cease to caress +and to kiss her.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then she raised her head from his shoulder, and looking at him from +eyes still shining with tears, with a glance full of tender fanaticism +she said: "What does it matter, even if you kill me? it would still be +beautiful! I would change with no woman in God's world, do you hear, +with none! Think of what I have said to you to-day when one day you +give me a last kiss in my coffin!"</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky could no longer get back into the old ways at home; however much +he tried, he could not. As in the former year, only more significantly, +more tormentingly, the feeling of growing discontent made itself felt +in him. It seemed to him as if he could not remain for any length of +time on the same spot; as if he must incessantly seek something which +was no longer anywhere to be found.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a couple of days he ill-humoredly stayed away from the castle, but +when his brother-in-law paid him a visit and repeated the invitation of +Barbara Alexandrovna in the most polite manner,--when one day, all the +ladies staying at the castle as guests had come out in a body to give +him an ovation and especially when he had become immeasurably weary of +the poetic monotony of life in the Hermitage; he replied to Natalie, +when she once asked him smilingly, with the intention of freeing him +from his own constraining obstinacy, whether he thought it was really +worth the trouble to longer play the bear: "No!"</p> + +<p class="normal">From that time, he passed every evening in the castle.</p> + +<p class="normal">At first Natalie had been glad that the social intercourse there +offered him a distraction. But soon the evenings in "Les Ormes" became +a torment to her. The hateful change which had taken place in him +during his long absence from his family, that change which Natalie had +predicted, and by which she yet had been frightened at his return, as +by something quite unexpected, never became more significant than +during these evenings at the castle.</p> + +<p class="normal">If, during the first years of his marriage, through the lovely +influence of his young wife, and especially through the wish to +satisfy, to please her in everything, he had learned with quite +incredible rapidity to follow the usual social customs of the country, +and no longer to bear himself in the world as a genius, but as any +other cultivated, well-bred man, he had completely forgotten it during +his vagabond life, or rather it had become wearisome to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">More than ever, his circle of action in a drawing-room limited itself +to producing music and then being raved over by ladies. The incessant +self-bewilderment in this smoke of incense how, where and whenever it +might be, had become a necessity of existence for him. Everything in +him had gone wild, even his art.</p> + +<p class="normal">Together with a preference for perilous technical artifices, +challenging musical unrestraint of every kind showed itself. Oftener +than ever he fell into those mad moods in which he demanded things of +his poor violin which it could not perform, until it groaned and +screamed as if in the torments of hell, and if he had formerly +complained that he could not govern himself, he now boasted of it. It +was his specialty, by which he was distinguished from all the virtuosos +of his time. And, in spite of all the underlying lack of restraint and +the impurity, that the sense-enslaving glow of his art now unfolded +stronger than before, there could be no doubt. Especially over the +feminine portion of his listeners his playing exercised a quite +degrading charm. The triumphs which he achieved in "Les Ormes" proved +this.</p> + +<p class="normal">He profited by the situation. Although it would have been tiresome to +him to have passed a whole evening among these people of the world, far +removed from all his most intimate interests of life, without playing, +he sometimes let himself be urged almost to lack of taste before he +took up his violin. It happened once that he waited until a +particularly crazy enthusiast presented, kneeling, his violin to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">One of the musical ladies present sat down to the piano to accompany +him; the others grouped themselves as near as possible round him, while +they anxiously tried to express by their positions a kind of dying-away +charm. He felt the longing glances of their eyes resting on him while +he played. He saw the beautiful heads bent forward. It went to his head +like a stunning oppression; he no longer knew himself. But they no +longer knew themselves. If in the bearing of the great ladies who +frequented his house in ----, in spite of all their enthusiasm for his +art, there had still been a trace of patronage with reference to the +artist, many of these beauties now fawned upon him like slaves who +would sue for his favor.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he had finished, no one of them knew by what special insanity she +should over-trump the others, in order to prove to him her enthusiasm. +And while the music-bewitched women crowded around him, to beg +autographs or locks of hair from him, and carefully picked out the +remains of his thrown-away cigarettes from the ash receiver, in order +to keep them as relics, the Jeliagin told some new guest, in an +adjoining room, the "romance of her sister," which she always concluded +with the words: "My poor sister; so courted as she was! You know that +she refused Prince Truhetzkoi. We were inconsolable when we heard of +her betrothal with Lensky. He is really a great genius!" And then she +sighed.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Natalie stood on the terrace which opened out of the music-room, +quite alone. She was happy if she could remain alone; if no one came up +to her to ask if she had a headache, or if anything else was the +matter. Was anything the matter with her? No one could feel what she +suffered, and there was also no human consolation which she would not +have felt as an insult, however tenderly it was offered to her.</p> + +<p class="normal">What were the little pin pricks which had excited her impatience +in ---- to this pain!</p> + +<p class="normal">Around her was the summer night, sultry and still. The black shadows of +the trees stretched themselves in the moonlight over the gray-green +turf on which not a single dew-drop sparkled.</p> + +<p class="normal">Out into the stillness of the night sounded a loud, harsh laugh. +Natalie looked through one of the flower-encircled windows into the +drawing-room. There sat Lensky in a circle of ladies.</p> + +<p class="normal">Heated by his wearying performance, he wiped the perspiration from his +temples, from his neck. He was relating something that Natalie could +not hear distinctly, but which evidently seemed very droll to him, and +which convulsed his listeners; they exhibited a kind of comically +exaggerated irritation. An embarrassed smile appeared on his lips, he +seized the hand of the lady who sat nearest to him, played with it +appeasingly, and drew it to his lips. This was his manner of making his +apologies if he had said something too racy.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie stepped back in the shadow. A desperation, which was mingled +with aversion, lay hold of her. Then, hollow, paining, quenching all +the pleasure of life, quite like a physical discomfort, something crept +over her which she would not explain to herself, which at no price +would she have called by its name--jealousy.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The whole mud of his inner nature was stirred up as a stream highly +swollen and unsettled after a wild storm, raving and foaming, tumbles +in its bed, and can no longer find peace and rest therein.</p> + +<p class="normal">From time to time he invited guests from Paris; sometimes they came +uninvited. They usually remained to luncheon only, but Natalie had +always time enough to be alarmed at them and to wish them away. They +were no longer artistic celebrities like those whom Natalie had charmed +to the "Hermitage" the year before; no, Lensky had reached that point +in his career when an artist only tolerates courtiers and court fools +about himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">What a motley rabble that sometimes was which assembled around +him--artistic Bohemians, freed from all social and moral restraint!</p> + +<p class="normal">The men usually remained to luncheon. Natalie did her utmost to conceal +the repulsion which the bearing and manner of expression of the throng +caused her, even from her husband. But sharp-sighted as he was he +guessed her feelings.</p> + +<p class="normal">At first he tried to spare her; to keep the conversation in suitable +bounds as long as she was present. But one day it became too tiresome +for him. Whether the wine had gone to his head, or whether some secret +vexation irritated him, in any case he felt the need of breaking his +conventional shackles. Scarcely had he given the sign for excessive +freedom of speech, when the other men followed his lead. They laughed, +jested with Natalie and about her, without the slightest consideration +for her, as men heated by wine do when they are together--Lensky by far +the worst among them all.</p> + +<p class="normal">From time to time he looked at Natalie challengingly and angrily. Why +was she so prudish? Why was she so affected? It was laughable in a +married woman of her age--was nothing but foolishness and affectation.</p> + +<p class="normal">At dessert she could bear it no longer; she left the table and locked +herself in her room.</p> + +<p class="normal">A kind of illness had come over her; she was near a swoon.</p> + +<p class="normal">How painful the recollection of his roughness was to him later she knew +nothing of. He was much too proud to let it be noticed. On the +contrary, when he was with her again he acted as if he had a humor of +hers to pardon.</p> + +<p class="normal">From that time Natalie no longer appeared at these lunches. But in the +distance she heard the rattling of glasses, the laughter.</p> + +<p class="normal">She stopped her ears and bit her teeth into her lips.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">With all this he became daily more out of temper and discontented.</p> + +<p class="normal">At first his drawing-room triumphs in "Les Ormes" had amused him; +gradually he lost the taste for them, found everything empty childish. +His position in the midst of this exclusive worldliness vexed him. +While the women threw themselves at his head, he noticed a smile on the +lips of the men which offended him. If, even at the beginning of his +career, he had felt quite <i>à son aise</i> with the ladies of the +aristocracy, he never, on the contrary, to the end of his life, learned +to live in harmony with the men of that rank. Their treatment of him +always remained objectionable to him. True, they always met him with +the greatest politeness, but they never treated him as their equal, and +were always a trifle too polite to him. If he entered the smoking-room +while they, with hands in their pockets and cigars between their teeth, +confidentially talked of politics, race-horses or ladies, the +conversation immediately took a more earnest tone. As soon as he opened +his mouth the others all listened in solemn silence; then one of them +would leave the group, take him apart from the others, and try to talk +of music with him. He embarrassed them and they embarrassed him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Formerly, he had taken such things quite philosophically, but his +sensitiveness had increased in recent times. In the long months which +he had passed, going from city to city, winning triumphs and absolute, +surrounded only by artists of the second and third class, he had +gradually begun to feel himself the central point of the world. But +here, in spite of the insane homage of the ladies, he very soon saw +what a small <i>rôle</i> he really played on the world's stage, although he +could give pleasure to so many by his art.</p> + +<p class="normal">He could still tolerate the Russians, but sometimes strange diplomats +came to the castle. The condescending flattery of these gentlemen was +unbearable to him. What was he really in the eyes of these empty heads? +he asked himself; an acrobat of the better sort, a man who existed +merely for their accursed amusement. As if music were not the most +beautiful of all arts, an art ten times holier, more God-like than the +political, bungling work of these diplomats! "Art is the most enduring +in the world. I am the only immortal among you all!" he said to +himself. But then came the question: "Yes; am I then immortal? What +have I accomplished up to this time to deserve artistic immortality?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He only felt really happy on the days when all the men were occupied in +hunting, and he and a handsome Spanish painter with a wooden leg were +the only men in a circle of ten or twelve ladies, although, in his +heart, the unmanliness of his position struck him bitterly enough.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The most charming of his admirers in "Les Ormes," the one who had +decidedly taken the first place in his favor, was the Countess Marinia +Löwenskiold. As already mentioned, she was a Pole, and married to a +northern diplomat, from whom she lived separated, <i>à l'aimable</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">Naturally, she was an idealist, as almost all women are who have +departed from the usual course in life. In addition, she was very +musical. What was most piquant about her was the fact that, in spite of +the separation from her husband, whom, besides, no one could bear, and +in spite of her perilous coquetries, no one could say anything against +her which could seriously injure her reputation.</p> + +<p class="normal">Perhaps it was just this, her former haughty blamelessness, which +attracted Lensky to her. She was very beautiful, she pleased him; and +then--why did they say that this little Pole was invincible? He would +see!</p> + +<p class="normal">Among the guests in the castle was Count Leon Pachotin. Touchingly +faithful to his old enthusiasm, he busied himself by singling out the +wife of the virtuoso on every possible occasion, with the most +exaggerated homage and attentions. He was still a very handsome man, +was rich, had changed his military career, as is quite customary with +young cavaliers, for that of diplomacy, in all appearances bid fair to +reach the highest honors, and--was still unmarried. It was +indescribably bitter to Natalie to play the humiliating <i>rôle</i> which +had fallen to her in life, so near to him. Sometimes she felt his kind +blue eyes resting upon her in sad compassion. Then the proud blood +boiled within her. She collected herself in order that nothing might be +noticed, and was again, so truly the charming, seductive, +unapproachable Natalie Assanow of former days.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">On a sultry evening, toward the middle of August, the company in the +castle was unusually brilliant and numerous. The men and women sat in +groups here and there in an immense pavilion--in which, by means of +screens and thickets of flowers, all kinds of confidential nooks were +formed--talked, laughed, coquetted, and sipped the refreshments which +tall servants with solemn bearing and brilliant liveries presented.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie had the consciousness this evening of looking particularly +beautiful. Pechotin scarcely left her side. She observed that the +count's manner to her irritated Lensky, that he looked over to her more +than once uneasily, and she was glad and doubled her lovability to +Pachotin.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then she noticed that Boris had left the pavilion. With instinctive +jealousy her eyes sought Countess Löwenskiold. She also was missing. +Natalie's blood throbbed in every vein, she suddenly found Pachotin +intrusive and awkward, wished to do nothing more speedily than to get +rid of him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Please see if you can get me an ice, Count," she remarked. He rose +obligingly. Scarcely had he left her when she stepped out from the +pavilion on the terrace.</p> + +<p class="normal">There was no one there, but out in the park, not very far, no further +than a lady should permit herself to wander in the garden on a +beautiful summer night in the company of a gentleman, she discovered +two figures--he and she. A quite irresistible impulse drove her to +follow them, to interrupt their conversation in some manner. Already +she had taken a step forward, then, blushing for herself, she remained +standing. Had it already gone so far with her that she should show +herself capable of a degrading, pitiful act! She stood as if rooted to +the ground. The pair in the park, yonder, also remained standing. She +saw how Lensky stamped his foot, and threw back his brown head. She +knew this despotic, violent movement. Then it seemed to her that she +heard the words: "<i>pas de sens commun--enfantillages!</i>" Her heart beat +violently, she turned away and reëntered the room. Soon after, Lensky +joined the other guests, so did the Countess Löwenskiold. It did not +escape Natalie that the latter entered the room by another door from +him. The Polish woman was deathly pale, and her lips burned with fever. +In Lensky's manner, on the contrary, not a trace of excitement betrayed +itself; he was even more lovable than usual, and polite to all the +ladies, and without being specially urged, took up his violin.</p> + +<p class="normal">While he played, he turned away from the Löwenskiold, and he charmed +such tones from his Amati that evening, tones of such touching, painful +sweetness, that the most earnest men present, with the women, bowed +before his art.</p> + +<p class="normal">While he played, the nervous countess was seized with a fit of weeping, +and left the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">A little later, Natalie and Lensky walked home together through the +park. The way which they took was enclosed on both sides by thick +bushes, which almost met over their heads in a transparent arch. The +moonbeams slid through the branches, and the shadows of the leaves +spread themselves out like ghostly lace-work over the yellow gravel. An +oppressive sultriness, the breathless, sticky sultriness of the old +heat of the day, which remained hanging in the thicket, made breathing +difficult.</p> + +<p class="normal">Neither of them spoke a word. But while she, holding her head very high +in the air, looked straight before her, his glance rested ever more +frequently on her. In accordance with the custom which ruled in the +castle, she wore evening dress, and, on account of the heat, had let +the white, gold-embroidered burnous slip down a little from her bare +shoulders. The moonlight shone on her neck. She held her little head +somewhat averted. In vain he tried to look in her eyes; he only saw the +outline of her cheek, her chin, and neck; but how charming all that +was! Never before, since his return, had she pleased him so. It really +was worth the pains to only look at another woman near this one. Giving +way to a sudden excitement, mingled with remorse, he drew her to him +and pressed his lips to her shoulder. But she escaped his embrace, not +without a certain correcting roughness. His arms fell loosely at his +sides, but he could not remove his gaze from her. How high she held her +head, what annihilating arrogance her little mouth expressed! In his +mind he saw Pachotin bent over her chair, humbly intent on the +slightest sign of her favor.</p> + +<p class="normal">Who knows? perhaps she regrets, thought he to himself, and a furious +rage gnawed at his heart.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">About three days after this scene--three days, during which Natalie and +Lensky had lived together in mutual wrath, without speaking a word to +each other, Lensky told his wife he must to-day go to Paris, in order +to arrange with Flaxland the publication of one of his works; at the +same time he wished to make use of the opportunity to see and hear +Gounod's new opera. He could, therefore, only come home the next day on +the five o'clock train. He said all that in a very grumbling tone, did +not give her a kiss for farewell, and immediately went to the railroad.</p> + +<p class="normal">She fancied him already far away, when he returned again. "Have you +forgotten anything?" she asked him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes; namely, I would like to know if you perhaps have anything to be +done in Paris--and then--if you wish, you can come with me; we will go +to the opera together. I will wait, as far as I am concerned, for the +next train, so that there will be time enough for you to make ready."</p> + +<p class="normal">If he had only said that pleasantly, but he said it roughly, +disagreeably, as if it did not concern him at all. He had offended +Natalie too much recently for her to agree with his first attempt at +reconciliation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I thank you very much," she replied coldly; "you will amuse yourself +much better without me."</p> + +<p class="normal">For one moment he hesitated; then he shrugged his shoulders and went.</p> + +<p class="normal">Scarcely had he gone when Natalie was overcome with remorse for her +stubbornness and obstinacy.</p> + +<p class="normal">Truly it was unwise and hateful not to come to meet him, if he, proud +as he was, took the first step. She could have cried from anger with +herself. A true child, as in the bottom of her heart she still was, she +could not cease to think of the pleasure which she so petulantly had +renounced. How charming it would have been to pass a whole day alone +with him in Paris. To dine in the Café Anglais, very quickly and quite +early, so as not to miss the opera, but still very excellently; she +even made out the <i>menu</i>--ah! she knew all his favorite dishes so well; +then the next day they would have bought all kinds of useless, pretty +things together. She knew, from former years, how good-naturedly and +patiently he would let himself be dragged in the great bazaars. She +would have bought Kolia playthings and baby an embroidered dress--she +saw the little dress before her--and instead of all that--ah, how +vexatious!</p> + +<p class="normal">The hours dragged slowly; she scarcely put her foot out of the house. +She also remained at home in the evening; the castle had really no +power of attraction for her. When Kolia took the place opposite her at +dinner, and unfolded his napkin with an important air, he remarked: +"See, mamma, now it is just like the day after papa had gone away to +America, only you are not so sad, because you know that he is coming +back soon."</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie smiled at the child. After awhile Kolia began anew:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mamma, shall we go to meet papa tomorrow?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She nodded.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kolia rested his little head thoughtfully on his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wonder if he will miss the train again?" said he.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">In accordance with a loving agreement, Natalie had formerly been the +only one who possessed the right to move anything in Lensky's sanctum, +and to remove the dust from his writing-table. With devoted punctuality +she had always performed this task. Only very recently had she been +untrue to this dear custom. But this time he should observe, as soon as +he returned, that she had busied herself for him during his absence.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was in an optimistic frame of mind. She would no longer be angry +with him because he of late had caused her so many bitter hours. He +himself had not been happy. He was not yet really acclimatized at home. +She had known that she must first win him back again after his long +absence. Why had she from exaggerated pride so soon crossed arms? To +remember the low expressions which he sometimes now made use of, and +especially in company with the motley crowd that came over to him from +Paris, this really sent the blood to her cheeks--but still he had +scarcely known what he said. She had needlessly irritated him by her +childish prudery; one must take these great natures, always inclined to +exaggeration, as they were, and not make them obstinate by quite +uselessly checking and restraining them.</p> + +<p class="normal">Only at the thought of the Countess Löwenskiold an unpleasant shudder +ran over her. And suddenly the thought flashed through her: "What does +he really wish in Paris?" But almost laughingly she answered herself: +"As if he could wish anything evil when he asked me to accompany him!"</p> + +<p class="normal">After she had carefully and daintily set everything to rights on the +writing-table, she went down in the garden to cut for it the most +beautiful roses which she could find.</p> + +<p class="normal">Softly humming one of the songs which he had dedicated to her as bride, +she carried the flowers, tastefully arranged in a vase, into his room, +and placed them on his writing-table. There she discovered in a brass +ash receiver a half-burned paper which had formerly escaped her. She +looked at the paper to see whether she might throw it away. Her heart +stood still. She read the words written in French: "O thou my creator, +my redeemer--my ruiner--broken--Paris." The rest of the lines were +burned.</p> + +<p class="normal">She could scarcely stand. From whom were these lines? was not that the +writing of Countess Löwenskiold? No, no, it was not possible--he asked +me to accompany him. Yes, he asked me to accompany him. She repeated it +ten times, a hundred times, in order to shake off from herself the +conviction that began so pitilessly to weigh down upon her. She could +not believe such a thing, she would not. Countess Löwenskiold had +certainly not left "Les Ormes"!</p> + +<p class="normal">But, however she fights with her distrust, she cannot overcome it. A +thousand little particulars occur to her.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sun shines down hot and full from the sapphire-blue heaven. Natalie +does not trouble herself about that; straight through the park she +hurries, without parasol, without hat, over to the castle. She will +inform herself with as little risk as possible. There is no one at +home; the ladies have not yet returned from a walk. What a shame! "<i>La +princesse regrettera beaucoup</i>," remarked the <i>maître d'hôtel</i>, who had +received her in the entrance-hall. "Perhaps madame will remain to +lunch; they will lay a place for madame."</p> + +<p class="normal">He is an old acquaintance, a servant whom Natalie has known for years. +"Oh, no; I cannot stay; I only wished to inquire after the health of +the Countess Löwenskiold; she has looked so miserable of late," +murmured she.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Madame la Comtesse Löwenskiold?" says the man, astonished. "Ah! she is +no longer here. The poor countess left day before yesterday evening, +quite unexpectedly. It occurred to me that she looked very badly. Did +madame also notice it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">What she stammered in answer to his question she does not know. A few +minutes later she hurries homeward again through the park, hatless, +parasolless. The sun still beams down full and golden upon the earth +from the sapphire sky. She does not feel the burning of the sun, and +does not see that the sky is blue. For her the sun is dead and the sky +black. It seems to her that it sinks slowly down upon her, heavy and +breath-robbing, like a sultry, bruising weight.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He wished to take me with him," she still repeats, as if the words +held consolation; "yes, he wished to take me with him." Then she +remembers the embarrassed, uneasy expression which his face wore when +he returned at the last minute to ask her to accompany him. Evidently +he had had a fit of remorse.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I could have prevented it," she murmured, with hollow voice. Then she +shook in her whole body with rage and horror.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">About this time, gloomily looking before him, Lensky went through the +Rue de la Paix. He did not know why he went along this street rather +than another. It was quite indifferent to him where he was; he only +wished to kill time. A furious anger with himself shook him; at the +same time disgust tormented him. It was always the same; one woman was +just like the others. The only one who was different was his own wife; +and he--well, he had taken the first slight opportunity to insult her.</p> + +<p class="normal">He came by the hotel in which he had lived with her the former year. He +hastened his steps. From a jeweller's shop the most wonderful jewels +sparkled at him. He entered. He would take something to Natalie; would +give her a little pleasure. He purchased a pretty pin set with +emeralds. She had a preference for emeralds. Scarcely had he left the +shop when it seemed to him that the little case in his pocket weighed +upon him, pulled him down to the ground. How had he dared venture to +offer her a gift in this moment! He took the little case and threw it +on the ground--trod on it, once, twice, raging, beside himself. So! +that did him good. He must vent his wrath in some way.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">When he returned home about five o'clock, he was calmer. What had +happened could not be changed, it was now only worth while not to ruin +the future. It disquieted him that Natalie did not meet him, but after +all, he was not very astonished. She still felt a little vexed with +him. He would soon make an end of that. He asked where she was. "In her +room," they told him. But what was that? Everything was upturned, +chests stood open, on chairs and tables lay piles of linen, clothes, as +before a departure. He did not yet understand, but still he noticed +that she started violently at his entrance, without looking around at +him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What are you doing, Natalie? Are you preparing for departure?" asked +he.</p> + +<p class="normal">"As you see," replied she shortly, and continued her strange +occupation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is a good idea," said he. "I already myself wished to make the +proposition to you to move away from here. But how did you really come +to think of it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Instead of any answer, she merely shrugged her shoulders. A short pause +followed.</p> + +<p class="normal">He stepped somewhat nearer to her. "Natalie," said he, earnestly, +warmly and gently, with his old, dear voice, the voice which always +went so deep to her heart, and which she now heard again for the first +time since his return from America, "Natalie, do you not think that we +would do better to make peace with each other?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He wished to put his arm round her, but she repulsed him. In so doing, +for the first time she turned her face to him. With horror he perceived +how miserable she looked.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her lips were pale, her features sharpened like a dead person's. For +one moment she still restrained herself, her eyes sought his. An +unrest, a hope fevered in her. "Perhaps I have in vain martyred and +tormented myself," she said to herself. "He certainly could not speak +so to me, if----"</p> + +<p class="normal">With trembling hand she opened a little box, and took out the +half-singed letter which she had not been able to overcome herself from +carrying about with her. She handed Lensky the letter.</p> + +<p class="normal">He changed color. "What accident has played this silly note into your +hands?" he burst out.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No matter about that," she replied dully, and with that she tottered +so that she must catch hold of a chair so as not to fall. "Were you--in +company--with the Löwenskiold--in Paris--or--not?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Why could he not lie? He remained silent.</p> + +<p class="normal">Once more she looked at him, despairingly and supplicatingly. He turned +away his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">She gave a gasping cry, pushed back the hair from her temples with both +hands, and sank in a chair. Then she pointed with her pale, trembling +hand to the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky did not move.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Go!" said she, severely; and her hand no longer trembled, and her +gesture was more imperious, more proud.</p> + +<p class="normal">Instead of obeying her command, he sank down at her feet and covered +the hem of her dress with kisses. "I have sinned against you," he said; +"yes, but if you knew how furious I am with myself, and how little my +heart was concerned in the affair, you would pardon me. You will not +certainly be jealous of something that is quite beneath one's notice; +one does not always think immediately what one is doing." He shrugged +his shoulders impatiently. "For this reason you are still the only +woman in the world for me. Really, my angel, it is not worth the pains +that you should torment yourself!" He took her hand in his.</p> + +<p class="normal">But she started back from his touch. "Leave me!" said she, violently. +"All is at an end between us--go!"</p> + +<p class="normal">For the first time he comprehended the gravity of the situation. "All +at an end--" he murmured, while he rose. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That I will no longer bear to be under the same roof with you; that I +will go back to my mother; that I insist upon a separation--that is +what I mean. Did you, then, expect anything different?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He clutched his forehead. "A separation! but that is impossible!" he +gasped. "A separation--the children!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She started. "Yes--the children!" murmured she, dully, inconsolably; +"the children!" And with a bitter smile she looked down on her +preparations for the journey, on the trunks, the effects lying about.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he once more stepped up to her. "You see that the bond between us +can never more be broken," said he, gently. "You cannot go!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No!" said she harshly. "No, I cannot go--not even that consolation +remains to me. As the mother of your children I must remain under your +roof. But in everything else between me and you all is at an end. Go!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He went.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">He betook himself to his study. Scarcely had he entered here when a +peculiar feeling of mingled emotion and anxiety came over him. He +noticed that she had been here, noticed that she had everywhere removed +the dust; that she had arranged his of late neglected writing-table, +and how understandingly, with what loving consideration of all his +whims! He noticed the vase with fresh roses. Evidently she had busied +herself for him during his absence. She had wished to be reconciled to +him, and while she troubled herself for him she must have found the +note somewhere in this room. "It is all over," he told himself; "but +that is really not possible. It is jealousy that speaks from her; that +will pass away." Jealousy! Yes, if it had really only been jealousy, +but that which he had read in her features was something else--almost a +kind of loathing. What, then, had he done? He had left a distinguished +young woman, beautiful as a picture, alone for eight months, and when +he returned, instead of recompensing her for her long, sad loneliness +by loving consideration, he had daily, before her eyes, let himself be +raved over by other women, and at last----</p> + +<p class="normal">"She despises me, and she is right!" he murmured to himself. "If she +had borne this also, she would have been pitiable, and I must have +despised her like the others--she, my proud, splendid Natalie!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He sat at his writing-table, and rested his head in his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">The twilight shadows spread over the floor, and slid down from the +ceiling, and made the corners of the room invisible, and obliterated +the outlines of the furniture. The colors died; only the white roses +shone in a ghostly manner in the half light.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then the door opened; the servant announced that dinner was served.</p> + +<p class="normal">It seemed strange to him that he should go to the table to-day as any +other day; it was not possible for him to eat anything, but he was +ashamed to cause talk among the servants, and so he went into the +dining-room. "Will she be there?" he asked himself. How could he have +even fancied such a thing? Naturally she was missing. Only Kolia was +there, and stood expectantly near the silver soup tureen, which shone +on the table. In their little family circle, Lensky always himself +served the soup. Kolia had raised himself on tiptoes, and with one +slender finger had pushed the cover of the dish somewhat to one side. +He stretched his little nose eagerly forward, and slowly inhaled the +rising odor, while with a deliciously old, wise connoisseur expression +he drew down his nostrils and closed his eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I see already, it is crab soup--my favorite soup, papa!" he remarked, +and then with agility he climbed up on the chair, which, on account of +his still insufficient stature, was prepared with a cushion for him.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was certainly only a quite trivial little affair, and yet it stabbed +Lensky to the heart.</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Potage au bisque</i> was also his favorite soup. He stared at Natalie's +place, which remained vacant.</p> + +<p class="normal">A great embarrassment mingled with his pain. He sent the servant, busy +at the side-board, out of the room on some pretext.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mother is not coming?" he turned to the boy, who had already begun to +eat his soup.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No; mamma has a headache. Poor mamma!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you wish to be a very clever boy, Kolia?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, papa!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then take this bowl of soup to your mother. Do not spill it; perhaps +mamma will take a few drops."</p> + +<p class="normal">With an important face Kolia undertook his errand. Lensky opened the +door of the dining-room for him, and looked after him while he tripped +along the green-carpeted, dimly-lighted corridor. How pretty and +pleasing all that was! The lamps, which stood out from old-fashioned +inlaid plates of polished copper, the stags' antlers on the brown +wainscoting. And he had not felt happy at home!</p> + +<p class="normal">Then Kolia came springing back. "I left the soup there," he told his +father, who had remained listening and spying in the doorway, "but +mamma did not wish to eat it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is mamma doing?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is holding little sister on her lap."</p> + +<p class="normal">In the course of the meal, and when he noticed that his father's plate +continually remained empty, Kolia also lost his appetite. At first, in +the most caressing tones, he urged his father to eat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, papa, don't you see, you must help yourself to a little bit; it +is such a good dinner to-day. We made out the bill of fare, mamma and +I, early this morning at breakfast, and I remembered all your favorite +dishes which she had forgotten. She was so gay to-day, before she had a +headache, and she only got that headache because she ran through the +park to-day without any hat, in the noon sun. But eat something, papa."</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky still stared at Natalie's empty place.</p> + +<p class="normal">All at once he noticed an unusual commotion in the house; confused +talking together, quick running to and fro. He sprang up and went out +in the corridor.</p> + +<p class="normal">There he saw Natalie's maid, with disturbed face, and anxious, +over-hasty steps, coming out of her mistress' room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is the matter; is madame more ill?" he asked in sudden fright.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, monsieur, but the little girl is very ill; it came on quite +suddenly. Madame has told me to hurry over to Chancy for the doctor."</p> + +<p class="normal">For one moment he stood still; then he turned to the +sick-room--entered.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was no contagious illness. Kolia was not sent away from the house; +only they told him to keep very quiet, for which he was ready without +that, for the weight which oppressed the house was sufficient to +constrain the fresh animation of his elastic child-nature. Quite +cautiously he only occasionally crept up to the sick-room, opened the +door, whose knob he could scarcely reach with his little hand, and +whispered: "How is little sister now?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Yes, how was the little sister?</p> + +<p class="normal">It was an inflammation of the lungs which had attacked the little one. +The physician did not conceal from the parents what little hope there +was of recovery.</p> + +<p class="normal">Two days, three nights long, they both sat together near the cradle +in which the sick little girl lay; two days, three nights, in which +the tiny body restlessly threw itself here and there between the +lace-trimmed pillows, while the breath, interrupted by fierce and +tormenting fits of coughing, with difficulty gaspingly forced itself +out from the little breast. Sometimes Maschenka cried impatiently and +pulled at the coverings with her weak little hands, and then looked at +her parents with that hurt, reproachful look with which quite little +children desire relief from their parents.</p> + +<p class="normal">Why did not her parents help her--why must she suffer so?</p> + +<p class="normal">And Natalie, who formerly had been the tenderest mother in the whole +world, took this all wearily, almost indifferently, as a person whose +heart, benumbed by a great despair, is no longer susceptible to a new +pain. She scarcely worried herself over the endangered little life. +Yes! Maschenka would die, she told herself, the dear, charming +Maschenka, over whom she had always so rejoiced. She still heard her +cooing laughter like a distant echo in her remembrance. Yes, Maschenka +would die! Why should she not die? It was really better for her than to +grow up to feel such grief in the future as had burned and parched her +mother's heart. Yes, she would die, and then Natalie would lay her head +down on the little pillow, near the pale face of the child, and fall +asleep forever rest forget! When Maschenka was dead, Natalie had no +more duties!--Kolia?--Oh, Kolia would make his way in the world.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Maschenka did not wish to die: this world pleased her too well, she +did not wish to.</p> + +<p class="normal">The fever became higher; ever more impatiently the child threw herself +about in the cradle. On the evening of the third day the doctor, a +skilful, wise, conscientious family physician, whom Natalie had +frequently consulted for any little illness of the children, and who, +under the direction of a Parisian specialist, fought with death for +Maschenka's little life,--on the evening of the third day he said that +probably the crisis would occur in the night; he would come again at +six o'clock in the morning and look after it. He said that very sadly. +Lensky accompanied him out. When he came back in the sick-room, the +expression of his face was still sadder than before.</p> + +<p class="normal">The little one became still more restless--she would not stay in her +cradle. Incessantly she raised herself from the pillows, cried +pitifully, and stretched out her little arms. Natalie took the little +patient, warmly wrapped in coverings, on her lap, but the little one +would not stay there either. She felt that her mother was not just the +same to her as formerly. Quite angrily she turned away from her, and +stretched out her little hands to her father. Lensky took her in his +arms, wrapped the covering still closer round her tiny limbs, and with +a thousand tender words, coaxed her to rest. With what evident pleasure +the little body leaned against his breast!</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie's eyes rested on him. It had been just the same for two days. +He had cared for the child, not she. Only she now, for the first time, +took account of it. How tenderly he held the child! what touchingly +poetic words of love he whispered to it! Expressions, such as one finds +only in those songs in which the people complain of their pain! Just +such words had he formerly found for her--at that time--in those old +days, when he still loved her--and a stream of new, animating warmth +crept through her benumbed heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">She still watched him. Her eyelids became heavy.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly she started up, looked confusedly about her; she had been fast +asleep. What had happened meanwhile? The morning light already streamed +into the room; without the rain rattled against the window panes. When +had it begun to rain then? Where was Lensky? He stood near the window +and gazed out. How sad he looked, how pale!</p> + +<p class="normal">The child!--and with a feeling of immeasurably painful anxiety her +heart now fully awoke to new life. She had not the courage to look in +the cradle. Then Lensky turned to her. "The child!" murmured she.</p> + +<p class="normal">He laid his finger on his mouth. "She sleeps--" Then listening: "The +doctor comes."</p> + +<p class="normal">The physician entered. He bent over the cradle; the little patient +slept calmly and sweetly, her little fist against her cheek. Her little +face was very pale and sadly lengthened, but her brow was moist and a +peaceful expression was on her tiny mouth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is better," said the doctor, astonished and pleased. He scarcely +understood it. "The fever is gone, the crisis is past, and if there are +no quite unusual circumstances, the danger is over. A couple of +spoonfuls of strong broth when she wakes, and no more medicine. Adieu, +<i>à tantôt!</i>" and he left the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">The door had closed behind him, his steps resounded in the corridor. +Natalie rose; she did not know what she wished; to look at the child, +to fall on her knees, to pray! Then her eyes met Lensky's. She started, +stretched out her arms as if to repel a suddenly awakened pain--a swoon +overcame her--she sank down. He took her in his arms, carried her into +the adjoining room, and stretched her out on a couch. He opened the +window and let the spicy, rain-cooled morning air stream in. Then he +wet the temples of the unconscious woman with cologne and loosened her +dress. At that her only carelessly fastened-up hair loosed itself and +slid down in all its dark abundance over her shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">How wonderfully charming she looked in her pale, melancholy loveliness! +Involuntarily he approached his lips to her temples; then she opened +her eyes; a shudder shook her frame and she turned her face away from +him.</p> + +<p class="normal">It went through him from the top of his head to the sole of his foot. +He had forgotten, but now he remembered accurately. How dared he +approach this woman so confidentially!--she was no longer his wife. She +had only tolerated him near her as long as the child lay sick, really +only tolerated! With fearful bitterness he remembered how she had held +herself far from him, even near Maschenka's bed of pain. And now, when +the little one was well--why let himself be shown the door a second +time?</p> + +<p class="normal">"You need not be afraid, Natalie, I am going; I had only +forgotten--pardon!" With that he could not deny himself to take her +hand; he believed she would draw away her hand from him; no, she let it +lie quite passively in his. Now he wished to free it, but then, quite +softly, but ever firmer, her fingers closed round his. She herself held +him back. Rejoicing and sobbing he drew her to his breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">Scarcely a moment later he felt in his inmost heart quite strangely, +uncomprehendingly, a cold gnawing vexation.</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not understand that she could pardon so easily. He had not +expected that of her.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>FOURTH BOOK.</h2> +<br> +<div style="font-size:90%"> +<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Natalie</span>!--Owing to business affairs which will claim me still +longer, it will be impossible for me to come to Trouville before the +beginning of September. I am very sorry, but I hope and wish that you +will not, on this account, put off your journey to the sea-shore; you +know how you need the stay in the bracing air. I have engaged a +residence for you through Madame de C., and also had everything +arranged for your comfortable reception--a low châlet with a look-out +over the sea. I know how you love it,--the poor wild sea, that cannot +help it if it sometimes crushes a ship, and that finds no rest from +despair over the evil which it does and cannot prevent.</p> + +<p class="normal">You must not take any sea-baths; Dr. H. suitably impressed that upon me +in the spring. But in any case, wait until I come.</p> + +<p class="normal">From my great, clever boy I often receive long, pretty, regularly +written letters which please me very much. I will show them to you when +we are together again. The boy is romantic, through and through, which +touches me in these our present times, and also a little of a pedant, +which makes me impatient, but still, he is a dear, splendid fellow, and +that you must tell him from me.</p> + +<p class="normal">The little note, which I recently received from Maschenka, was +laughably comic, and sweet enough to eat. The little witch wrote me +quite secretly, without telling you anything about it. She confessed +all her naughtinesses to me very remorsefully and over hurriedly, from +anxiety that you might write something about them to me. Is she really +so naughty, and passionate, and wild? She is still charming in spite of +all, so thoroughly good-hearted and tender and generous, and withal so +incredibly gifted. I tell you her little note--it was adorned with +three ink spots, and I could not read a word of the writing--but still +it was a little poem.</p> + +<p class="normal">And how she loves you! Just as she is, I find her charming enough to +make one lose one's head over her; and I am very sorry that one must +cure her of her amusing little faults; they are so becoming to her. +That you must naturally not tell her from me, but give her a very warm +kiss from me on her full, defiant lips, of which you always assert that +they are like mine. Do not vex yourself too much over it,--rejoice in +our little gypsy as she is. And if you again worry over her inherited +good-for-nothingness, then look in her wonderfully beautiful, large +eyes, which she did not inherit from me. You will find your soul in +them--let that be your consolation. Farewell, my angel, spare yourself +really--really! Only do not think of saving at all on the journey. You +know that I cannot bear that. Think only of your comfort and of what a +joy it would be to me if, at our next meeting, I should find your poor +thin cheeks somewhat rounder than when I left you.</p> + +<p style="text-indent:50%">Your boundlessly devoted</p> + +<p style="text-indent:50%"><span class="sc">Boris</span>.</p> +</div> +<br> + +<p class="normal">It is in Berlin, in the Hôtel du Nord, nine years after the first +violent quarrel, the first passionate reconciliation with her husband, +that Natalie receives this letter.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had left St. Petersburg a few days before, in order, as by +agreement, to meet Lensky, whom she has not seen since the beginning of +March, in the German capital. It had been a great disappointment for +her that she had not found Boris in Berlin, but he has accustomed her +to disappointments.</p> + +<p class="normal">She reads the letter once more. It is a dear, good letter. Ah! Natalie +has received such dear, good, tender letters from all the large cities +in Europe and America--and knows----</p> + +<p class="normal">Not that Boris is deceiving her when he writes to her in this tender +tone. No, every trace of falseness is strange to him, his attachment to +her, his anxiety about her, are sincere--but----</p> + +<p class="normal">What use to grieve over it? These great geniuses are never different. +One must not judge them like other men! With this shallow commonplace, +with which she has so often put to sleep her inconsolable heart if it +sometimes wishes violently to rise up against its oppressive, +ignominious lot, she compels it to rest again to-day. It is easier now +than formerly; her poor heart has already accustomed itself to +grievances.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nine years have passed since that time in the pretty, cosey Hermitage +when she--forgave him too easily, and thereby lost her power over him +forever. She has known it a long time. Late in that following autumn a +great symphony by him was given in the "Gewandhaus," in Leipzig. The +work was beautiful, the success moderate, Lensky's discouragement +exaggerated, quite morbid. A few months later he took up his wanderer's +staff anew, and left Petersburg, where he had returned with his family, +in order to distract himself by the most exaggerated virtuoso triumphs +from the humiliation which had befallen the composer. Oftener, ever +oftener, he had then left wife and children, and now, in his own house, +he had long been only an indulged, distinguished guest.</p> + +<p class="normal">But in the time which he every year devoted to his wife, to his family, +he behaved in an exemplary fashion. He did everything that lay in his +power to make life bearable to Natalie--everything except to lay a +restraint upon himself; that he simply could not, and for that reason +he must leave home so often in order to vent his passion.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie's nature was broken. An unexpressed, numbing, blunting +conviction that this was the natural course of things, and that nothing +of all this could be changed, had overpowered her. As to what might +take place while he was away from her, of that she did not permit +herself to think.</p> + +<p class="normal">With his art matters had long gone downward, even more rapidly +than Natalie--who already after his return from America had been +startled by the exaggerations to which he had accustomed himself in his +playing--had deemed possible. At that time he had given the reins to +his temperament with assiduity in order to dazzle the public. Now--now, +he had long lost power over himself. And concerning his compositions! A +fearful pain contracted Natalie's heart if she thought how she had +formerly, in her tender enthusiasm, called him the last musical poet, +in opposition to the other great composers of modern times, whom at +that time she had described as--musical bunglers. She could no longer +remember the speech without blushing.</p> + +<p class="normal">The bunglers had all grown above his head. One scarcely spoke of his +compositions now, and the worst of it was--Natalie herself no longer +cared to hear them.</p> + +<p class="normal">Where was the sweet, sunny, charming element of his first little works? +Where the fiery earnestness, the penetrating, noble sound of pain in +his later works?</p> + +<p class="normal">Sleepy monotony, noisy emptiness were now the characteristics of his +musical creations. Certainly, here and there appeared melodies of +wonderful beauty; but who had the patience to seek out the lovely oases +in this sterile musical wilderness?</p> + +<p class="normal">Once, Natalie had hesitatingly made a remark to him about a new +composition. But he, who had formerly showed himself of such +unimpeachable gentleness toward her, had flown into a passion, and had +even for many days remained irritable. Since that time she said nothing +more, but let him have his way, as she let him have his way in +everything, only that she might not break the last thin thread which +still held them together.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">She had read the letter a third time. "Business affairs detain him," +she murmured to herself. "Business affairs! He writes from Leipzig; why +does he not ask me to come to him?" She shrugged her shoulders--what +good to think of it?</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly her cheeks burned, her breath came short. She pours out a +glass of water, throws a couple of bits of ice from a porcelain bowl in +it, and drinks thirstily. "Such great geniuses are never different," +she says to herself again. She begins to walk up and down in the room +uneasily. At last she goes to the window and looks out.</p> + +<p class="normal">A great weariness lay over everything. The lindens slept, wrapped in +white dust; the stony heroes at their feet looked morose and weary, as +if they were satiated with letting themselves parch on their pedestals. +They throw pitch-black shadows over the sun-burned road. A black poodle +lies at the foot of one of the memorials, on its back, and does its +utmost to pull off the muzzle on its nose. The people are weary and +pale, and crowd into the shadow wherever they can. Everything flees the +sun. No one remembers another such hot, dry, oppressive summer. And +suddenly a strange longing for shade comes over Natalie; for some deep, +cool, shady place in which she can rest.</p> + +<p class="normal">The hollow, oppressive feeling about her heart has become more +significant, has taken, at length, the form of a piercing physical +pain. She lays her hand on her breast; the physicians have told her +that she should spare herself, should guard against every vehement +sensation, because her heart is affected. Suddenly she breaks out in +convulsive sobbing. Spare herself! Is it worth the trouble to spare +one's self; to exert one's self for the preservation of this poor life; +is it worth the trouble to bend down again and again in the mire for +the poor little bit of happiness that is thrown to one as an alms?</p> + +<p class="normal">Then the door opens; a charming little girl of about ten years, +large-eyed, gay, with wonderful curly hair hanging far down her back, +with very long black stockings and very short white dress, hops +in--Maschenka, who had been to walk with the maid. The first thing +which she discovers when she has scarcely greeted her mother and given +her a somewhat breathless and hurried account of the various +impressions she has formed on her walk, is Lensky's letter, which has +remained lying on the table. "Oh, from papa!" says she. "When is he +coming; to-morrow?" and her eyes shine.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He is not coming; we are going to Trouville without him," replies +Natalie, wearily.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Without him," repeats Maschenka; her sweet, large-eyed cherub's face +lengthens. "Oh!"--looking at Natalie attentively--"Did you cry over +that, mamma?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie says nothing, only turns her head away with a gesture of +displeasure.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He is coming after us?" asks Maschenka, embarrassed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He promises to," replies Natalie, with difficultly restrained +bitterness.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Poor mamma!" and Maschenka tenderly kisses the tears away from her +mother's cheek. "You must not cry, it is not good for you. You know +papa cannot bear to see you cry."</p> + +<p class="normal">It is quite inexplicable how nature has been able to bestow upon this +tender, childish, velvet-cheeked little being such a striking likeness +to the face stamped by time, weather, and life of the virtuoso. The +troubled, strangely deep look with which Maschenka regards her mother; +the tender and still defiant expression of her full lips; the manner of +drawing together her delicate brows, all that reminds one of her +father. But that in which her likeness to him is most strikingly +announced, is the bewitching heartiness of her manner, the flattering +insinuation of her caresses.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie observes her with quite fixed attention, then draws her to her +and kisses her passionately on both eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile there is a knock at the door. It is a waiter, who brings a +telegram from Petersburg. Natalie starts, her thoughts fly to her son +whom she has left behind them. But no the telegram has nothing to do +with Kolia. It is really not from Petersburg, but has only sought her +there, and has been sent after her to Berlin. She reads:</p> +<br> + +<p class="right"><span class="sc">Dresden, Hôtel Bellevue</span>, <i>August 4th</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">Can you not take the roundabout way through Dresden? We would be very +glad to see you.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="sc">Sergei</span>.</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Why should she not take the roundabout way through Dresden? Why should +she hasten to reach Trouville, the full, empty Trouville, where no one +will be glad to see her?</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Shortly after his reconciliation with his sister, Sergei had left St. +Petersburg, in order to follow his brilliant but exacting diplomatic +wandering career from one important but remote post to another, and now +he had at length been recalled to Petersburg, to fill a high position +at home. Natalie cherished the conviction that he suspected nothing of +the slow crumbling together of her happiness. How should he! Before +him, more than before all the others, she had concealed her great +inconsolableness. In the long letter which, by agreement, she wrote him +every month, she had always forced herself to take as gay as possible a +tone, and even if she was accustomed, in the description of her +"domestic happiness" to dwell at especial length on the lovability and +happy dispositions of both of her children, she yet had never failed to +mention the goodness of their father and his unwearied consideration +for her. "How he would triumph if he knew!" she said to herself, on the +platform in Dresden, while she uneasily looked round for her brother, +whom she had informed by telegram of the hour of her arrival. "If he +knew anything of it!" she said to herself, and at the mere thought, it +seemed to her that she would flee to the end of the world, rather than +bear the cold scrutinizing glance of his eye. Then a very slender man +in blameless English clothes came up to her, looked at her a moment +uncertainly, put up his eye-glass--"Natalie! it is really you!" and +evidently truly pleased to see her again he draws her hand to his lips. +And now she is also glad to see him, is pleased to be with her brother, +as she has never yet been glad since her betrothal to Lensky. He has +changed very much since that time in Rome when he had vainly sought to +destroy Natalie's illusions; but, as with all really distinguished men, +growing old was becoming to him. If his bearing is still proud, it has +yet lost much of its harsh, nervous, immature arrogance of that time. +His fine features are still sharper, but his glance has become softer, +more benevolent.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is your little girl?" says he, bending down to Maschenka, +pleasantly. "May one ask a kiss of such a large young lady?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The gay Maschenka, always bent upon the conquest of all hearts, hops up +to him with hearty readiness, and throws both her little arms round his +neck. "<i>Elle est charmante!</i>" whispers Sergei in a somewhat patronizing +tone to Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We find her very like the Maria Ægyptica of Ribera--your favorite +picture in the Dresden Gallery. Do you not remember it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Indeed!" The prince bends down a second time, wonderingly, to +Maschenka. Suddenly his face takes on a discontented expression. "She +chiefly resembles Lensky; I do not understand how that could escape +me!" says he, and his tone expresses decided displeasure.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And still if he knew!" thinks Natalie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Kolia looks like you," says she, hastily.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They have often written me that," says the prince. "Besides, they tell +me only good things of him; I shall be glad to see a great deal of him +in Petersburg. And now come, Natalie. I wished to have rooms in +Bellevue for you, but there were none to be had; not a mouse hole; all +engaged. We ourselves live at the extreme end of a corridor. So I have +taken a little apartment for you in the Hôtel du Saxe. It is a plain +house, but the nearest one to us, and you will not be there much. Send +your maid ahead with the luggage. I hope you will now come direct to +our rooms with me, you and the little one; my wife awaits you at +dinner."</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">And now Natalie has been in Dresden since many hours. The joy of the +meeting with her brother has fled, a great depression benumbs her whole +being. What a home! Sergei's wife, born a Countess Brok, who is two +years older than he, and whom he has married on account of the +influential position of her father, suffers with rheumatism, on which +account she fears a little bit of too warm sunshine as well as a slight +draught. The meal is taken in the drawing-room of the married pair, +instead of down on the gay, sunny terrace, as Sergei had ordered. After +the princess has welcomed Natalie, and has said something in praise of +Maschenka's beautiful hair, her remarks consist in commanding her +companion, a very homely little Frenchwoman, by turns to open or close +a window.</p> + +<p class="normal">After dinner the married couple quarrel over several immaterial +trifles, which momentarily interest no one; over the latest Russian +table of duties, and as to whether it is better to treat scarlet fever +with heat or with cold. Then Varvara Pavlovna busies herself in her +favorite occupation; that is to say, twisting paper flowers. Natalie +took part in this, but Maschenka, to whom they have confided an album +with views of Dresden for her entertainment, has uneasily crept about +the room, now reached after this and now that, has hopped around first +on the right, then on the left leg, until at last Natalie's maid +presents herself to ask her mistress if she has anything to command or +to be done, whereupon Natalie has commissioned her to take the little +one out for a walk, and then to take her to the Hôtel du Saxe.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then Sergei read something aloud from the newspaper; then tea was +brought.</p> + +<p class="normal">It is nine o'clock. Natalie rises, says that she is tired, and that she +would like to retire early to-night. Sergei asks: "Do you wish to +drive? Shall I send for a carriage? It would really be a shame! The +evening is lovely; if you go on foot, I will accompany you."</p> + +<p class="normal">They go on foot. "I do not know what fancy has seized me to loiter +about a little," she says in the passage, where Sergei has remained +standing to light a cigarette. "Would you have time?" she asks her +brother.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," replies he, "I am very willing to walk a little. Where do you +wish to go?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Anywhere, where it is quiet and pretty, and where one does not hear +this café chantant music." She points over the Elbe, where from out a +dazzlingly lighted enclosure, frivolous dance measures sound boldly and +obtrusively over the dreamy plash of the waves.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come in the fortress grounds," says Sergei, and gives her his arm. And +suddenly a kind of anxiety at being alone with him overcomes Natalie. +"Now he will question me," thinks she, and would like to tear her arm +away from him and--has not the courage to do it.</p> + +<p class="normal">They are quite alone in the court-yard, the world-renowned court-yard +of the fortress, with its enclosure of strange, carved, exaggerated, +and charming irregular architecture; only the sentinel continually goes +along the same path, up and down, and above, on the flat terrace roofs +of the fortress, a couple of friends are walking. One hears them laugh, +jest; yes, even kiss, standing in the court below. They may be lovers, +or some couple on their wedding tour.</p> + +<p class="normal">The lanterns burn red and sleepily in the transparent pale gray of the +summer half light, and the buttons of the sentinel shine dully; all +other light is extinguished in the world, but up in heaven the stars +slowly open their golden eyes. What is there down here to-day for them +to look at?</p> + +<p class="normal">A thunder-storm threatens, but one does not see it as yet, but only +hears its hollow voice growling in the distance.</p> + +<p class="normal">Slowly the brother and sister wander along the narrow way between the +old-fashioned, regularly laid-out flower-beds. The stony faces of +satyrs and fauns grin down upon them with triumphant cynicism. One can +still see their small eyes, slanting upward toward the temples, +distinctly in the dull, shadowless, clear twilight. The air is sultry +and close, and quite immoderately impregnated with the sad, penetrating +perfume of weary flowers which have been tormented by an over-hot +summer day.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you remember the last time that we walked around here together?" +remarked Sergei, at length breaking the silence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," says Natalie. "It was the year before our father's death. I was +not much older than Maschenka, and you had not completed your studies."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Quite right, I did not yet feel myself obliged to be ambitious, in +order to help raise our family from its sunken condition," said Sergei +very bitterly. "Father had taken me with him during my vacation, in +order to cultivate my æsthetic taste. Only think, Natalie, at that time +I wrote a poem on the Sistine Madonna! I! that is very laughable, is it +not?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You--a poem," says Natalie, astonished, and still absently; the affair +has in reality little interest for her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I--a poem!" repeats Sergei. "I--now at that time I was an +idealist, however improbable that may seem to you! Now, now I am a +machine, who still sometimes dreams of having been a man!" He laughs +harshly and forcedly, and is suddenly silent. After a while he begins +again: "Just look at the roses, Natascha," and he points to the slender +bushes which are almost broken under their weight of dried blossoms. +"Have you ever seen such an Ash Wednesday? Early this morning they were +still fresh! It is a pitiless summer."</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie lowers her head. "Now it is coming," she thinks. "Now it is +coming." But no, not what she has expected, but something different, +comes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did it ever occur to you," continues Sergei after a little while, "how +very much a tree struck by lightning resembles one killed by frost? In +the end it all tends in the same direction." He is silent. After a +while he says, looking her straight in the eyes: "Did you understand +me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I understand," murmurs she, tonelessly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hm! it was plain enough. You are dying of heat, I of cold!" says he, +and laughing slightly to himself, he adds: "Do you still remember how I +lectured you at that time in Rome?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Instead of any answer, she pulls her hand away from his arm. +Compassionately her brother looks at her through the gray veil of the +now fast-descending twilight. "Poor Natascha!" he says. "You surely do +not believe that I will return to my wisdom of that time--no! I will +make you a great confession!" His voice sounds hissingly close to her +ear. She feels his breath unpleasantly hot on her cheeks. "There are +moments when I envy you!" he whispers. "Bah! that one must say of one's +self: it is over, one is old, one will die, without once having been +deeply shaken by a true shudder of delight,--<i>sans avoir connu le grand +frisson</i>--it is horrible! I know what you have to bear, Natalie, and +still--yes, there are moments when I envy you!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who has then permitted himself to assert that I have anything to +bear?" Natalie bursts out.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who?" Sergei raises his eyebrows. "You surely do not fancy that it is +a secret?" says he. "Many wonder that you endure it; as it seems, he +exercises an incredible charm over all women!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Her eyes and his meet in the sultry half darkness. "What have they told +you?" asks Natalie, with difficulty.</p> + +<p class="normal">But then he replies with fearful emphasis: "You surely do not demand an +answer of me in earnest?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She breathes heavily. "It is not true!" says she. "They have lied to +you!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Thereupon he remains silent. The sultriness becomes ever more +oppressive. Heavy thunder-clouds creep slowly and threateningly over +the roof of the fortress and blot out the stars from the heavens.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie has turned away from her brother, and with uneasy haste she +hurries to the gate of the yard; he comes after her. "I am sorry to +have wounded you," he says. "I had not that intention."</p> + +<p class="normal">She answers nothing; silently she walks along near him. From time to +time he pulls her gently by the sleeve and says: "This is the way." The +stars are all extinguished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and close to +the ground sighs a heavy wind which cannot yet rise to a hurricane. +What is it in this depressing sound of nature which chases the blood +more rapidly through her veins?</p> + +<p class="normal">At the door of the great, many-storied hotel, Natalie wishes to take +leave of her brother. "I will accompany you to your room," says Sergei.</p> + +<p class="normal">Silently, she lets him remain near her. With bowed head she goes up the +broad staircase to the first landing; then something wakes her from her +brooding thoughts--the rustling of a woman's dress. She looks up--there +goes a man up the stairs to the second story with a heavily veiled +woman on his arm. She sees him for one moment only; then the shadow of +his profile passes quickly over the wall; she turns away her head. It +is he--she has recognized him! Silently and with doubled haste she +follows her brother's guidance. "Your room is No. 53," says he, and +turns the door-knob of a room. The lamp is lighted, everything cosily +prepared for her reception. "I will disturb you no longer," says +Sergei. His manner has become very stiff, his voice is icy cold, and +before he leaves the room his glance seeks a last time the eyes of his +sister.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">She is alone. Trembling in all her limbs, she has thrown herself down +on a sofa. The maid presents herself with the question whether her +mistress wishes to undress. Natalie signifies to her to go away, to +retire for the night to her room in an upper story. The maid goes, +happy to be released from her service, weary, sleepy. Natalie does not +think of sleeping. How should she think of it when she knows that here, +under the same roof, a few rooms distant from her-- It is horrible! It +seems to her that she is slowly suffocating in a close, oppressing +dread.</p> + +<p class="normal">The lamp burns brightly. As a maid of good form, Lisa has already +unpacked those little objects which luxurious women always carry about +with them, even on the shortest journey, in order to make a hotel +residence cosey. On the table lies Natalie's portfolio; her travelling +writing utensils stand near by; and near the ink-case two photographs +in pretty little leather frames the pictures of her husband and of her +son. Shuddering, she turns away. She pushes the hair back from her +temples. "Sergei recognized him also!" murmurs she to herself. "It was +impossible not to recognize him," whispers she, "and Sergei believes +that I will still bear this also. And why should he not believe it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">For years she has waded through the mire after a <i>fata morgana</i>, and +the world laughs, and points its fingers at her. What does she care +about the world, if she can only once shake off the feeling of +boundless degradation which drags her down to the ground? In a few days +he will come to her with loving glance, uneasily concerned about her, +with a thousand anxious, tender words, with open arms. And she--well, +she--she will rush into those arms, forgive and forget everything as +before. Ah!--she springs up.</p> + +<p class="normal">A few moments later she stands near the bed of her little daughter. The +child looks very lovely in her white night-gown, richly trimmed with +lace and embroidery. One of her hands rests under her cheek, the other +is hidden under the pillow. Formerly Natalie has come every night to +the bed of the child in order to kiss and bless her, still asleep. But +to-night her tortured heart is capable of no tender emotion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wake up!" she commands, in a harsh, strange voice. Maschenka starts +up, thereby involuntarily drawing her hand out from under the pillow, +and with the hand a little letter which she immediately tries to +conceal again from her mother. But Natalie tears it away from her. +"What have you to conceal from me?" she says to the little girl, +imperiously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have only written to papa!" replies Maschenka excusingly, tearfully. +"I wrote him that you are sad, and that he must come very soon because +we will be so glad--that was all."</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie tears the poor little letter apart in the middle. "Dress +yourself!" she orders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is there a fire?" asks Maschenka, frightened.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, but something has happened; we cannot stay in the hotel; do not +ask."</p> + +<p class="normal">Sleepy, but obedient, as a good child who has the most complete +confidence in her mother, Maschenka sets about putting on the clothes +daintily arranged on a chair near her little bed. Natalie helps her as +well as her fingers, trembling with fever, will permit her, then +wrapping head and shoulders in a lace scarf, she takes the child by the +hand and hurries down the stairs.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is the princess going out?" asks the porter, who has not the heart to +give the sister of Prince Assanow another title. "The weather is very +threatening; shall I send for a carriage?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie takes no notice of him, pushes by him like a strange, +inexplicable apparition.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The stars are all extinguished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and +close to the ground sighs a weary wind.</p> + +<p class="normal">What is it in this confused, depressing sound of nature which chases +the blood through her veins? In the midst of her excitement she hears +the chromatic succession of tones--her breath stops--it is that +inciting, musical poison, that now follows her with a longing +complaint, a strange, alluring call--Asbeïn.</p> + +<p class="normal">The wind rises, screams louder and more shrill, its sultry breath rages +so powerfully against Natalie that she can scarcely proceed. One, two +great water-drops splash in her face, then more. Pointed hailstones +prick her between them; all drive her back--back.</p> + +<p class="normal">Has not some one seized her by the dress? She looks round. No! she is +alone on the street with her child and the raging storm. Forward she +hastens, panting, breathless. The way to Bellevue is quite easy to +find--quite straight along the street. It grows darker and darker, the +rain falls in streams, the clothes hang ever heavier on her body, she +can scarcely lift her feet from the paving; it is as if all would drag +her down to the ground--all! Twice she loses her way, twice she +suddenly, as if attracted by an evil charm, stands before the Hôtel du +Saxe.</p> + +<p class="normal">Maschenka cries silently and bitterly to herself. There--this wall +ornamented with black lead, Natalie remembers, and here--the large mass +of formless shadow--is not that the Catholic church?</p> + +<p class="normal">A flash of lightning rends the darkness--Natalie sees the immense +stairs of the Brühl terrace, with its adornments of colossal gilded +statues; she sees the broad, black river flowing along, cool, alluring; +hastily she goes across the place, for one moment her eyes rest on the +stream--Maschenka pulls her by the arm with her tender little fingers, +and whispers: "I am afraid, mamma; I am afraid!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then Natalie turns away from the most alluring temptation that has ever +met her in life, and the water ripples behind her as if in anger that +they have torn away a sacrifice from it.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now they have reached the Hôtel Bellevue; the phlegmatic Hollander in +the porter's lodge looks after her in astonishment as she rushes past +him, stretches his powerful limbs, sticks his thumbs in the arm-holes +of his vest, closes his eyes, sleepily, and murmurs, "These Russian +women!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She finds the number of her brother's sitting-room. Light still shines +through the keyhole. She bursts open the door. Varvara Pavlovna is +still busy making flowers. Sergei sits bent over a railroad courier, +the eternal samovar stands on its small table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What has happened, Natalie, for God's sake?" says Varvara, as she +discovers Natalie's figure, dripping with water, her pale, staring +face, her burning eyes, and the little girl by her side. "What has +happened?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The brother does not ask.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I come to seek shelter with you," murmurs Natalie, breaking down, as +she sinks upon a sofa; then turning to Sergei, she with difficulty +gasps out: "You understand--I could not stay there--it--it is all +over!"</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Yes, it was all over--all. The bond between him and her was broken. He +was beside himself when he discovered what had taken place, begged for +a meeting, wrote her the tenderest letters. She left his letters +unanswered.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then a wild defiance overcame him. It angered him that she had placed +herself under her brother's protection--that brother, who from the +beginning had wished to sow discord between him and her. He also could +not be persuaded that the prince had not alone been the cause of the +separation.</p> + +<p class="normal">The circumstance that Natalie travelled in advance with her +sister-in-law to Baden-Baden, while Assanow remained in Dresden to +arrange with Lensky, strengthened him in his conviction.</p> + +<p class="normal">It did not come to a legal separation. Lensky was not the man to use +compulsion with a woman; if she did not wish to stay with him, he let +her go voluntarily. That she wished to keep the child with her was +understood of itself; he could see the child from time to time, for a +couple of weeks, on neutral ground. Nikolas, as one could not interrupt +him in his studies, quite naturally remained with his father in St. +Petersburg.</p> + +<p class="normal">"All that is understood of itself; why lose words over it?" thought +Lensky to himself, while he quite passively consented to all the +propositions of the diplomat.</p> + +<p class="normal">For what reason did the unendurable man remain sitting there and +tormenting him?</p> + +<p class="normal">Quite everything was wound up between them--it was afternoon, and the +brothers-in-law sat opposite each other at a long table strewn with +papers, in a large, gloomy room, with dark green damask hangings, in +the Hôtel du Saxe. A pause had occurred.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What does he still wish?" thought Lensky, and drummed unrestrainedly +on the top of the table, while at the same time he gave a significant +glance toward the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">Assanow coughed a couple of times; at last he began: "In conclusion, I +must touch upon a delicate point--the question of money. My sister +formally rejects all assistance on your part, Boris Nikolaivitch, and +wishes strictly to limit herself to live on her own income!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then Lensky flew into a rage: "And you have declared yourself agreed to +that?" he cried, to his brother-in-law.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I should have considered it undignified in my sister if she had wished +to act otherwise!" replied Assanow.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky clutched his temples with a gesture which was peculiar to him. +"Ah! leave me in peace with your pasteboard dignity," said he, +impatiently. "I cannot endure the word--a parade expression which means +nothing--live on her own income--my poor luxurious Natalie--but that is +madness, simply not possible! You are indeed her brother, but still you +do not know her. Such a tender, guarded hothouse plant as she is! Why, +she would die if she did not have what she needed."</p> + +<p class="normal">"With the best will, I would not be able to persuade her to take +anything from you," replied Sergei, earnestly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not?" Lensky struck his clenched fist on the table. "Listen, Sergei +Alexandrovitch, you are not only pitiless, you are also stupid. If she +will not take anything from me, deceive her a little, tell her that the +rents of her estate have increased, that you have sold building land +for her, or what do I know! With women that is so easy, especially with +her, poor soul!--who has never understood the difference in appearance +between ten rubles and a thousand--but force the money upon her, she +must have it! And hear me! if you do not so care for it that she takes +it, then I will make a scandal for you, and insist upon a legal +exposition!"</p> + +<p class="normal">For a moment Assanow was silent, then he said: "Good, I will arrange +it!" with that he rose and offered Lensky his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Lensky refused it. "Let that go! Between you and me there is no +friendship. After the 'service' which you have rendered me such +grimaces are repulsive."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are mistaken if you believe I would have persuaded Natalie to the +separation," assured the Prince. "Naturally, however, as a +conscientious man, I could not dissuade her therefrom."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Conscientious! Certainly, hangmen are always conscientious--that one +knows," murmured Lensky, and stamped his foot on the ground. "Well, you +will see what you have done! Meanwhile--go. I will not longer bear +it--go!"</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">When Assanow hereupon wrote Natalie in Baden that the affair was +arranged with Lensky, and the separation declared he added, at the same +time: "I feel myself obliged to say to you, that Lensky in this whole +affair has acted not only honorably, but really nobly."</p> + +<p class="normal">To his wife wrote Sergei at the same time: "I do not understand the +man!--<i>figurez-vous</i> that I myself for a moment, was <i>sous le charme</i>. +What a depth of nobility is in this prodigy! His is an enormous +nature!"</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">As long as the separation was still impending, as long as the +conferences still lasted, a kind of restless life fevered in Natalie; +she forced her being, naturally inclined to tender reliance and +dependence, to an independent strength of will, of which no one had +thought her capable.</p> + +<p class="normal">But when the last word was spoken, the separation at length validly +arranged, she fell into a condition of brooding sadness from which +nothing more could rouse her.</p> + +<p class="normal">For still three years she lived after the separation; three years, in +which every hour endlessly dragged itself along, and which flowed +together in the recollection into a single endless, cold, dull day; a +day in that northern zone where the sun, with far-extending, weak, +weary beams, tardily remains the whole twenty-four hours long, standing +on the horizon, and grudges the night its refreshing darkness and the +day its light.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her torment reached an exquisite culmination when Maschenka, who +idolized her father, and who, in her childish innocence, had no idea of +the state of affairs, in the beginning incessantly and anxiously asked +her mother little questions referring to the separation. Natalie gave +her no answer, frowned and turned away her head. And sometimes +Maschenka then became ungovernable and angry. Her little warm, loving +heart could not understand why they had taken away her idol.</p> + +<p class="normal">Once, Lensky asked for his daughter for two weeks. Maschenka, with her +English governess, was sent to Nice to her grandmother, where Lensky +daily visited her. When, loaded with presents, her heart full of sweet, +tender recollections, she came back again to Cannes, where Natalie had +meanwhile awaited her, with fearful obstinacy she insisted in relating +to Natalie endless things about the goodness and lovability of the +father, and especially how impressively and anxiously he had inquired +after mamma. Her full, deep little voice trembled resentfully thereby, +and an angry reproach darkened her large, clear child's eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a while Natalie was quite calm, then, without having replied a word +to the child, she stood up and left the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">Maschenka observed with astonishment how she tottered and hit against +the furniture like a blind person. Thereupon the child remained as if +rooted to the ground, with thoughtfully wrinkled brow, her little hands +glued to her sides, standing, staring down at the carpet as if she +there sought the solution to the great, sad riddle which so occupied +her. Then with a short motion as if shaking off something, which she +had caught from her father, like so much else, she threw her little +head back and hurried after her mother.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie had retired to her bedroom. Maschenka found her deathly pale, +with helpless, stiff bearing, and hands folded straight before her, +sitting in an easy chair; her weary glance, directed in front of her, +expressed inconsolable despair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Little mother, forgive me, oh, forgive me!" begged the child, +embracing her mother with her soft, warm arms. "Sometimes it seems to +me as if you love him as much as I, only you do not wish to. But why do +you cover your soul with a veil; why? Oh, why did you separate yourself +from him? He was not very much with us without that, but still it was +so lovely to expect him and to rejoice over him from one time to +another!" And Maschenka burst out in violent weeping.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie remained silent, but she raised the child on her knee and +kissed her, ah, how tenderly! Every tear she kissed away from the round +little cheeks. And Maschenka never repeated her question.</p> + +<p class="normal">Once, in the night--Maschenka's little room was next to her mother's +bedroom--the child awoke; from the adjoining room sounded soft, +whimpering, difficultly restrained sobs.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">She wandered from Venice to Florence, from Florence to Nice, from Nice +to Pau--all the European cities of refuge for uprooted existences she +sought out. Nowhere could Natalie find rest. Sometimes she tried to +distract herself. She never visited large entertainments, but she +associated with her old friends if she met them in their different +exiles, gradually slid back into the old, aristocratic atmosphere in +which she had been brought up; but, strange! she no longer felt at home +therein, and in her inconsolable misery a feeling of insensible <i>ennui</i> +mingled itself.</p> + +<p class="normal">His name never crossed her lips. Did she ever think of him? Day and +night. The more she tried to accustom herself to other people the more +she thought of him. How empty, how shallow, how insignificant were all +the others in comparison to him; how cold, how hard!</p> + +<p class="normal">Her health went rapidly downward. A short, nervous cough tormented her, +her hands were now ice-cold, now hot with fever. Associated with that +was something else strangely tormenting: she almost incessantly had the +feeling that her heart was torn away from its natural place; she felt +in her breast something like an uneasy fluttering, like the beating of +the wings of a deathly weary, sinking bird.</p> + +<p class="normal">She slept badly and was afraid of sleep, for always the whole spring of +her love, with its entrancing charm and perfume of flowers, arose in +her dreams again. Again vibrated through her soul the swelling musical, +alluring call--Asbeïn. Little trifles, which in her waking condition +she no longer remembered, came to her mind, and when she awoke she +burned with fever and hid her face, gasping, in her pillows. She +consumed herself in longing; a longing of which she was ashamed as of a +sin, and which she fought as a sin.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Gradually she became wearier and more calm. His picture began to +obliterate itself from her memory.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">It was in Geneva, in a music shop. Natalie, who had gone out to attend +to a few trifles, entered and desired the Chopin Études, which she had +promised to bring the extremely musical Maschenka. While a clerk looked +for the music, she observed an elderly man--she divined the piano +teacher in him--talking about a photograph which he held in his hand, +to the woman who managed the business.</p> + +<p class="normal">She glanced fleetingly at the photograph--she shuddered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So that is he; that is the way he looks now! <i>C'est qu'il a +terriblement changé</i>," said the piano teacher.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Que voulez-vous</i>, with the existence which he leads?" replied the +woman. "If one burns the candle of life at both ends!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But he should stop it, a married man, as he is," said the music +teacher.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My goodness; his marriage is so--so--he has been separated, who knows +how long, already." The woman shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! Who, then, is his wife?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Some great lady who has made enough out of him, and to whom he has +become inconvenient," replied the old woman.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So--h'm! that explains much," said the musician, and laying down the +photograph, he added: "<i>enfin c'est un homme fini</i>." With that he +seized the roll of music which had been prepared for him and left the +shop. Natalie bought the photograph, without having the courage to look +at it before strangers. Arrived at home, she unwrapped the portrait. +For the first time since that evening when she ran out of the Hôtel du +Saxe she looked at a picture of him. She was frightened at the fearful +physical deterioration designated in his features. Around the mouth and +under the eyes hateful lines were drawn; but from the eyes still spoke +the deep, seeking glance as formerly, and on the lips lay an expression +of inconsolable goodness. "A great lady who has made enough out of him, +and to whom he has become inconvenient," Natalie repeated to herself +again and again. That truly was false from beginning to end. Still, a +great uneasiness overcame her. The reproofs which she believed she had +expiated once for all by the easy, tender confession that she had set +aside her beloved husband on account of her scruples, now rose sharply +and reprovingly before her.</p> + +<p class="normal">A nervous condition, which culminated in a long-enduring cramp of the +heart, befell her; the cramp was followed by an hour-long swoon which +could not be lifted.</p> + +<p class="normal">When she could again leave her bed, a great change had taken place in +her. She no longer evaded the recollection of Lensky; the old love was +dead, but a new love had risen from the ruins of the old, a new +enlightened love, which was nothing more than a warm, compassionate +pardon.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">With the restlessness of those mortally ill, who in vain seek relief, +she was again driven to leave Geneva, where at first she had intended +to pass the whole winter. She longed for Rome.</p> + +<p class="normal">The physicians laid no difficulties in the way. In the end, a dying +person has the right to seek out the place where she will lay down her +weary head for the last time.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">In Rome, it seemed at first as if she would be better again. At the end +of March, Nikolas came to visit her. He was now a young man, tall, +slender, with great dreamy eyes in an aristocratically cut face, and +with pretty, still somewhat embarrassed manners.</p> + +<p class="normal">Already he had twice come to foreign countries to visit his mother, but +never had she been so glad to see him.</p> + +<p class="normal">As the day was beautiful, and she felt better than usual, she proposed +a drive. "To the Via Giulia," she ordered the coachman. "I will show +you the Palazzo Morsini, in which we lived when your father was +betrothed to me," she said to her children. Mascha looked at her mother +in astonishment; it was the first time in quite three years that she +had mentioned her father before her.</p> + +<p class="normal">So they drove in the Via Giulia, on a bright March afternoon they drove +there. But Natalie in vain sought the Palazzo Morsini; she did not find +it. A pile of rubbish stood in its place, surrounded by a board fence. +Disappointed almost to tears, with that childish, foolish +disappointment such as only those mortally ill know, she turned away. +On the way, it occurred to her to order the coachman to stop at the +Trevi fountain. She quite started with delight when she saw the +irregular collection of statues again. "Here I met your father for the +first time in Rome; it is just twenty years ago," said she, and rested +a strange, brilliant, dreamy glance on the old wall. The sculpturing +was still blacker and more weather-worn than twenty years before, but +the silver cascade rushed down more arrogantly than ever in the gray +stone basin, and the sky, which arched over the time-blackened walls, +was as blue as formerly. "Ah, how much beauty, nobility, and +immortality there still is in the world, together with the bad that +passes away," murmured Natalie, softly; then passing her hand over her +eyes, and as if speaking to herself, she added: "It is thus with great +men, and therefore I think, considerately overlooking their earthly +failings, one should rejoice over that which is immortal in them!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Maschenka had not quite understood the words, but Nikolas sought by a +glance the eyes of his mother, and raised her hand to his lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was evening of the same day, in Natalie's pretty apartment on the +Piazza di Spagna, opposite the church of Trinità dei Monti, and the +sick woman, relieved of her constricting and heavy street-clothes, lay, +in a white, lace-trimmed wrapper, on a lounge. Mother and son were +alone. He had read her a couple of verses from Musset, which she +particularly loved--<i>les souvenirs</i>--but it had become dark during the +reading; he laid the book away. For a while they were both quiet, +silently happy in each other's presence, as very nearly related people +when they are together after a long separation; but then Nikolas laid +his hand on that of his mother and said, softly: "Little mother--do you +know that it was really papa who sent me to you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The hand of the mother trembles, and softly draws itself out from under +the son's. Nikolas is silent. But what was that? After a while his +mother's hand voluntarily stole back into his, and the young man +continued: "Yes, papa sent me here, so that I might accurately report +to him how you are. You really cannot imagine how he always asks after +you, worries about you."</p> + +<p class="normal">The hand of the poor woman trembles in that of her son, like an aspen +leaf. After a pause, quite as if he had waited so that his words might +sink warmly and deeply into her heart, he continues: "Father +commissioned me to bring before you a request from him--namely, whether +you would not permit him to visit you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Again Natalie drew her hand away from her son, but more hastily than +the first time. Her breath comes quickly and pantingly, for a few +moments she remains silent, then she says slowly, wearily: "No! it must +not be; tell him all love and kindness from me, and that I think only +with emotion of the great consideration which he always shows me, but +it must not be--it is better so!"</p> + +<p class="normal">After she had made this decision, which had a sad and intimidating +effect upon the inexperienced boy, she remained for the rest of the +evening taciturn and with that, out of temper and irritable, as one had +never formerly seen her.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the night she had one of her fearful attacks; the doctor must be +sent for. When the horrible oppression of breath and shuddering had +subsided, as usual, she fell into a condition of pale, cold numbness, +which resembled a deep swoon.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nikolas, who had watched by the sick one, accompanied the physician +without. He begged him, in the name of his father, to tell him the +truth about the condition of the sufferer. The physician told him that +her condition was very serious, and a recovery absolutely out of the +question. It might last a few weeks still, perhaps only a few days.</p> + +<p class="normal">When Nikolas, with difficulty restraining his tears, came up to his +mother's bed, she lay exactly in the same position as when he left the +room; still, something about her had changed. Her eyes were closed, but +around her beautiful mouth trembled a smile whose happy loveliness he +never forgot.</p> + +<p class="normal">After a while she looked up and said in a quite weak voice: "Perhaps +only a few days"--she had heard the doctor's speech. After a pause, she +added: "Write your father--write--he must hurry--only a few more days!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Nikolas telegraphed to St. Petersburg.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The consciousness of her near death had given her back her lack of +embarrassment toward Lensky. She insisted that he should stay in her +house, that they should prepare a room for him.</p> + +<p class="normal">One day she was well enough to overlook the preparations herself. But +the improvement did not last. Quite every night came on an attack, +shorter and weaker, but still very painful; in between she slept, and +always had the same dream. It seemed to her as if she could fly, but +only about two feet from the ground; if she wished to rise higher, she +awoke. Of the young happiness of her love, she dreamed never more.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">Lensky had telegraphed back that he would set out immediately. They +counted the days and nights which must elapse before his arrival--Kolia +and she; they consulted railroad time-tables together--so long to +Eydtkuhnen--so long to Berlin--so long to Vienna--so long to Rome. They +were twelve hours apart in their reckoning. Natalie expected Lensky +already on the morning of the fifth day, Nikolas not until the evening.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the fourth day she was so well that she wished to undertake a walk. +"I would so like to see the spring once more," said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nikolas begged her to save herself until his father had come, in order +not to aggravate her heart by excitement--that great, rich heart +through which she lived, and of which she was now dying. "We will bring +the spring in to you," said he tenderly.</p> + +<p class="normal">They brought flowers, whatever kind they could buy, and placed them in +the pretty, pleasant boudoir in which she lay, stretched out on her +couch bed. The broad sunbeams slid like a golden veil over the +magnolias, violets, and roses.</p> + +<p class="normal">Dreamily the dying woman let her eyes wander over the fragrant +splendor. "How lovely the spring is!" murmured she, and then she added: +"How can one fear to die, when the resurrection is so beautiful!" The +windows stood wide open; it was afternoon; from without one heard the +rattling of carriages which rolled along in the heart of the city.</p> + +<p class="normal">It sounded like the rolling of a stream which forced its way to the +sea.</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * *</p> + +<p class="normal">The night came. Nikolas sat near his mother's bed and watched. She +slept uneasily. Frequently she started and listened, then she looked at +her watch--it could not yet be! Once Maschenka came in, with little +bare feet peeping out from under her long night-dress, and face quite +swollen with weeping. On tip-toes she crept up to the dying woman's +bed. Since a couple of days Natalie had no longer permitted her to +sleep in the adjoining little room, from fear that the child might be +awakened by her painful attacks. Maschenka had dreamed that her mother +was worse; she wished to see her mother. Natalie opened her eyes just +as she entered.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then the child ran up to her, kneeled down near her, and sobbing hid +her little face in the covers. Natalie stroked her little head with +weary, weak hand, and asked her to be brave, and lie down and sleep; +that would give her the greatest joy.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then Maschenka stood up, and went with hesitating steps as far as the +door; then she turned round, and hurried back to her mother. Natalie +made the sign of the cross on her forehead, then kissed her once more, +and held her to her thin breast. It should be the last time--the child +went.</p> + +<p class="normal">Natalie looked after her tenderly, sadly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Toward morning Nikolas fell asleep in the arm-chair in which he watched +by his mother's bed. All at once he felt that some one pulled him by +both sleeves. He started up; his mother sat half upright in the bed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wake up, your father is coming!" she called quickly and breathlessly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, little mother, it is quite impossible--not before evening can he +be here."</p> + +<p class="normal">With a short, imperious motion she admonished him to silence. Now he +heard quite plainly--softly, then louder--the rolling of a single +carriage through the deathly-quiet, sleeping city. It came nearer +stopped before the house.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Go to meet him, Kolia; I do not wish him to think we did not expect +him."</p> + +<p class="normal">Kolia went, did, like a machine, whatever was required of him. Natalie +sat up, listened--listened. If she had been mistaken--no. Heavy steps +came up the stairs. Steps of two men--not of one--and this voice! +rough, deep, going to the heart. She did not understand a word; but it +was his voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">A quite numbing embarrassment and shyness overcame her. She drew the +lace cuffs of her night-dress over her thin arms, she arranged her +hair; she felt as shy as before a stranger. What should she say to him? +She would be quite calm--calm and friendly. Then the door opened--he +entered, dusty, with tumbled, badly arranged gray hair, with fearful +furrows in his face, aged ten years since she last had seen him.</p> + +<p class="normal">What should she say to him?</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not wait for that; he only gave one look at her pale face, then +he hurried up to her and took her in his arms.</p> + +<p class="normal">Behind the church of Trinità dei Monti there was already a golden +light, and the whole room was filled with brilliancy and light.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, my angel! how could you so repulse me!" are the first words which +he speaks.</p> + +<p class="normal">She says nothing, only lies on his breast, silently, unresistingly. +Through her veins creeps for the last time the feeling of pleasant, +animating warmth which has always overcome her in his nearness. She +tries to rouse herself, to consider; she had certainly wished to tell +him something for farewell. But what was it--what----</p> + +<p class="normal">Ah, truly!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Boris," she breathes out softly, "do you know--at that time in your +study--in Petersburg--do you still remember how you once said to me I +should show you the way to the stars?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, my little dove, yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was not fitted for my task," whispers she, sadly; "forgive!"</p> + +<p class="normal">For one moment he remains speechless with emotion; then he presses his +lips to her mouth, on her poor emaciated hands, on her hair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Forgive--I you! O my heart!" murmurs he. "How could you draw me up +when I had broken your wings! But now all is well; we will seek our old +happiness hand in hand. You shall become well, shall live!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Live," whispers she, quite reproachfully; "live," and shakes her head.</p> + +<p class="normal">He looks at her with a long, tender glance, and is frightened.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her face is still angel beautiful, but there is nothing left of her +lovely form. It pains him to see the sharp, harsh lines which outline +her limbs under the covering. That is no longer a living woman who +stretches out her arms to him, it is only an angel who wishes to bless +him. It is quite clear between them, and also the last shyness, which +still held her back from him, has vanished.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, it is over," whispers she; "only a few more days--how +many is that?--three days--five days--oh, perhaps it will last +longer--physicians are so often mistaken. We will drive out once more +together to see the spring--out there where the almond trees bloom +between the ruins--by St. Steven, do you still know?--and until I feel +it coming--the last, the end--then you will hold me by the hand, will +you not? like a child that fears the dark, you will lead me quite +tenderly up to the threshold of eternity--is it not true? No one can be +so tender and loving as you. But do not be sad--not now; to-day I feel +well, quite well. Ah!----"</p> + +<p class="normal">What is that? She clutches at her heart--there it is again, the strange +fluttering feeling in her heart. Her face changes, her breath fails.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The doctor, Kolia!" calls Boris beside himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kolia hurries away; at the door his mother calls him back once more.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not without a farewell, my brave boy," she says, and kisses him. "God +bless you!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he rushes away down the stairs, to fetch the doctor--there is +haste.</p> + +<p class="normal">No, there is no more haste--the attack is short--only a couple of +strange shudders--then the invalid grows calm in Lensky's arms.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How wonderfully the trees bloom--" murmurs the dying one. "It grows +dark--give me your hand--do not grieve--my poor Genius----"</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly her eyes take on a peculiarly longing expression. A last time +the Asbeïn tones glide through her soul, but no longer an inciting, +alluring call--but as something elevating, holy. She hears the tones +quite high and distinct, as if they vibrated down to her from Heaven, +resounding strangely in a sublime, calm harmony that is no longer the +devil's succession of tones, that is the music of the spheres.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Boris," she murmurs, and raising her hand, points upward, "listen ..."</p> + +<p class="normal">The hand sinks slowly, slowly--when, a little later, the physician +enters she is dead. A wonderful smile lies on her countenance, the +smile of one set free.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_01" href="#div2Ref_01">Footnote 1</a>: When the Devil, banished from heaven, resolved on the +temptation of mankind, he loved to make use of music which had been +made known to him as a heavenly privilege when he still was a member of +the eternal hosts. But the Almighty deprived him of his memory, so he +could remember but a single strain, and this mysterious, bewitching +strain is still called in Arabia "The Devil's Strain--Asbeïn."--<i>Arabian +Legends</i>.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Asbeïn, by Ossip Schubin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASBEÏN *** + +***** This file should be named 35396-h.htm or 35396-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/9/35396/ + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Asbein + From the Life of a Virtuoso + +Author: Ossip Schubin + +Translator: Elise L. Lathrop + +Release Date: February 25, 2011 [EBook #35396] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASBEIN *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive. + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + 1. Page scan source: + http://www.archive.org/details/asbeinfromlifeof00schuiala + + + + + + + +[Illustration: With hands lightly folded in her lap and head leaned +back against her chair, Natalie has listened. In the beginning she had +been carried out of herself by a feeling of painfully sweet happiness, +but now she felt strangely oppressed. _p. 36_.] + + + + + + + ASBEIN + + FROM THE LIFE OF A VIRTUOSO + + + + BY + OSSIP SCHUBIN + + + + _TRANSLATED BY ELISE L. LATHROP_ + + + + + NEW YORK + WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY + 1890 + + + + + + + Copyright, 1890, by + WORTHINGTON CO. + + + + + + + Press of J.J. Little & Co., + Astor Place, New York. + + + + + + + ASBEIN.[1] + + + + + + FIRST BOOK. + + +"But--do you really not recognize me?" With these words, and with +friendly, outstretched hands, a young lady hastened toward a man who, +with gloomily contracted brow, wrapped in thought, went on his way +without noticing either her or his surroundings. He was foolish, for +his surroundings were picturesque--Rome, near the Fontana di Trevi, on +a bright March afternoon. And the young lady--she was charming. + +Although she had called to him in French, something about her--one +could scarcely have told what--betrayed the Russian; everything, the +pampered woman from the highest circles of society. + +The young man whose attention she had sought to attract in such a +violent and unconventional manner was just as evidently a Russian, but +of quite a different condition. One could hardly decide to what fixed +sphere of society he belonged, but one perceived immediately that his +manners had never been improved, polished, softened by society +discipline, that he was no man of the world. He was, evidently, a man +who was apart from the rank and file, a man who stood far out from the +conventional frame, a man whom no one could pass without twice looking +after him. His form was large and somewhat heavy; his face, framed by +dark, half-curled hair, in spite of the blunt profile, reminded one of +Napoleon Bonaparte, but Bonaparte in the first romantic period of his +life, before he had become fat and accustomed to pose for the classic +head of Caesar. + +She was the Princess Natalie Alexandrovna Assanow; he the feted violin +virtuoso and well-known composer, Boris Lensky. + +She had run herself quite out of breath to catch up with him; twice she +had called to him before he heard her; then he looked around and lifted +his hat. + +"Boris Nikolaivitch, do you not really recognize me?" said she, now in +Russian, laughing and breathless. + +"You here, Princess! Since when? Why have you given me no sign of your +existence?" and he took both the slender girlish hands, still +outstretched to him, in his. + +"We only arrived here yesterday from Naples." + +"Ah! and I go there to-day." His long-drawn words betrayed very +significantly a certain vexation. + +"Yes, to give three concerts there. I know; it was in the newspapers," +she nodded earnestly, and sighed. + +"Hm!" he began; "then--" he hesitated. + +"Then you do not understand why I did not wait for the concerts?" said +she, gayly; "it was impossible." + +"Impossible?" said he with a short, defiant motion of the head, the +motion of a too-tightly checked race-horse who impatiently jerks at the +bridle. "How so impossible? What word is that from the mouth of a young +lady who has nothing else in the world to do but amuse herself?" + +"As if I were independent!" she sighed, with comic despair. "First, +mamma could not leave Naples--hm--for family reasons. My sister is +married there, you know. Then--then--" + +"Do not trouble yourself with polite excuses," he interrupted her. "I +see that you are no longer interested in my music;" and, half-jesting, +half-vexed, shrugging his shoulders, he added, "What of it? One must +put up with one's destiny!" + +"I am no longer interested in your music!" said she, angrily; "and you +venture to say that to me, even after I have run after you--yes, really +run after you, which is not proper--only to----" + +She stopped, her face wore a vexed, indignant expression. "Why did you +do it?" said he, roughly; "it is not becoming." + +Instead of losing her self-possession, she laughed heartily. "But, +Boris Nikolaivitch," said she, "you speak as if you were a true man of +the world. However, as you please, I thank you for the lecture. Adieu!" + +And nodding her head quite arrogantly, she was about to turn on her +heel, when her look met his. She saw that she had vexed him, remained +standing, blushed, and lowered her eyes. + +The waters of the Acqua Nigo foamed and sparkled gayly between the +edges of the stone basin which Nicolo Salvi had made for them; the +noonday church-bells mingled their deep, solemn voices with the +caressing rippling of the waves; the sun shone full from the deep-blue, +ice-cold heaven, a glaring, unpleasant March sun, which was light +without warming, like the condescending smile of a great man, and +Natalie's maid who, grumbling and bored, stood a step behind her young +mistress, opened a round, green fan to shield her eyes, and at the same +time stamped her feet from the cold. Around, the Roman life went on in +its usual lazy way. Before a small, loaded cart stood a mule with a +number of red and blue tassels about its ears and on its forehead hung +a brass image of the Virgin. In the door of a vegetable shop, from +which came a strong smell of herbs, crouched a black-eyed, white Spitz +dog, that twitched its right ear uneasily. A fat, smooth-headed +Capuchin passed by, then came two shabbily dressed young people. The +Capuchin stopped to scratch the mule's head, the young people nudged +each other, and said in an undertone, while they pointed to the +virtuoso: "_E Borisso Lensky_." + +"There you have it," said the princess, shaking off her vexation +with a charming, pleasant smile, and her head bent one side. "Great +man that you are, and still you take it amiss in me." She said +nothing more, only raised her great blue eyes and gave him a look, a +never-to-be-forgotten look, behind whose roguishness a riddle was +concealed. + +"I take nothing amiss in you," said he, earnestly. + +"Really nothing? Now, then, I can tell you how much, oh! how much, I +have longed to hear you play again, that I, _coute qu'il coute_, seized +the opportunity to ask you to stop in Rome on your return from Naples +only to--" She hesitated, as if she were suddenly afraid of being +indiscreet. + +"Only to play something for the Princess Natalie Alexandrovna Assanow," +he completed her sentence, laughing. "Good. I will come, Natalie +Alexandrovna; in two weeks I am there. But if you are then in Florence +or Nice----" + +She was about to make a very positive assertion, when a slender, +fashionably dressed man, with a very high hat and faultless gloves, +passed by them, greeted the princess respectfully, and, with a slight +squint, measured Lensky from head to foot. Lensky recognized in him an +officer of the guard, Count Konstantin Paulovitch Pachotin, and +remembered last winter, during the season in St. Petersburg, he paid +court to Natalie. The scrutinizing look of the young man vexed him +beyond bounds; everything looked red before him. "Ah! he here?" he +asked the young princess with mocking emphasis. "May one congratulate +you?" + +She frowned and turned away her head. "No!" murmured she. Then raising +her wonderful eyes to him again: "So, farewell for two weeks!" + +"Perhaps." + +"Say positively, I beg you, and throw the traditional soldo in the +fountain." + +"With the best of intentions, I cannot do that; I have none with me," +he laughed, now involuntarily. + +She was charming. She wore a brown velvet bonnet that was fastened +under the chin with broad ribbons. She had pushed back her veil, and +the transparent brown gauze shining in the sun formed a golden +background for her pretty, pale face. It was cold, although the +beginning of March, and therefore her tall figure was wrapped to the +feet in a sable-trimmed velvet cloak, beneath which a scarcely visible +silk dress rustled very melodramatically. A delicate perfume of amber +and fresh violets exhaled from her. + +"You have no soldo?" said she; "then I will lend you one." She +earnestly sought in her portemonnaie, whereupon she handed him the +coin. He threw it in the basin of the noisy, rippling Fontana di Trevi. +The water sparkled golden for a moment, when the coin sank, and tried +to form circles, but the spouting gayety of the cascade obliterated +them. + +"You will come!" said Natalie, laughing gayly. + +"Yes, I will come," said he, not gayly as she, but gloomily, even +grumbling. "But if you are not there," he added, "or----" + +She had already turned to go, and without replying anything to his last +words, she called to him over her shoulder: + +"_Via Giulia Palazzo Morsini!_" + +He looked after her for a long time. The fashionable dress at that time +was very ugly. This little scene took place in the fifties, when the +Empress Eugenie had again brought into favor the hoop-skirt which had +disappeared quite a half-century before. But still Natalie Alexandrovna +was charming. How peculiar her walk was, so light and still a little +dragging, dreamily gliding, withal not weary, but with a peculiar +certain characteristic rhythm. He thoughtfully hummed a melody to it. + +Yes, he would come back. Whether he would have come back if the glance +of the officer of the guard had not angered him? He must see, must +teach this dandy! + + * * * * * + +"You speak just as if you were a true man of the world," the princess +had replied to his--as he angrily told himself--highly unsuitable and +tasteless advice. Now it might perhaps be small; yes, certainly it was +small, but sometimes, sometimes he would secretly have preferred to be +a true man of the world instead of being--a celebrity. + +"She ran after me!" he said to himself again. "Why did she run after +me? It was charming in her she would not have done it for any one else! +Bah! She is still only like all the others!" And the great artist, +whose life resembled a continual triumphal procession, of whom already +a finger-thick biography with glaringly false dates had appeared, and +concerning whom the papers every day reported something remarkable, +suddenly felt a kind of envy of Count Konstantin Paulovitch Pachotin, a +St. Petersburg dandy, whose name had never been in the papers, and whom +he despised for his narrow-mindedness. + +He was a great genius, but, like many other great geniuses, he was of +quite obscure parentage. Some asserted he came from that horrible +citadel of the poor in Moscow where misery intrenches itself against +progress, in filth, stupidity, and vice; others said he had been found, +a scarcely week-old child, wrapped in rags, before the door of the +Conservatory in St. Petersburg. There were really all kinds of accounts +in the papers. This one said that he was the son of a princess of the +blood and a gypsy; that one, that he descended from an old princely +family of the Czechs, and many other such romantic inventions. He +shrugged his shoulders scornfully at all such improvisations, without +refuting them by accurate personal accounts. How did the cold, hungry, +maltreated sadness of his first youth concern the world? Now he was +Boris Lensky, one of the first musicians of his time. Everything else +could be indifferent to the man. It was indifferent to them; it was +quite indifferent to them all, only not to him. The wounds which the +tormenting martyrdom of his childhood had torn in his heart had never +quite healed; therefore he showed a sensitiveness and irritability +which even the most sympathetic person could scarcely comprehend. + +But now he fared very well in the world. No one was so pampered, so +caressed as he. + +His playing exercised such a penetrating, sense-ensnaring charm that +his listeners, transported in a kind of musical intoxication, lost +their capability of judging, and even the most well-bred women crowded +around him with allegiance so exaggerated that it tore down the +boundary of every customary demeanor. + +Another would have enjoyed this allegiance without thinking further of +it; but for Lensky, on the contrary, it had a repellent effect. Child +of the people to the finger-tips, totally unused to the customs of +fashionable circles, his feeling of propriety was as wounded by what he +plainly called insolent shamelessness as that of a peasant who for the +first time sees a woman with bare shoulders. + +Besides his sense of propriety, there was another that was wounded by +the lack of reserve which great ladies showed him, and that was his +pride. Not only gifted with musical genius, but with a very clear head, +he soon perceived that if the ladies of the great world permitted +themselves freer manners with him than did women of a more modest +sphere of life, they still took liberties with him of which they would +have been ashamed in association with companions of their own rank. +"_Mon dieu, avec un virtuose, cela ne tire pas a consequence_," he once +heard an elegant little St. Petersburg woman say. He never forgot the +words, and in consequence received all the feminine allegiance of good +society with hostile distrust. + +He usually excused the tactless exuberance of a poorly cared for, badly +brought up woman of the Conservatory. In society of this kind, of +saddened womanly existence, incessantly touched with pity, he showed +kindness to the sad enthusiasts wherever he could, and laughed at their +tasteless animation. But for the great ladies, who should have known +better, who thought that they alone held the monopoly of good form, and +who still pursued a man like wild beasts--for these he had no +consideration. His roughness in intercourse with them had become almost +as proverbial as the success which he attained with them. + +Still, in his home he quite unconsciously accustomed himself to an +aristocratic atmosphere, and, with the refined sense of a true artist +nature, susceptible to all beauty and distinction, in association with +great ladies he felt a mixture of irritation and pleasure, while +pleasure gradually won the upper hand; and in foreign countries, where +he was received only exceptionally and with official solemnity, and +really had intimate access to salons of the second rank only, he +renounced intercourse with that refined world which he abused, like so +many others, without being able to escape its perfidious charm, and +felt, every time that he met one of his despised pretty St. Petersburg +or Moscow enthusiasts, an unmistakable joy. + +Two weeks after his meeting with Natalie at the Fontana di Trevi, +Lensky appeared for the first time in the Palazzo Morsini. From a very +large staircase, whose beauties he must admire by the light of the wax +matches which he had brought in his pocket, he stumbled into a large +vestibule, from which the servant conducted him through a heavy +portiere, painted with coats of arms as high as a man, into an immense +drawing-room with soiled and faded yellow damask hangings and +furniture. + +"Monsieur Lensky!" announced the servant. + +The virtuoso was accustomed to a universal exclamation following the +announcement of his name, and the looks of the whole assembly should be +directed to him. + +Nothing of the sort this time. Natalie sat near an old French lady, +Marquise de C., whose knitting she kindly helped to arrange, and as the +young Russian introduced the virtuoso to her, she raised her lorgnette +and said: "Monsieur Lensky--ah! _vraiment_, that is very interesting!" +whereupon, without further troubling herself about him, she continued +to speak to Natalie of all kinds of social affairs, the marriage of +Marie X., the debts of Alexander T., the trousseau of Aurelie Z., and +the boldness of that parvenu A. + +For the present he could not approach the hostess. She warded him +off with a nod from the distance, for she was engaged in a very +exciting occupation. Although the universal interest for spiritualistic +table-tapping and moving was already quite over, the repetition of this +experiment, which strangely enough often succeeded in the Palazzo +Morsini, was one of the favorite pastimes of Natalie's mother, the +Princess Irina Dimitrievna Assanow. She now sat at a table in the +middle of the drawing-room between many others, most of them old +Russians, men and women; opposite her a thin, very young man with long, +straight, blond hair, a well-known magnetizer. + +It seemed to Lensky as if he had never seen anything more laughable +than these half-dozen almost exclusively gray-haired people who sat +with solemn bearing and attentive faces around a table whose edge they +could just surround with hands stretched out as far as possible. + +Those present who did not directly participate in the attempt to +bewitch the table, stood around observing the interesting round +surface. + +But the table continued in a state of desperately exciting passivity. + +Lensky, usually specially invited to soirees, of which he formed the +centre of attraction, felt humiliated by the four-legged wooden rival, +who, to-day, took all the attention away from him. + +At last the old French woman turned to the observation of the table, +which permitted the young girl to devote herself a little to Lensky, +rapidly becoming more gloomy; then the door opened and the butler +announced Count Pachotin. The virtuoso felt not at all pleasantly +toward the young dandy when he asked him unusually kindly and +sympathetically whether he was contented with the result of his last +concert tour. + +After Pachotin had fulfilled the condescension, which as a finely +cultivated nobleman he thought he owed to an artistic star he turned to +Natalie and from then ignored Lensky as completely as the Marquise de +C. had done. Lensky meanwhile morosely pulled long horse-hairs from the +holes in the thread-bare arms of the damask chair. He was very helpless +in spite of his already great renown. His actions in society were +solely confined to playing and permitting the ladies to rave over him. +He did not understand how to take an inconspicuous part in the +conversation, and to cross the room for any other purpose than to take +up his violin made him quite giddy. + +The table meanwhile still refused to move. The excitement became +general. + +"_Voyons_, M. Lensky," called the Marquise de C., suddenly turning to +the young artist, lorgnette at her eyes; "if you should give us a +little music perhaps it would act upon the legs of this stiff-necked +table." + +A man quick at repartee would have answered the silly remark with a gay +jest. But Lensky grew deathly pale, sprang up; in that moment the +resisting sacrifice of magnetism began to totter and tremble. + +Even Pachotin left his place near Natalie in order to watch closely the +interesting spectacle. The magnetizers rose and, with earnest, +triumphant faces, accompanied the table, which now seemed to have +entered into the spirit of the affair and took the most remarkable +steps with its wooden legs. + +"_Vous partez deja_?" asked Natalie, coming up to the virtuoso. + +"I am no longer needed," said Lensky, with a glance at the table, and +bowed without touching the outstretched hand of the young girl. + +Without, in the vestibule just as he was about to put his arms in the +overcoat which the servant held out to him, he saw the princess, who +had hastened after him. + +[Illustration: "I cannot let you go away angry," said she. _p. 23_.] + +"I cannot let you go away angry," said she. "Come to-morrow to lunch. +We never receive in the morning, but you will be welcome." + +This time he took her hand in his, and looked in her eyes with a +peculiar mixture of anger and tenderness. + +"You know I do everything that you wish," murmured he; "but----" + +"Well?" She smiled pleasantly and encouragingly. He turned away his +head and went. + +"Perhaps in reality she is only like the others, but still she is +bewitching!" he murmured, as he stumbled down the old marble steps of +the palace in the darkness. + + * * * * * + +Yes, she was bewitching. Many still remember how charming she was at +that time. She was from Moscow, and a true Moscow woman; that is to +say, deeper, more polished, more intellectual, than the average St. +Petersburg woman, whom a pert Frenchman has described as "_Parisiennes +a la sauce tartare_." Lensky had met her the former year at her +relatives' in Petersburg, where they had sent her for the ball season, +perhaps with the idea that she would make a good match. + +Her domestic circumstances were quite disturbed. Her mother, a former +beauty, and who in her youth had been much admired at the court of +Alexander I., could not adapt herself to her poverty--that is to say, +she absolutely could not exist on the very moderate remains of a +splendid property which her husband had squandered. She never +complained; she only never kept within her means. She was always +planning new reforms, but her most saving plans always proved costly +when carried out. + +When she summoned Natalie home from St. Petersburg the former May she +had just formed a quite special resolution: she would travel to a +foreign country, in order, as she expressed it, to be unconstrainedly +shabby and economical. Her unconstrained shabbiness in Rome consisted +in living in a very picturesque _palazzo_ with two maids brought with +her from Russia, a male factotum, and a number of Italian assistants; +by day, clad in a faded sky-blue _peignoir_, stretched on a lounge, +alternately reading French novels and playing patience; in the evening, +receiving an amusing assembly of _gens du monde_ and celebrities, among +whom the already mentioned magnetizer enjoyed her especial sympathy, at +dinner or tea. Her economy culminated in locking up the most trifling +articles with great punctiliousness and never being able to find the +keys; for which reason the locksmith must be frequently summoned. + +The Russian maids naturally never moved their hands, the Italian +assistants wiped the dust from one piece of furniture to another, and +so the household would really have made quite an impression of having +come down in the world if the butler, whom they had brought with them +had not saved it by his aristocratic prestige. A Frenchman and valet of +the deceased prince, Monsieur Baptiste was not only outwardly +decorative, but of a useful nature. His principal occupation consisted +in sitting in the vestibule, with finely-shaved upper lip and imposing +side-whiskers, intrenched behind a newspaper, and overpowering the +creditors if they ventured to present their unpaid bills. + + * * * * * + +Lensky had resolved to leave Rome the next day, and to ignore the +invitation of the princess. Returned to the hotel, he immediately set +about packing; that is to say, he in all haste wrapped and squeezed his +effects together in any manner and threw them in his trunk as one +throws potatoes in a sack. Then he ordered his bill from the waiter and +a carriage for the next morning. When the waiter at the appointed hour +presented the bill and announced the carriage he showed him out. From +ten o'clock on he drew out his chronometer every quarter of an hour; at +twelve he appeared in the Palazzo Morsini. + +"You are punctual," said the princess, stretching out her hand to him; +"that is nice of you. I was terribly afraid that you would not come. We +are quite among ourselves; only mamma and we two. Does that suit you?" + +Again she bent her head to one side and looked at him with that +peculiar glance, behind whose roguishness a riddle was concealed. What +was it? Something sweet, perhaps something tender, earnest--or only a +gay triumph or planned conquest? + +Meanwhile it cost him the greatest self-restraint not to fall at her +feet immediately, so charming and beautiful was she. Everything about +her was beautiful: her tall but beautifully rounded figure; her pale +oval face, framed in dark hair; her remarkable eyes, usually dreamily +half closed, and then suddenly looking at one so large and full; her +long small hands and her little feet. No Andalusian had a smaller, +slenderer, more finely-arched foot than Natalie. He had scarcely time +to reply to her amiability, when the butler announced that luncheon was +served, and they went into the dining-room. + +It was a peculiar luncheon. The old princess presided in a wrapper. The +lukewarm dishes--brought every day from a restaurant in a tin box, +which Lensky had met on the steps were served by Monsieur Baptiste on +the largely shattered remnants of a Florentine faience service with +noticeable correctness. A broad golden sunbeam lay on the table between +Lensky and Natalie and gave the most extravagantly unsuitable colors to +the flowers which shed their fragrance from a low Japanese porcelain +bowl in the middle of the table, and over these flowers, sparkling like +diamonds, he looked at her. + +She ate little and talked a great deal, told all kinds of droll +stories; one witty anecdote followed the other. He could not weary of +listening to her. Yes, even if what she said had not interested him, he +would not tire of hearing her. The sweet, somewhat veiled tone of her +voice seemed like a caress to his sensitive ear. + + * * * * * + +"I would like to ask you something, Boris Nikolaivitch," said the old +princess later, while they were taking coffee, in the drawing-room. + +"I am at your disposition entirely, Princess," Lensky hastened to +assure her. + +"It is about my violins," she began, in a drawling, whining voice, +which was her manner, and meant nothing. + +"But, mamma," Natalie hastily interrupted her, "this is not the +moment----" + +"Pray, permit me," said Lensky; and turning to the princess, "so it is +about your violins?" + +"Yes. My husband--you know what an excellent player he was," continued +the old lady, "has left three violins. People have always told me they +were worth a small fortune, but I did not wish to part with them at any +price. I ask you--a souvenir. But finally--times are hard, and one must +not be too hard on the peasants, and, besides, as none of my children +play the violin, however musical they are--well, I would be very glad +if you would try the instruments and incidentally value them. + +"You could perhaps advise me--yes---- What is the matter, Natascha?" + +For Natalie had blushed to the roots of her hair. Tears stood in her +eyes. + +Boris guessed that she feared he would look upon the explanation of her +mother as a bid. + +"I remember the violins very well," he hastened to assure her; +"especially one of them excited my envy. It would please me very much +to try them again." + +The servant brought the violins and at the same time a pile of hastily +snatched-up violin music, smelling of dust, dampness, and camphor. The +wonderfully beautiful instruments were in a pitiable condition--half of +the strings were gone, those that remained were brittle and dry. But +still there was a small stock of them. After Boris, with the loving +patience and surgical skill with which only a true violinist handles an +Amati, had put it in a suitable condition and then tuned it, he drew +the bow softly across it. A strangely sweet, tender, sad sound vibrated +through the great empty room. It seemed as if the violin awoke with a +sigh from an enchanted sleep. A pleasant shudder passed over Natalie. + +Lensky bent his cheek to the splendid instrument like a lover. "Shall +we try something?" said he, and took from the pile of notes a nocturne +of Chopin, transposed for the violin, opened the piano, the only good +and costly piece of furniture in the room, and laid the notes on the +music-rack. "Now, Natalie Alexandrovna, may I beg you?" + +Quite frightened by his artistic greatness--yes, trembling from +charming embarrassment--she sat down at the piano. + +His violin began to sing; how full and soft, so delightfully +languishing, and also somewhat veiled, as is usually the case with an +instrument unused for years. + +"How beautiful!" murmured Natalie, with eyes sparkling with animation. + +"Yes, it is a splendid instrument," replied Lensky. "You cannot imagine +what it is to play on an instrument which understands one. It is still +only a little bit sleepy, but we will awaken it." + +He placed a sonata of Beethoven before Natalie. They were alone. After +the first bar of the nocturne the princess had fallen asleep, at the +last she had waked, and had retired, with the remark that she could +hear much better in the adjoining room. + +"Will you really tolerate my accompaniment?" murmured the young girl. + +"And do you wish to hear again, vain little princess, what I already +told you in St. Petersburg, that I have seldom found a more sympathetic +accompaniment than yours?" he replied. + +She was an uncommonly good pianist, and with an unusually fine +divination followed all the shades of his art. One piece followed the +other. After awhile a certain relaxation was perceptible in her. + +"You are tired," said he, breaking off in the middle of the first +phrase of Mendelssohn's G-minor concerto. "I should not have given you +so much to do. Pardon me." + +"Oh, what does that matter," said she, while she let her hands slide +from the keys. "It was splendid, only, do you see, I feel as if I am a +dragging-shoe for you. I would like to have a wish, a great immoderate +wish. I would like to hear you once alone, without accompaniment, from +your heart. Give me one glance into your soul, make your musical +confession to me!" + +He felt a peculiar twitching and burning in his finger-tips. He would +rather have killed himself than let her glance into his inmost soul, as +the condition of that soul had been until then. + +"Do not ask that of me," said he, hoarsely. + +"It was very immodest in me, excuse me," said she hastily and confused. + +"Oh, that is nothing," he assured her. "Do you think that I will spare +the little bit of pleasure that I can perhaps give you, only--but if +you really wish it--as far as I am concerned----" + +He took up the violin. + +It was a different affair now. Dragging-shoe or not in any case her +accompaniment had had a calming and perhaps purifying effect on his +musical instincts. With her he had played as a wonderfully deeply +sensitive and technically cultivated virtuoso; in spite of all the +heartfelt fulness of tone and vibrating passion, he had scarcely passed +the boundary of musical conventionality. It had been the highest +possibility of a quiet, artistic performance; but what Natalie now +heard was no longer art, but something at once splendid and fearful. It +was also no longer a violin on which he played, but a strange, +enchanted instrument that she had never known formerly and that he +himself had invented; an instrument from which everything that sounds +the sweetest and saddest on earth vibrated, from the low voice of a +woman to the soft, complaining sigh of the waves dying on the shore. A +depth of genial musical eloquence burst forth under his bow. +Inconsolable pain--dry, hard, cutting; tender teasing, winning grace, +mad rejoicing, a wild confusion of passion and music, the height and +depth of neck-breaking technical extravagance. + +But what was most peculiar about his playing, and had the most magical +effect, was neither the mad bravura nor the flattering grace, but +something oppressive, mysterious, that crept maliciously into the heart +and veins, ensnaring and paralyzing--a thing of itself, a strange +horror. Again and again, like a mysterious call, appeared in his +improvisation the same bewitching, exciting succession of tones, taken +from the Arabian folk-songs, the devil's music. + +Suddenly he seemed to be beside himself; he drew the bow across the +violin as if beset by an untamable, passionate excitement. It was no +longer one violin which one heard; it was twenty violins, or, rather, +twenty demons, who howled and cried together. + +With hands lightly folded in her lap, and head leaned back against her +chair, Natalie had listened. In the beginning she had been carried out +of herself by a feeling of painfully sweet happiness. But now she felt +strangely oppressed. It seemed to her as if something pulled at every +fibre, every nerve, as if her heart was bursting. She would have liked +to cry out and hold her ears, and still did not move, but listened +eagerly to that piercing, wild, passionate tone. Never had she felt +within her such hot, beating, intense life as in this hour. Her whole +past existence now seemed to her like a long, stupid lethargy, from +which she had at last been awakened. Tears flowed from her eyes. Then +his look met hers. A kind of shame at his brutality overcame him, and +his playing died away in sad, sweet, anguished tenderness. With +contracted brows and trembling hands, he laid down the violin. "You +wished it!" said he. "You should not have asked it of me. I can refuse +you nothing. God! how pale you are! I have made you ill!" + +She smiled at his anxious exaggeration, then murmured softly, as if +in a dream: "It was wonderfully beautiful, and I shall never forget +it--never forget it, only----" + +"What have you to object?" + +"Shall I really tell you?" + +"Certainly; I beg you to." + +"Well," she began, hesitatingly, with a somewhat uneasy smile, as if +she was afraid of wounding his irritable artistic sensibility, "I ask +myself how one can abuse an instrument from which one can charm such +bewitching harmonies, and which one loves as you love your violin, as +you have just now abused it?" + +He was silent for a moment, surprised, looked at the violin with a +loving, compassionate glance, as if it were a living being. Then he +passed his hand across his forehead. + +"I do not know how it is," said he, confusedly. "Sometimes something +comes over me. Ah! if you knew what it is to have, all one's life, such +a sultry, sneaking thunderstorm in one's veins as I have. Sometimes it +bursts forth; it must have vent. I cannot rule myself. Teach me how!" + +He said that, so naively ashamed, quite pleadingly, like a great child; +he had strangely warm, touching tones in his deep, rough voice. + + * * * * * + +When Lensky presented himself again, the next day, in the Palazzo +Morsini, and, indeed, this time to arrange the purchase of the +wonderful violin, the princess called out gayly to him: + +"The violins are no longer to be had. I have bought all three. I gave +all my savings for them. If you wish to play on them, you must come +here. But you may come as often as you wish!" + +"For how long?" asked he, with a peculiar tremble in his voice. + +She turned away her head. After awhile she said, apparently +irrelevantly, with her gay, ingenuous smile, that still never quite +banished the sadness from her pale face: "Do you know that we are +really as poor as church mice? It is comical. Mamma consoles herself +with the thought that I will make a good match. If she should be +mistaken, what a tragedy!" + +She laughed merrily. What did she mean by that? + + * * * * * + +He came oftener and oftener to the old palace in the Via Giulia; came +every day, indeed. + +Formerly intercourse with women of rank had always formed only a short +parenthesis in his otherwise dissolute life. Now the couple of hours, +or sometimes they were only minutes, which he daily passed with the +Assanows were the key-note of all the rest of his existence. How happy +he felt with them! + +If elsewhere the great society ladies had raved over the artist Lensky +to an immoderate extent, they had quite ignored the man. But with the +Assanows it was different, or at least it seemed so. His fame was not +put forward from morning to night. There were days in which his +violin-playing was not even mentioned. The artist stopped in the +background, and in association with Natalie and her mother he was no +star, no lion, only a very wise, peculiar, sympathetic man, who pleased +quite aside from his artistic gifts. Besides, with them he appeared +differently than with any one else in the world. + +His petulant defiance disappeared, as well as the helplessness for +which it was a shield. + +He was completely uncultivated from the foundation. Grown up among +ignorant men who profited by his early unfolding talent, and misused it +in order to earn money thereby; sentenced consequently as a child to +just as many hours of hard musical practice as his poor still +undeveloped body could endure, he had, at fourteen years of age, when +he could barely read and write, not even the consciousness of his lack +of knowledge. That came later, came when great people began to be +interested in him. But then it was painful and humiliating beyond +measure. + +Whatever one can acquire in later years he acquired. Another would have +made a show of the astonishing amount of reading which he had +accomplished in the course of years, but he never learned to display +his lately won intellectual riches with grace. He had not the frivolity +of superficial men. Much too clever not to be conscious that his little +bit of supplementary cultivation was still only patchwork, even if made +of very noble, large patches, he confined his remarks in society, if +the conversation was upon anything but music, to a few heavy +commonplaces. + +With Natalie and her mother it was quite different. He never, indeed, +spoke very much, but everything that he said was characteristic, +stimulating, interesting, and as, in spite of his sad lack of +education, he was free from narrow provincialisms and affectations, and +with the capability of assimilation of all barbarians, understood +exactly Natalie's pure and poetic being, he never wounded her by a +coarse lack of tact, but attracted her doubly by the austere +unconventionality of his manner. + +Every day he became more sympathetic to her; she had long been +indispensable to him. + +He was suddenly struck with horror of his past. It seemed to him as if +everything that was beautiful in his life had just begun when her pure +bright apparition had entered it. She had brought a cooling, healing +element to his sultry existence. It was as if one had opened a window +in a room full of oppressive vapor--a great breath of sweet, spicy air +had purified the atmosphere. + +A large part of his intellectual self which had formerly lain fallow, +now grew and blossomed. Often, in the morning, he accompanied the +ladies to some art collection. Very frequently he occupied a place in +the carriage which the princess had hired for their drives. + +Every one looked after the carriage, and observed with the same +interest the wonderfully beautiful girl, and the great artist, who was +not handsome, but whose face once seen could never be forgotten. + +What was most remarkable about it was the difference between the +expression of his eyes and that of his mouth, a difference which +betrayed the entire quality of his inner nature. While his eyes had a +spying, at times quite enthusiastic, expression, around the mouth was a +trace of intense earthly thirst for enjoyment. + +This mingling predestinated him to that eternal discontent of certain +great natures who can just as little accustom themselves, on the earth, +to a condition of bloodless asceticism as to one of mindless +materialism. The first desires no enjoyment of the world, the second +pleases itself with whatever is to be had in the world. Those men only +who seek the heavenly spark in earthly joys remain forever deceived +here. He was destined never to cease to seek it. Even in gray old age, +when his finely cut lips were satiated with enjoyment, and were fixed +in a grimace of incessant, sad disgust, his eyes still sought it. + + * * * * * + +His colleagues in St. Petersburg asked each other what kept him so long +in Rome. He wrote one of them that he was working, and indeed he did +work. Through his soul vibrated melodies full of bewitching sad +loveliness, full of the rejoicing and complaint of a longing which +could not yet attain the longed-for happiness. + +And there in Rome, in those mild fragrant spring nights, he wrote a +cyclus of songs which might rank at the side of the most beautiful +musical lyrics ever written. + +In spite of their full richness of melody, his earlier compositions had +something too glaring, overladen, and trivially pleasing; they were too +much influenced by his virtuosity to please for themselves. In his +Roman cyclus of songs he showed himself for the first time a great +musician. And as until then he had distrusted his talent as composer, +he was pleasantly astonished over his own achievement. + +He always worked at night. His writing-table stood in front of the +window of his room which looked out on the Piazza di Spagna. Very often +his glance wandered there. A dark-blue heaven lighted by thousands of +stars arched above the broad, irregular place, over the antique +columns, from whose height a modern art nonentity looks down on Rome. + +All was silent, only the water, the resonant soul of Rome, tittered and +sobbed in the basins and fountains, and spouted up jubilantly in damp +silver streams, greeting from afar the unattainable heavens, and all +the tittering, sobbing, and rejoicing united in a long vibrating broken +chord. + +Still vibrating in every fibre at the recollection of Natalie's +farewell smile, he sat at his shaky table and wrote. The mild night +wind, fragrant with the kisses which it had stolen from the magnolia +and orange blossoms, crept in to him and caressed his hot cheeks. He +inhaled it eagerly. He had often been warned of the Roman night air, +but he did not think of the warning, and if he had--? He was in that +happy mood in which man no longer believes in sickness and death. + +The hateful melancholy which as he said often pressed him down to the +ground, and tormented him with predictions of his final annihilation, +was gone. He no longer saw, as formerly, an open grave at his feet. +Heaven had opened to him. An indescribable, light, elevating feeling +had overpowered him; he no longer felt the weight of his body. Had his +wings, then, grown in Rome? + + * * * * * + +He did not think what would come of all this. He did not wish to think +of it; did not wish to see clearly. With closed eyes he walked through +life--the angels led him. + + * * * * * + +It was the beginning of May, and he had finished his cyclus of songs. +With a beating heart he entered the Palazzo Morsini to ask Natalie +whether he might dedicate it to her. + +The young princess was not at home, but her mother would be very happy +to see him, they told him. + +It was very hot, the blinds were all lowered. The princess lay on a +lounge and fanned herself with a peacock feather fan. + +After she had complained of the heat, she began to speak to him of all +kinds of family affairs. Her son had the best of opportunities to make +a career for himself, said she; her eldest daughter, who was far less +pretty than Natalie, added the princess, had married very well; her +husband was indeed a wealthy diplomat. "_Mois, je suis pauvre_," +concluded the old lady; "but I could live quite without care, if +Natalie were only married. But she will hear nothing of that. She lets +the best years of her life pass, and if you only knew what good matches +she has refused. Pachotin has already offered himself twice to her, and +if you please----" + +Just then a gay voice interrupted the inconsolable elegy. "Mamma, how +can any one boast so?" Natalie had entered, a large black hat on her +head, in her arms a huge bunch of flowers. + +"I did not boast--I complained," replied the old woman, sighing. + +After Natalie had greeted Lensky with her usual friendliness, she laid +the flowers on the table and arranged them in the vases which an +Italian chambermaid had brought her. + +"Ah, Natalie, why will you have none of them?" sighed the princess. + +"Little mother, I can love but once," replied Natalie, bending her +brown head over the flowers. "I have told you I will not marry until I +have found some one quite extraordinary--a hero or a genius." + +"Am I dreaming, or did she look at me with those words?" Lensky asked +himself. "But why did she turn her eyes away so quickly when they met +mine?" + +Meanwhile the princess said: "Yes, if all girls wished to wait thus!" + +"I am not like all girls," said Natalie, laughing. "Most girls have +hearts like hand-organs, which every one can play; others have hearts +like AEolian harps, on which no one can play, and still they always +vibrate so sympathetically for the world; and still other girls--" she +interrupted herself to break a superfluous leaf from a magnolia twig. + +The princess, who seemed to lay little weight on Natalie's naive +comparisons, fanned herself indifferently with her peacock fan, but +Lensky repeated, "Well, Natalie Alexandrovna, other girls----" + +"Other girls have hearts like Amati violins; if a bungler touches them +there is a horrible discord; but if a true artist comes who understands +it, then----" + +This exaggerated remark she had made in a voice trembling between +mockery and tenderness, and incessantly occupied with the arrangement +of her flowers. + +Without ending the last sentence, she broke off, and bent her head to +the right to observe a combination of white roses and heliotrope with a +thoughtful look. + +The princess yawned from heat and discontent. "Leave me in peace from +your musical comparisons, Natascha," said she. "Besides, I can assure +you that no one spoils a fine instrument quicker than one of your great +virtuosos. When I think how Franz Liszt ruined our Pleyel in a single +evening; it was no longer fit even for a conservatory." + +"Violins are not ruined as quickly as pianos," said Natalie, laughing; +then, still speaking to the flowers, she said: "Don't you think, little +mother, that if such a piano had a soul, a mind, it would rather +rejoice to really live for once under the hands of a great master, +and even if it were to die of the joy, than merely to exist for a +half-century in a noble, charming room, as a carefully preserved +showpiece?" + +Again it seemed to Lensky that she looked at him, and again she +turned away her head when their looks met. "You are astonished at this +great expenditure for flowers?" she remarked. "We expect guests this +evening--my cousins from St. Petersburg, the Jeliagins. You know them, +and I shall try to draw their critical looks away from the holes in the +furniture covering to these beautiful color effects. So! Now I have +finished; here are a few May-bells left for your button-hole. Ah! +really, you never wear flowers!" + +"Give them to me," said he, contracting his brows gloomily. She smiled +at him without saying anything. Then something scratched at the door. + +"Please open it, Boris Nikolaivitch," she asked. + +He did so; her large dog, a gigantic Scotch greyhound, came in, and +immediately springing up on his beautiful mistress, he laid both front +paws on her shoulders. She took his heavy head between her slender +hands, and murmuring tender, caressing words to him, she kissed him +twice, three times, on the forehead. + +Lensky took leave soon after without having mentioned his song cyclus. +His mind was in an uproar. "Is she only coquetting with me?" he asked +himself, "or--or--" A passionate joy throbbed in his veins, then +suddenly an icy shudder ran over him. "And if she is only like all the +others!" + +At his departure Natalie had said to him: "You will come this evening, +Boris Nikolaivitch, in spite of this boring Petersburg invasion? I beg +you will, _vous serez le coin bleu de mon ciel!_" + + * * * * * + +The evening came. + +A Roman sirocco evening, with an approaching thunderstorm that hung +heavily around the horizon and would not lift. + +The heavily perfumed sultry air penetrated through the drawn curtains +into the Assanows' drawing-room. The Jeliagins had brought a couple of +Parisian friends with them, and naturally Pachotin was not missing. A +deathly _ennui_ reigned. They spoke of Parisian fashions, of the +Empress Eugenie's new court; they complained of the new cook in the +Hotel de l'Europe, and of the heat. + +Then they spoke of national dances. The Jeliagins had recently +travelled in Spain and were enthusiastic about the fandango. The +Parisians had heard there was nothing more graceful than a well-danced +Polish mazurka; could none of the Russian ladies dance one for them?--a +very bold request, but they were all friends. + +The Jeliagins announced that Natalie danced the mazurka like a true +woman of Warsaw. They left her no peace. + +"Oh, I will put on no more airs," said she, "if one of the ladies will +take a seat at the piano, so----" + +To go to the piano, even were it only to play dance-music, in Lensky's +presence! The ladies swooned at the mere thought. + +"Very well, then you must give up the mazurka," said Natalie, +decidedly. + +"Ask Boris Nikolaivitch," whispered one of the St. Petersburg women. +"If he is the first violinist of his time, he is also an excellent +pianist." + +"No, no," said Natalie, firmly, and then her great brilliant eyes met +Lensky's. + +Although at that time he maintained his artistic dignity with quite +childish exaggeration, he smiled very good-naturedly and said, "I see +very well that you place no confidence in me; you think I cannot catch +your mazurka music." + +"No, no, no!" said Natalie. "You shall not degrade your art." + +"And do you really think it would be degrading to improvise a musical +background for your performance? I should so like to see you dance." +And he stood up and went to the piano. + +Such pretty little phrases were formerly not his style. He had, as +Natalie had often laughingly told him, no talent for _fioriture_ in +conversation. + +The Petersburg ladies looked at each other. "How polite he has become! +You have changed him, Natascha," whispered they. + +Meanwhile Pachotin gave Natalie his hand. + +Lensky had seized the opportunity of admiring her grace with joy. He +had never thought how painfully it would affect him to see her dance +with another man. He did not take his eyes off her, and meanwhile +improvised the most bewitching devil's music. + +She wore a white dress, her neck and arms were bare, and around her +waist was a Circassian girdle embroidered with gold and silver. One +hand in her partner's, the other hanging loosely at her side, her head +slightly on one side, she moved safely over the dangerously smooth +surface of the marble floor. At the beginning, pale as usual, except +her dark-red lips, she looked quite indifferent; gradually she became +warmer and more animated, a slight blush crept into her cheeks, her +eyes beamed as if in a happy dream, around her lips trembled the sad +expression which the feeling of intense pleasure often causes us, and +her movements at the same time had something indescribably gentle and +supple. + +[Illustration: At the beginning, pale as usual, except the dark-red +lips, she looked quite indifferent; gradually she became warmer and +more animated, a slight blush crept into her cheeks, her eyes beamed as +in a happy dream---- _p. 56_.] + +Pachotin, most correctly attired, with a collar which reached to the +tips of his ears and faultless yellow gloves, hopped around her in the +true affected knightly grimacing Polish-mazurka manner. + +"An ape!" thought Lensky to himself; "but how handsome, how +distinguished he is! almost as handsome as she!" and suddenly the +question occurred to him: "Is it my music or his presence which +animates her? And if it were my music! Nevertheless, she will still +marry him; yes, even if she were in love with me, still she would marry +him, and not me! What a fool I was to imagine----" + +After Pachotin had soberly placed his heels together and acknowledged +his deep devotion to the lady by a suitable courtesy, the mazurka was +at an end. + +Quite beside themselves with enthusiasm, the Parisians surrounded +Natalie. When she wished to thank Lensky he had disappeared. It was his +manner many times to withdraw without taking leave, but still to-day it +made Natalie uneasy. She was vibrating with a great excitement, the air +seemed to her suffocatingly hot, she drew off her gloves; the noise of +the prattling voices became unbearable to her, and she passed through +the second empty drawing-room, into the arched loggia set with blooming +orange-trees, from which one looked across the court-yard to the Tiber. + +The storm still hung on the horizon. Heavy masses of clouds, shot +through by pale lightning, towered, on the other side of the river, +above the gloomy architecture of the Trastevere. They had not yet +reached the moon, which, palely shining, stood high in the heavens. Its +light illumined the court, with its statues and bas-reliefs. The air +was sultry. + +Natalie drew a deep breath. Suddenly she discovered Lensky. He was +staring down on the Tiber, which, rolling by in its bed, incessantly +sighed, as if from sorrow at its sad lot, which compelled it +continually to hasten past everything. + +Could one really take it amiss in the stream if it sometimes overflowed +its banks in order to carry away with it some of the beautiful objects, +near which, condemned to perpetual wandering, it might not remain +standing? + +"Ah! you here?" said Natalie. "I thought you had taken French leave. I +was vexed with you." + +"So!" + +"Yes, because--because I was sorry not to be able to thank you. It was +really----" + +"Do not speak so," said he, quite roughly; "just as if you did not know +that there is nothing in the world, nothing in my power that I would +not do for you!" + +She bent her head back a little and smiled at him in a friendly way, +but as if his words had not surprised her in the slightest. "You are +very good to me," said she. + +He felt strangely thus alone with her in this sweet-perfumed, +melancholy, intoxicating sultriness, alone with this happiness that was +so near him, and which he was afraid of frightening away by an unseemly +imprudence. He felt by turns hot and cold. Why did she not go? + +She rested her hands on the marble balustrade of the loggia and bending +over it she murmured: "How beautiful! oh, how wonderfully beautiful! +And it is so tiresome in there; do you not find it so, Boris +Nikolaivitch?" + +His throat contracted, he felt that he was about to lose control of +himself. + +"Shall I play?" he asked. "I will do it willingly for you." + +"Oh, no! Why should you play to those stupid people in there?" replied +she. "I would be prepared to hear, in the middle of the G minor +concerto, the question: 'Before I forget it, can you not give me the +address of a good shoemaker in Rome?' You know how such things vex me." + +"Is she coquetting with me, or--?" he asked himself again. + +She stood before him with her enchanting face, and her tender glance +met his. She did not know that she tormented him. In spite of her +twenty-one years, she had the boundless innocence of a girl whose mind +has never been desecrated by the knowledge of passion, a degree of +innocence in which men do not believe. + +"Is she coquetting?" His heart beat to bursting, and suddenly, when she +quite unconstrainedly came one step nearer him, he took her hand. "Oh, +you dear, dear girl!" he murmured, with hoarse, scarcely audible voice, +and pressed it to his lips. + +[Illustration: "Oh, you dear, dear girl!" he murmured, with hoarse, +scarcely audible voice, and pressed it to his lips. + +Crimsoning. She tore away her hand. _p. 61_.] + +Crimsoning, she tore away her hand. "For Heaven's sake, what are you +thinking of?" said she, and started back with a proud, almost scornful +gesture. + +Then a horrible anger overcame him. + +"I was stupid, I was mistaken in you. You think no more nobly or better +than the others!" he burst out. + +"I do not understand you. What do you mean?" murmured she. + +What else had she to ask? Why did she not go, but stood before him, as +if paralyzed, with her pale, seductive loveliness, surrounded by +moonlight? + +"I mean that if you observe our relations from this conventional +standpoint, your behavior to me was a heartless, arrogant abomination." + +"But, Boris Nikolaivitch, that is all foolishness. You do not know what +you are saying," she stammered, quite beside herself. + +"So! I do not know what I am saying?" He had now stepped close up to +her. "And if I, mistaking your coquetries--yes, that is the word; blush +now and be a little ashamed--if I, mistaking your coquetries, have +permitted myself to petition for your hand? Oh, how you start! +Naturally, you had never thought of such a thing!" + +His voice was hoarse and rasping, his face very calm and as if +petrified by anger and such a mental torment as he had never before +experienced. "But go! Why do you stay and torture me? I will no longer +look at you. I abominate you, and still I love you so passionately, so +madly!" + +Yes, why did she still not go? He could endure it no longer--he clasped +her to his breast and kissed her with his hot, burning lips. Then she +pushed him from her and fled. + +He looked after her. Now all was over. For one moment he remained +standing on the same spot, then, with deeply bowed head, dragging his +feet along slowly, he passed through the vestibule and left, without +thinking of his hat, which he had left in the drawing-room. + +For the remainder of the evening Natalie's whole being betrayed only +haste and uneasiness. She spoke more and quicker than formerly, laughed +frequently, and told the gayest stories. + +When her Petersburg cousins wished to tease her with Lensky's +enthusiasm for her, and laughingly called him "your genius," she +mentioned him indifferently, quite disapprovingly, shrugged her +shoulders over his talent as composer--yes, even found fault with his +playing. She was friendly, quite inviting, to Pachotin; she no longer +knew what she did, only when he wished to give the conversation a more +earnest turn she broke it off suddenly and remorselessly. + +When at last, at last, the drawing-room was empty and she might +withdraw, she locked herself in her room, threw herself down before the +holy picture before which she always said her evening prayer. But, +however she tried to pray, she could not. She did not know for what she +should pray. Her cheeks burned with dreadful shame. How could he have +so far forgotten himself with her! + +She threw open a window. What did it matter to her that they said the +Roman night air was poisonous? She would have liked to take the Roman +fever, would have liked to die. Her window opened on the street. The +Via Giulia was divided by the moonlight into two parts, one light and +one dark. All was quiet, empty, deserted. Then there was a sound of +slow, dragging steps, and two lowered voices whispered down there in +the silent solitude. It was probably a pair of belated lovers, and +suddenly there was a soft, tender sound through the mild May night. She +caught her breath, closed the window, and turned back to her room. +Half-undressed, she sat on the edge of her little cool white bed and +thought again and again--of the same thing--of his kiss. + + * * * * * + +"Why has 'your genius' so suddenly tired of Rome? He leaves to-day," +remarked the Jeliagins, who had come to lunch the next morning in the +Palazzo Morsini. + +They were staying at the same hotel as Lensky--that is to say, in the +"Europe"--and had spoken to him in the court of the hotel. "He looked +miserably," they added, with a haughty glance. "Either he has Roman +fever or you have broken his heart." + +Then they spoke of other things. Soon after lunch they went away. + +Meanwhile Lensky stumbled up and down, up and down, in his room. A sick +lady whose room was beneath his, at last sent up by the waiter and +begged him to be quiet. + +His departure was fixed for seven o'clock; it struck one, it struck +four. + +Should he leave without having made a parting call upon the Princess +Assanow run away like any fellow who has borrowed thirty rubles? "But +they will not receive me," he thought, "if the princess has told her +mother. But, no, she will have said nothing; she is too proud. What a +lovely being! How could I only-- Oh, if I might at least ask her +pardon! But what kind of a pardon would it be? Such a thing a woman +pardons only if she loves, and how should she love me, a beast as I am? +She must have an aversion for me." + +He resolved to take leave by letter. He tried it in French and Russian, +but could complete nothing. Ashamed of his laughable incapacity, he +tore up the different sheets of letter-paper adorned with "_Des +circonstances imprevues_," or "_La reconnaissance sincere que_." + +Five o'clock! He hastened across the courtyard, sprang into a carriage. +"Palazzo Morsini, Via Giulia," he called to the coachman, and commanded +him to drive fast. + +When he ascended the well-known stairs he asked himself a last time if +he would be received. + +The servant conducted him to the boudoir of the old princess. She broke +off her game of patience to greet him, only betrayed a slight +astonishment at his sudden departure, and said that she and Natalie +should soon follow his example and go North, probably to Baden-Baden, +for the heat in Rome began to be unbearable. Then she rang for the +maid, whom she commissioned to tell the princess that Boris +Nikolaivitch had come to take leave. + +Lensky waited in breathless excitement. The maid came back with the +decision: The princess was very ill and had lain down with a headache. + +"Quite as I expected," thought Lensky, while the princess remarked +politely, "She will be very sorry." + +Then he kissed the old lady's hand, she touched his forehead with +her lips in the Russian custom, wished him a pleasant journey, he +thanked her a last time for all the friendship she had shown him, and +went--went quite slowly through the large empty room, in which the dust +danced in a broad sunbeam which lay across the marble floor, and in +which the flowers which she had arranged so charmingly yesterday now +stood withered in their vases. + +"Shall I never see her again, never--never?" he asked himself. He would +have given his life for a last friendly glance from her. What use was +it to think of that--it was all over! + +Then suddenly he heard something near him like the rustling of an +angel's wings. He looked up. Natalie stood before him, deathly pale, +with black rings around her eyes, with carelessly arranged hair. A +passionate pity, a tender anxiety overcame him. "How she has suffered +through my offence!" he told himself and rushed up to her. "Natalie, +can you forgive me?" he called. + +Her great, sad eyes were raised to him with an expression of helpless, +ashamed tenderness, as if they would say, "And you ask that!" She moved +her lips, but no word came. + +He held her little hands trembling with fever in his. She did not draw +them away. He grew dizzy. For one moment they were both silent, then he +whispered, drawing her closer to him, "Do you love me, then? Could you +resolve to bear my name, to share my whole existence?" + +Scarcely audibly she whispered, "Yes." + +We are sometimes frightened at the sudden fulfilment of a wish which we +have believed unattainable. + +And as Lensky under the weight of his new, strange happiness sank at +the feet of his betrothed and covered the hem of her dress with tears +and kisses, in the midst of his happiness he felt an oppressed anxiety, +a great fear. + + * * * * * + +A few days after Natalie's betrothal there was a short, imperious ring +at the door of the artistic gray anteroom, in which the imposing +butler, as usual, sat majestically intrenched behind his newspaper. + +Monsieur Baptiste raised his eyebrows; he did not like this imperious +manner of ringing a bell, and did not hurry at all to open the door. +Only when the ring was repeated did he unlock it. His face changed +color from surprise, and he bowed quite to the ground when he +recognized in the entering gentleman the young prince, the eldest +brother of Natalie, Sergei Alexandrovitch Assanow. + +"Are the ladies at home?" he asked shortly in a high, somewhat vexed +voice without further noticing the respectful greeting of the servant. + +"The princess is still in bed, but the Princess Natalie is already up." + +"Good. Do not disturb the princess, and announce me to Princess +Natalie," said Assanow, and with that he followed the butler, who was +hastening before him, into the drawing-room. There he sat down in a +mahogany arm-chair upholstered in faded yellow damask, crossed his +legs, rested his tall shining hat on his knee and looked around him. On +one of his hands was a gray glove, the other was bare. It was a long, +slender, aristocratic hand, very well cared for, too white for a man's +hand, but bony, and with strongly marked veins on the back--a hand +which one saw would certainly hold firmly what it had once grasped, and +a hand which was capable of no caress. For the rest it would have been +hard to judge anything from the exterior of the prince. He was a tall +slender man of about thirty, with light-brown hair that was already +thin on the top of the head, and a face--smoothly shaven except a long +mustache--which in the cut of the delicate regular features resembled +his sister's not unnoticeably. But the expression, that animating soul +of beauty which lent Natalie's pale face more charm than the regularity +of the lines, was lacking in him. Everything about him was as correct +as his profile--his high stiff collar, the drab gaiters which showed +beneath his trousers, his light-gray gloves with black stitching. He +was the type of the Russian state official of the highest category, the +type of men who in public life only permit themselves to think as far +as will not injure their advancement. + +As he was a very clever, sharp, judging man withal, he revenged himself +for the discomfort which the systematic crippling of his intellectual +capacity in the service of the state caused him, by devoting all the +superfluity of his unneeded intellect to shedding an unpleasantly +glaring intellectual light about him, and condemning as absolute +foolishness all those little poetic, pleasant trifles which make life +beautiful. + +He called this manner of pleasing himself doing his duty. + +Strangely enough, with all his sterile dryness he was a true lover of +music. He played the cello as well as a man of the world can permit +himself to--that is to say, with an elegant inaccuracy, together with +pedantic bursts of virtuosity, and in consequence had cultivated +Lensky's acquaintance assiduously. + +While he waited for his sister he looked around the room distrustfully +with his handsome dark but unpleasantly piercing eyes. He grew uneasy. +The atmosphere of the whole room was quite permeated with happiness. +Everything seemed to feel happy here--the shabby furniture, the music +which lay somewhat confusedly on the piano. On the table near which +Sergei Alexandrovitch sat stood a basket of pale Malmaison roses, under +the piano was a violin case. + +Sergei Alexandrovitch frowned. Then Natalie entered the room; he rose, +went to meet her, kissed and embraced her. It seemed strange to her +that she did not feel as glad to see him as formerly, but rather felt a +kind of chill. Which of them had changed, he or she? + +"What a surprise!" said she, and felt herself that her voice had a +forced sound. "It has not formerly been your custom to appear so +unexpectedly." + +"My journey was only decided upon last month," replied he, somewhat +hesitatingly; and with his dull smile he added, "I hope I do not arrive +inopportunely, Natalie?" + +"How can you ask such a thing!" said she. "But sit down and put your +hat away--you are at home." + +He remarked the uneasiness of her manner. He coughed twice, and then +sat down again near the table on which the basket of roses stood. + +Natalie sat down. Both hands resting on the red surface of the mahogany +table, she bent over the flowers, and slowly with a kind of tenderness +inhaled the dreamy, melancholy perfume. + +"Have you had a pleasant winter?" began Sergei Alexandrovitch. + +"I do not know," replied she without looking at him; "I have forgotten, +but the spring was wonderfully beautiful, wonderfully beautiful," and +she bent over the flowers again. + +"Hm! So you prefer Rome to Naples?" said he condescendingly. + +"Yes." + +"You seem to have been very comfortably fixed here," he remarked, with +a glance around. "You have very pretty rooms. Those are beautiful roses +which you have there." + +"Boris Lensky sent them to me," said she, while she at the same time +pulled a rose from the basket to fasten it in the bodice of her light +foulard dress. Then she sat down opposite Sergei. War was declared. + +"Lensky seems to be a great deal with you," said Assanow, +condescendingly. + +"Yes." + +"I heard of it through acquaintances in Petersburg," began the prince. +"It did not quite please me." + +Natalie only shrugged her shoulders, with an expression as if she would +say: "I am very sorry, but that does not change matters at all." In +spite of that she secretly trembled before her brother. The +announcement which she had to make to him would not cross her lips. + +"It is hard to speak of certain things to you," he continued, while he +tried to make his thin high voice sound confidential. He did not wish +to make his sister refractory by overhasty roughness. "I have no +prejudices." It had recently become the fashion in his set, and +especially for the upper ten thousand, to boast of a kind of harmless +liberality. "No one can accuse me of smallness. I am always in favor of +attracting young artists into society--first, because they form an +animating element in our circles, and secondly, because one should give +them an opportunity to improve their manners a little; but all in +moderation. Too great intimacy in such cases is bad for both parties. +You are too much carried away by the generosity of your heart. I know +that in reality your immoderate kindness to Lensky does not mean much, +but----" + +Her wonderfully beautiful eyes met his. + +"I am betrothed to Boris Nikolaivitch," said she wearily but very +distinctly. + +"Betrothed!" he burst out. "You to Lensky? You are crazy!" + +"Not at all." + +"Does mother know of it?" + +"Certainly." + +"And she has given her consent?" + +"At first she was surprised; she cried a whole afternoon. I was very +sorry to pain her. Then she gave way. She is very fond of him. Every +one must be fond of him who learns to know him well." Natalie's eyes +beamed with animation. + +Sergei Alexandrovitch pulled at his mustache. "Hm, hm," he murmured; +"we will leave that undecided. As it happens, I am one of those who +know him well; there are few in our set who know him as intimately as +I, and--hm--I do not know that he has caused me any very enthusiastic +feelings. As artist I rank him very high, not so high as has been the +fashion lately, for as a _beau dire il manque de style_, he lacks +style! But that has nothing to do with this. But if he united in +himself the genius of Beethoven and Paganini, I would still look upon +the possibility of your alliance with him as unheard of, and I tell you +frankly, that I shall do all that is in my power to prevent it." He had +taken up again the hat which he had formerly laid down, and held it on +his knee as if paying a call of state. While he spoke the last words, +he knocked on the top of it with malicious decision. + +Natalie crossed her arms. + +"I knew that you would oppose the mesalliance," said she, "but----" + +He would not let her finish. "Mesalliance!" said he, and laughed very +mockingly, quite shortly and softly, to himself, and began to drum on +the top of his hat again. "Mesalliance! I cannot say that the marriage +of my sister to this Mr. Lensky would be especially pleasant--no, that +I cannot say. What must be my horror at your undertaking if I scarcely +think of my opposition on account of the unequal birth!" He was silent, +but then as Natalie remained obstinately silent, he continued: "That +you will in consequence change your social position is your affair. But +do not believe that this will be all that you give up. You sacrifice +not only your position, your whole personality, all your habits of +life, but more than all these, you sacrifice all your formerly so +spared and guarded womanly tender feeling if you insist upon marrying +this violinist. Oh, I know what you will say," said he, while he +noticed the glance which Natalie gave the roses on the table. "He is +full of poetic attentions for you. When they are in love, the roughest +men speak in verse. And I believe that he loves you. But his enthusiasm +for you is still only a passing effervescence. What will remain when +that is gone? I ask you, what would remain in a man without principles, +without a trace of moral restraint, who has grown up amid surroundings +which have forever blunted his feelings for things which would horrify +you, and others of which you have no suspicion?" + +Again he paused, but this time Natalie spoke: "May I ask you," began +she, with the calm behind which irritation bordering on uncontrollable +anger concealed itself--"may I ask you to tell me exactly, without any +more finely veiled insinuations, what you have against Boris +Nikolaivitch, except that he is of lower birth and has enjoyed no +careful bringing up?" + +"My God! If it is a question of my sister's future husband, that is +enough and more than enough!" said Assanow. + +"Is it all?" asked Natalie, and looked at him penetratingly. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Is it all?" she repeated, while she slowly rose from her chair. "Have +you anything else against him?" + +"I have really nothing against him as long as it is not a question of +my sister's husband," he hissed; "but in that case everything. And if +instead of Lensky he were called Prince Dolgorouki, I would still say, +as a husband for you he is impossible!" + +"Why--I wish to know it--why?" + +"Why? Good. I will tell you, as far as one can tell you--because he is +a wild animal, with bursts of roughness of which you cannot form the +slightest conception," said Assanow; and, striking his thin hands +together, he added, with evidently genuine excitement: "_Mais, ma +pauvre fille_, you have no suspicion to what humiliations, what +degradations, you expose yourself." + +He stopped. He looked at his sister triumphantly. She still stood +before him with her hand resting on the top of the table, staring, pale +and without a word. It would be false, to say that his speech made no +impression on her. It had made an impression on her. Still, she +ascribed all that he said to boundless, passionate opposition. While he +spoke it seemed to her as if little pointed icicles were hurled in her +face. And weary and wounded from this hailstorm of fruitless prudence, +she longed with all her heart for a reconciling delusion. + +He misunderstood her apparently great excitement, and in the firm +conviction that she already secretly began to fall in with his opinion, +he began, this time in a kindly, playful tone: "My poor Natalie, my +poor, unwise but always charming sister, you are like children who see +that they are wrong and are ashamed to acknowledge it. Well, we will +not press you too much. At first it is always painful to be undeceived; +but time cures everything, and when you are married to a distinguished +and reasonable young fellow--_un garcon distingue et raisonnable_--who +will rationally cure you of your romantic ideas, you will only think of +this youthful foolishness with a smile." + +She threw back her head and measured him from head to foot. At this +moment he seemed to her quite pitiable. How poverty-stricken, how sad +was his whole inner life, his feelings, his thoughts, to those to which +she had recently accustomed herself! "And you really believe that it +could occur to me to give up Boris Nikolaivitch?" said she slowly with +proudly curved lips. + +"I think, after what I have said to you--" He tried to be patient, and +even wished to take her hand, but she drew it back; the touch of his +cold, bloodless fingers was unpleasant to her. Yet it had never been so +before. What had changed in her? + +The prince's face took on a hard, vexed expression. "I think after what +I have told you--" he repeated. + +"Is it not true, after what you have told me, after the consolation you +have offered me, you cannot understand that I keep my word?" said she, +challengingly. "What will you, I am now so foolish?" Her voice, veiled +at first, became warmer and stronger, while she continued: "You take +away summer from me, and offer me winter as consolation--that is, you +ask of me that I should refuse everything in the world that blooms and +bears fruit, only because sometimes a devastating thunderstorm bursts +over this wealth of beauty and life! I know that in a normal winter +there are no thunderstorms, and in spite of that I prefer the summer!" + +"But it is a tropical summer!" exclaimed Assanow. + +"That may be," she replied, calmly; "but for that very reason it is +more magnificent--yes, even because of the dangers involved in it--more +magnificent than any other." + +He stood up. "It is useless to speak to you," said he, coldly; "the +only thing that remains for me is to speak to Lensky. He has a clear +head in spite of all his genius. He can be talked over." + +Then Natalie was startled out of her proud calm. "You would be +indelicate enough to say to him what you have said to me!" she burst +out. + +"In such cases it is not only wisest, but most humane, to use pure +prudence instead of foolish sentimentality," announced Assanow; and, +bowing to his sister as to a stranger, he left, with all his vexation, +still elevated by the thought that he had again had opportunity to +display his "prudence" in a brilliant light. He loved his prudence as +an artistic capability, and was glad to give proofs, by all kinds of +virtuoso performances, of its extent and unusual pliability. Whether +these productions were exactly suited to the time troubled the virtuoso +little, and that by his last threat he had attained exactly the +opposite with Natalie from what he wished, did not occur to him at all, +momentarily. + +He had gone. Natalie still stood in the middle of the room, her hand +resting on the table, and trembling in her whole body. Suddenly the +memory of the "musical confession" arose in her, which Lensky had laid +before her the morning when he tried the Amati, the confession which +had frightened her. And through her mind vibrated, piercingly and +cuttingly, the mysterious succession of tones from the Arabian +folksongs which echoed lamentingly through all his compositions--the +devil's music: Asbein. + +As long as she had to defend herself from her brother, she had not +realized how deeply he had wounded her. She felt at once miserable, +wounded, and discontented with life--as a young tree must feel, over +whose fragrant young spring blossoms a hailstorm has passed. Then +Lensky came in. He perceived in a moment what had happened. + +"They have tormented you on my account," said he. "Poor heart! if I +could only take all this vexation upon myself." + +She smiled at him. "Then I would not be worthy of you," replied she. + +He drew her gently toward him. Her discouragement had disappeared; +warm, strong life again pulsated in her veins. + +"Everything has its recompense," whispered she; "it is sweet to bear +something for any one whom----" + +"Well, for any one whom--please finish," he urged, and drew her closer +to him. + +"You know it without." + +"I would so love to hear you say it once." + +She raised herself on tiptoes and whispered something in his ear. + +He held her tighter and tighter to him. "Oh, my happiness, my queen!" +he murmured, and his warm lips met hers. + +She felt as if wrapped in a sunbeam, in a warm, animating atmosphere, +through which none of the critical sneers and opinions of those who +stood without the consecrated magic circle of love could penetrate. + + * * * * * + +Six weeks later Natalie and Lensky were married, and at the Russian +Embassy in Vienna. Her dowry consisted of a very incomplete trousseau, +in part lavishly trimmed with lace; of a mortgaged estate in South +Russia that had brought in no rents for three years; and of three +Cremona violins. + +While her elder brother silently concealed the true despair which the +marriage caused him behind stiff dignity, the younger, an officer of +the guard, with a becoming talent for arrogant impertinences, pleased +himself by jesting over this adventurous marriage, and describing the +"strange taste" of his sister, with a shrug of the shoulders, as a case +of acute monomania. When he spoke of his brother-in-law, he called him +nothing but "_cette bete sauvage et indecrottable_," even when he had +long made a practice of borrowing money of him. + +Neither of Natalie's brothers or her married sister appeared at her +wedding. Only the old princess accompanied her daughter to the altar. + + + + + + SECOND BOOK. + + +They trifled away the summer on the Italian coast and in Switzerland. +In the autumn Lensky made a concert tour through Germany and the +Netherlands, on which his young wife accompanied him, and attempted +with humorous zeal to accustom herself to the role of an artist's wife. +In the beginning of December Lensky and she came to St. Petersburg. The +residence had been prepared for the young pair by a friend of Natalie. +Natalie made a discontented face when she entered her new kingdom. How +new, how glaring, how unsuitable and tasteless everything looked. "It +is as if one bit into a green apple," said she; and turning to Lensky +she added, gayly, with a shrug of her shoulders: "The stupid Annette +did not know any better; but do not trouble yourself. In a couple of +weeks it will be different. You shall see how comfortably I will +cushion your nest. You must feel happy in it, my restless eagle, or +else you will fly away from me. What?" + +She said this, smiling in proud consciousness of his passionate love. +What pleasure would it give him to fly away? And teasingly, jestingly, +she pushed back the thick hair from his temples. + +Ah, how pleasant and yet tantalizing was the touch of her slender, +delicate fingers, which made him at once nervous and happy! As he +expressed it, it "almost made him jump out of his skin with rapture." +At first he let her continue her foolish, tender playfulness to her +heart's content; then he laughingly put himself on the defensive, +preached a more dignified manner to her, and when she did not yield, +but gayly continued her lovely, teasing ways, he at length seized her +violently by both wrists and quite crushed her hands with kisses. + +If in the first weeks of their married life both had been quite solemn, +thoughtful, and confused in their manner to each other, now they often +frolicked together like two gay children. + +While he took up again his long-interrupted duties at the Petersburg +Conservatory, she built him "his nest." She did not go lavishly to +work. Oh, no! She knew that one must not press down a young artist with +the burden of material cares. She imagined she was very economical. She +did not cease to wonder over the cheapness with which she could get +everything that was needed, beginning with the flowers--flowers in +winter, in St. Petersburg! He never enlightened her as to how much the +footing on which she maintained her "simple household" surpassed his +present circumstances. + +Every time that he came home he found a new, attractive change. She +accomplished great things in artistic arrangement of the so-called +"confused style," which at that time was not so common as to-day, but +was still a bold innovation. + +"_C'est tres joli, mais un peu trop touffu_," said he to her once when +she met him, quite particularly conscious of victory and awaiting +praise, with the knowledge of a new, costly improvement in the +arrangement of the drawing-room. + +"Yes, my love; but a drawing-room is neither an official audience-room +nor a gymnasium," replied she, somewhat offended. + +"Nor a ball-room nor riding-school," completed he, jestingly; +"but--h'm--still one should be able to move in it. Do you not think +so?" + +"That is as one looks at it. I have nothing to do with it if you cannot +brandish around too freely in it." + + * * * * * + +They went out in society quite frequently--in Natalie's society. That +many people, especially Natalie's near relations, made comments on the +marriage of the spoiled child of a prince with a violinist is easily +understood. But scarcely had they seen Boris and his young wife +together a few times when the comments ceased. A full, true, young +human happiness always causes respect, and, like every achievement, +bears its triumphant justification in itself. The leader of fashion, +Princess Lydia Petrovna B., declared publicly, and, indeed, in the +highest court circles, that in her opinion Natalie had acted very +wisely. + +Countess Sophie Dimitrievna went a step further when she energetically +declared that she envied Natalie. From that time every one vied in +feting the young couple and distinguishing them. + +They both enjoyed society, but the best part of it was not entering the +brilliantly illuminated reception-rooms or being surrounded by +wondering strangers. Oh, no! the best of all was the last quarter of an +hour before they left their home, when Lensky, already in evening +dress, entered the dressing-room of his young wife. Each time he felt +anew the same pleasant excitement when he, slowly turning the knob, +after a teasing, "May I come in, Natalie?" entered the cosey room. +How charming and attractive everything was there! The room with the +light carpet and the comfortable, not too numerous articles of +cretonne-upholstered furniture; the two tiny gold-embroidered slippers +on the rough bear-skin in front of the lounge; not far off, Natalie's +house-dress, thrown over a chair, exhaling the warmth of her young, +fresh, fragrant personality. Then there on the toilet-table, with +clouds of white muslin over the pink lining, and with sparkling silver +and crystal utensils, a pretty confusion of half-opened white lace +boxes, and on the table dark velvet jewel-cases. The pleasant, mild, +and still bright light of many pink wax-candles, which stood about in +high, heavy silver candelabra, and the warm, strange, seductive +atmosphere which filled the whole room--an atmosphere which was +permeated with the fragrance of greenhouse flowers, burning +wax-candles, and the pleasant, subtle, spicy Indian perfume which clung +to all Natalie's effects. + +And there, before the tall cheval-glass, Natalie, already in evening +toilet, almost ready, her beautiful arms hanging down in pampered +helplessness; behind her a maid, just finished fastening her corsage, +and a second, with a three-branched candelabra in her hand, throwing +the light upon her mistress. + +Was that really his wife? This splendid, queenly being in the white +silk dress--she wore white silk in preference--really the wife of the +violinist, in whose life, not so far back, lay all kind of need, +humiliation, trouble of all kind? + +Then she looked around. She had a charming manner of holding her small +hands half against her cheeks, half against her neck, and turning +slowly from the glass and looking at him with lowered eyelids, and a +kind of mischievously proud and yet tenderly suppressed consciousness +of victory. "Are you satisfied, Boris?" + +What could he answer? + +"You come just as if called," then said she. "You shall put the +hair-pins in my hair. Katia is so awkward." Then she sat down in a low +chair, and handed him the hair-pins. They were wonderful hair-pins, the +heads of which were narcissi formed of diamonds, a bridal present from +Lensky. He took them with gentle fingers, and the celebrated artist was +proud if his young wife praised him for the taste with which he +fastened her diamonds in her hair. + + * * * * * + +"Natalie!" exclaimed Boris, in a tone of the greatest surprise--a +surprise made up of the greatest astonishment and not of joy--"you +here?" + +It was in his study, and nine o'clock in the morning. At this hour, +daily, in crying opposition to his former proverbial unreliability, he +had long been sitting at his writing-table. But that Natalie should +leave her bedroom before ten o'clock had hitherto been an unheard-of +occurrence. + +But to-day, just as he was about to go to the piano, to try on that +modest representative of an orchestra a completed musical phrase, he +discovered her. Quite unobserved, she had mischievously crept in, and +now crouched comfortably in a large arm-chair, which formed a very +picturesque frame for her silk wrapper, bordered with black fur. She +sat on one foot; one tiny gold-embroidered Caucasian slipper lay before +her on the floor, and she smiled tenderly at her husband with her +great, proud eyes. But the pride disappeared from her glance at his +ejaculation, an ejaculation which expressed so much perplexity, so +little joy. She started and, embarrassed, reached out for her slipper +with the tip of her foot. + +"Do I disturb you?" she asked, anxiously. "Must I go?" + +Formerly he could not bear to have any one about him when he worked. +His face wore a forced, smiling expression, while he assured her: + +"Oh, not in the slightest--pray sit down." Whereupon he pushed his +chair up to hers. + +"Oh, if you are going to treat me so!" said she. + +"How, then?" asked he. + +"Like--like any visitor," she burst out, and hastened to the door. He +brought her back. Then he saw that her eyes were full of tears. + +"But what is the matter?" + +"I am ashamed of my intrusion, that is all. Adieu--I will not disturb +you further!" + +With that she wished to free herself from him. But that was not so +easy. He took her, struggling in his arms like a child, and carried her +back by force to the immense chair which they had left. "So now, sit +there, and don't spoil my mood, you witch. Why should I not enjoy your +company for a little? Do you think, then, that I am not glad to see +you? But you do not expect that I should bend over the table, and spoil +paper, while a charming little woman sits behind me? The temptation to +talk to you is too great." + +She shook her head. "You wish to be good to me, but you pain me," +murmured she. And she added, flatteringly, "Can you really not work +when I am with you?" + +"Would you like it if I could?" he asked, and looked at her with a +quite new, penetrating expression in his eyes. + +He drew his brows together humorously; he was now kneeling before her, +and held both her hands in his. "You are not only a charming little +woman, Natalie," said he, "but, what very few such beautiful and +seductive women are, of a good heart. But still I have noticed one +thing in you, namely, that you do not like to be second anywhere. And, +do you see, everywhere else you are not only the first, but the only +one in the world for me; but here, Natalie, here it must please you +that I should forget you for my art!" + +"And do you think that I would wish it otherwise?" said she, and there +was an earnest, solemn expression in her eyes which he never forgot. +"Oh, you blind one, you do not yet know me at all. Do not kneel there +like a hero in a romance; in the long run, it looks not only awkward +but uncomfortable. Sit down by me--there is room enough in this immense +chair for us both. So! and now--now I will confess to you what I have +already so long had on my heart. Do you see, you love me, I do not +doubt that, how should I? but--do not be angry with me--sometimes I +wish that you loved me differently; I wish to be not only your petted +wife, your plaything----" + +"My plaything!" he interrupted her, very reproachfully. "Oh, Natalie! +my sanctuary!" + +"Well, then, as far as I am concerned, your sanctuary. That, looked at +in one light, is also only a plaything, even if of the most +distinguished kind." She laughed somewhat constrainedly. "It is +certainly immoderate," she continued, and hesitated a little, +"horribly immoderate, but still it is so--I--I do not want to be only +your plaything, but also your friend--do not be horrified at this +audacity--yes, your friend, your confidante. I wish to be the first to +share your newly arising thoughts. Lately, it has often hurt me that +you busy yourself so much with all kinds of trifles only to give me +pleasure. I know it is my fault; at first I was afraid of your genius, +which soared heavenward, and wished to accustom you to the earth, +and chain you close to me. But then--then I was ashamed of my +smallness--ah, so ashamed. You shall not stoop down to me; let me try +to rise to you. Spread out your mighty wings, and fly up to the stars, +but take me with you!" + +He could not speak--only kisses burned on his lips. He pressed them on +her wonderful eyes, whose holy light humiliated him. Then, after a +while, he murmured, softly: "You are nearer the stars than I, Natalie. +Show me the way, show me the way!" + + * * * * * + +From then, she daily passed a couple of hours in his study. How happy +she felt in the great, airy room, which was almost as empty as a shed. +In here she had not ventured with her soft, seductive, decorative arts. +All had remained as sober and plain as he had always been accustomed +to have his surroundings while at work. High shelves almost breaking +under their weight of music, a piano, a couple of stringed instruments, +the arm-chair in which he had established her, and two or three +cane-bottomed chairs constituted the whole furniture. On the +writing-table stood a picture of Natalie, painted in water-colors by a +young French artist in Rome. The room could show no other ornament. +Still, there in the darkest corner hung a single laurel-wreath. No +large one, such as one lays to-day at the feet of great artists, but +poor and small, and in the middle of the wreath, in a common wooden +frame, drawn with a hard lead-pencil, the face of a woman, with a white +cloth on her head, from beneath which fine, curly hair fell over the +forehead. Without being beautiful, the face was strangely attractive, +and Natalie would have liked to ask the history of the laurel-wreath +and the picture. But she did not venture to. She never, by a single +question, touched upon Lensky's past. + +He only continued to remain in solitude during the hours which he +devoted to technical practice. At other times he quietly let her stay. +She sat behind him, quite soberly and still, in the large, worn-out +patriarchal chair, and did not breathe a word. She never even took a +book in her hand, for fear of irritating him by the rattling of turning +pages, but busied herself with pretty, noiseless handiwork. + +The feeling of her presence was unendingly sweet to him. His whole +activity was increased; he worked more intently than formerly. A +fulness of music vibrated in his head and heart. And if the inward +vibrations became too dreamily sweet, too luxuriant and exuberant, he +stopped writing, sat awhile in silence, and then, without taking the +slightest notice of Natalie, walked up and down a couple of times, +hummed something to himself, made a sweeping gesture, in conclusion +took up the violin--then---- + +Natalie raised her head and listened--how wonderful that sounded! He +had unlearned the madness, but still in his melodies always sounded the +strange Arabian succession of tones, the devil's music: Asbein! + +She became, as she had wished, the confidante of his work. When he had +sketched on paper the plan of a composition, he played it to her, now +on his violin, which he passionately loved, now on the piano, which he +did not love; for its short tone, incapable of development, repulsed +him, but which he respected and made use of as the most complete of all +instruments. Although he played the piano, not with virtuosity, but +with the helplessness of the composer, he could still bring out +something of the "warm tone" which made his violin irresistible. + +How eagerly she listened to his compositions! How much she rejoiced in +them, and how severe she was to him! She would not let him pass over a +single musical flaw. That she rejoiced and wept over the beauties in +his compositions, that she boldly placed his genius near Beethoven and +Schumann, that is to say, near what she ranked highest in the world, +that was another thing! For that reason she was so severe. He laughed +at her sometimes for her tender delusion. Then she took his head +between her hands, and said, triumphantly: "That is all very well; only +wait a little while, then the whole world will say that you have been +the last musical poet: the others are only bunglers." + + * * * * * + +In the beginning of March he made a short artist tour through the +interior of Russia. Naturally, he could not drag her around with him, +for she could not endure the exhausting fatigues of his quick journeys, +especially at that time. But how horrible, how unbearable the parting +seemed to him! He wrote her every day. His writing was ugly and +irregular, his orthography as deficient in French as in Russian; but +what tenderness, what passion and poetry spoke from every uncultured, +stormily written line. No one could better impress his whole heart in a +short, insignificant letter than he; and what rapture, what wild, +almost painful rapture at seeing her again! She had missed him much +less than he had missed her. He reproached her for it, complained that +the new love which now began to fill her whole existence left no place +for the old. But then she measured him with such a tender, and, at the +same time, a so deeply hurt look, that he was ashamed. + +"You must not take it so," he whispered to her, appeasingly. "It is an +old story that if two hearts hasten forward together in a race of love, +one will naturally outdo the other, and still will be vexed that it is +so. But it is quite natural and in order that I should cling more to +you than you to me." + +She smiled quite sadly. "We will see who will win the race in the end," +murmured she. + + * * * * * + +Natalie no longer went into society. Her health was much impaired. She +passed the entire month of April stretched on her lounge, in loose +wrappers. She now reproached herself with having been foolish not to +have spared herself before. The time of tormenting fancy approached for +the young wife, the time of concealed anxiety for them both. In spite +of the consoling assurances of the physician, Lensky was no longer +himself, from anxiety and despair. But he did not let her notice it. +When he was with her he had always a gay smile on his lips and a droll +story for her diversion. He cared for her like a mother. + +Then, toward the end of May, came the most tormenting hour he had ever +lived through, until at last--when he already believed that all hope +was lost--a little, thin, shrill sound smote his ear. It startled him, +his heart beat loudly; still he did not venture to move, but listened, +until at last the doctor came out of the adjoining room, and called to +him: "All is over." + +He misunderstood the words. "She is dead!" he gasped. + +"No, no! Boris Nikolaivitch; everything is as well as possible. Come!" + +He felt as would a man buried alive, if one should raise the lid from +his coffin. + +At the door of the bedroom a fat old woman, with a large cap, came +toward him. "A son, a very fine young one!" said she, triumphantly, +while she laid something tiny and rosy, wrapped in white cloth and +lace, in his arms. + +Tears fell from his eyes, and his hands trembled so that the nurse was +horrified and took the child away from him. + +He went up to Natalie, who, deathly pale and exhausted, but with a +lovely, indescribable expression on her face, at once of tenderness and +of a certain solemn pride, lay among the high-piled pillows. Quite +softly, with a kind of timidity which his violent love had hitherto +never known, he pressed her pale hand to his lips. + +"Are you content?" she whispered, dreamily and scarcely audibly. "Are +you content?" + + * * * * * + +She recovered rapidly. Her beauty had lost none of its charm, but had +rather won an earnest--one might almost say consecrated--loveliness. + +Her face reflected her happiness. That also had become a shade deeper, +nobler. In spite of all her pampered habits, she insisted upon caring +for the child herself. He let her have her way. + +The former dressing-room was changed to a nursery. Sometimes, in the +long, transparent twilight of the spring, he entered the room in which, +in winter, he had passed so many charming hours by candle-light, and +where now everything was so changed. A cradle stood in the place which +formerly the toilet-table had occupied--ah, what a cradle--a dream of a +cradle! A basket with a canopy of green silk, hung with a long, +transparent lace veil, a costly nest for a young bird whose little eyes +must be shielded, by all kinds of tender devices, from the bright +light, which perhaps later would pain him so! + +The air, quite filled with a pleasant, mild, damp vapor, was permeated +by a weak perfume of iris and warming linen, and, besides that, with +something quite strange, quite peculiarly sweet, stirring--the breath +of a healthy, fresh, carefully cared-for little child. + +And there, where the cheval-glass had formerly reflected to him the +lovely form of a proud queen of beauty, now sat in the same large +arm-chair, a tender young mother, her child on her breast. The lines of +her neck, from which the loose, white dress had slipped down a little +so that the outline of the shoulders was visible, was charming; but +what was it, to the lovely, attentive expression with which she looked +down at the child? + +Everything about her expressed tenderness: her look, her smile, the +hands with which she held the child to her. It was just these small, +white hands which Lensky could not cease to observe. How helpless they +had formerly been--and now! She would scarcely let the nurse touch +baby. He was never weary of watching how untiringly she touched the +tiny, frail body of the infant, and did a thousand services for it +which all resembled caresses. + + * * * * * + +"It is all very beautiful, but you have a manner of ignoring me in this +little kingdom," said Lensky, jokingly, to the young mother, while he +threw a look of humorous vexation at the young despot whom she just +laid in the cradle. + +She bent her head a little to one side, and whispered roguishly, while +she came up to him and played with the lapel of his coat: "Do you see, +Boris, this is my study. Everywhere else you are not only the first but +the only one in the world for me; but here you must be content if I +sometimes forget you for my calling." + +He laughed. + +"Do you know that you once said something similar to me; that time when +I, for the first time, dared to enter your sanctuary?" she murmured, +and repeated petulantly: "Do you know it?" + +He kissed both of her hands, one after the other. "Do you then believe +that I could ever forget such a thing, my angel?" whispered he. "I am +no such spendthrift; oh, no! If you knew how I cherish this dear +remembrance! That is pure happiness which we will keep for our old +days, when the sun no longer seems to us to shine as brightly, and we +must light a poor candle in order to find our path again to a suitable +grave." + + * * * * * + +Natalie still thought of the poor laurel wreath in his study. But she +did not venture to ask him a direct question about it. + +He himself, of his own accord, at last told her the history of the +pitiful relic. + +He had never spoken to her of his childhood, but once a great impulse +came over him to tell her the whole; to lay bare before her all the +pitiableness of his past. What would she then say to it? + +It was a clear summer night, out on the terrace of the country house +near St. Petersburg, which they had hired for the summer, the terrace +which looked out on the small but pretty and shady garden. They sat +there, hand in hand; around them the dull, gray light of a day that +will not die, sweet perfume of flowers, and in the tree tops the gentle +rustling of the kissing leaves. She talked of gay, insignificant +things; gave him a droll, laughing description of a visit to one of her +friends. At first it amused him; then something, he could not have said +what, irritated him against this monstrous principle of gliding so +triflingly and mockingly through life without ever glancing into it +more deeply. + +"What would she say if she knew?" thought he. "Perhaps she would shun +me!" A kind of madness overcame him. He felt the wish to risk his +happiness in order to convince himself of its durability, to put his +petted wife to the test. "How you butterflies, floating over flowers in +the sunshine, must be horrified at the miserable worms who creep over +the earth!" he began bitterly. + +"What are you thinking of?" asked she, astonished. + +"Nothing especial, only that I was originally just such a worm, +creeping over the earth." + +"Ah! that is long past!" she interrupted him hastily. She wished to +keep him from long dwelling on an unpleasant thought, but he suspected +that his insinuation of his humble antecedents vexed her, and that she +felt the need of forgetting his derivation. He looked at her from head +to foot, with an angry, wondering glance. Her richly embroidered white +dress, the large diamonds in her ears,--how the diamonds sparkled in +the dull evening light! + +Then he began to speak of his childhood, dryly, with a smile on his +lips as if it was a question of something quite indifferent and +amusing. + +In a large tenement at Moscow, overcrowded with all kinds of human +vermin, had he grown up; in the half of a room that was divided by a +sail, behind which another poor family hungered. His father he did not +remember. His mother sang to the guitar in wine rooms. When he was five +years old she had bought him a fiddle for four rubles, and then some +one, a dissolute musician, who often came to them, had taught him to +scrape on it a little. From that time he accompanied his mother when +she sang in the wine rooms,--or even on the streets, as it happened. + +She had been pretty; the drawing which hung in the laurel wreath, and +which an artist in their horrible dwelling-place had made of her, was +like her. Only she had quite unusually beautiful teeth which one could +not see in the picture. He remembered these teeth very well, because +she laughed so much, especially if there was little to eat and she made +him take it all, and declared she had spoiled her appetite at a +friend's house with fresh _pirogj_. Once the thought had occurred to +him that she only said so because there was not enough for two, and +then he could not eat anything more. If there was nothing at all to +eat, either for him or for her, she told him a story. + +Had he loved her? Yes, he believed so--how could it be otherwise? But +the consciousness of what she really had been to him only came to him +when he was no longer with her. How that happened he really did not +know, but one fine day she took him in a part of the city which he had +never known until then, in a handsome residence that seemed so +beautiful to him that he only ventured to go around on tiptoes. At the +door a fat, yellow man, with long, greasy, black hair, received him, +and told his mother it was all right. Then she kissed him a last time, +told him she would take him away in an hour, and went. + +He was taken in a room with gay furniture, and there greeted by a fat +woman with a thick gold chain over the bosom of her violet silk dress, +and with rings on all her short, stumpy, wrinkled fingers, and was +entertained with tea, cake, and honey. He had never before enjoyed a +similar repast. He felt in an elevated frame of mind. + +When the fat man--he was a mediocre musician who had married a rich +merchant's daughter, who gave him none of her money, however--told him +that he should always stay with him, and never go back to his mother, +he was glad, and felt the consciousness of having taken a step forward +in the world. + +Did that surprise Natalie? He could not help it, it was still so. +"Strange what roughness men show before a little bit of civilization +has taught them to conceal it," he added reflectively. + +Did he not feel anxiety later? Natalie wished to know. Yes, for his new +life contained nothing of that which he had promised himself. That he +should live in the beautiful rooms with the master and mistress and eat +with them, as he had thought at first, had been an illusion. Only the +two children of the fat daughter of the merchant could tumble around on +the sofas, with their fiery-red, woolen, damask covering, and could +help themselves from all the dishes. + +He lived on charity; they told him that every day. The musician had +bought him of his mother for fifty rubles, as Lensky afterward learned, +as a speculation, in order to make money out of him as a prodigy. The +time which he did not devote to his musical practice he must spend +helping the maid in the kitchen. + +He slept, with an old sofa pillow under his head, on the floor, in a +gloomy little room, without window, only with dirty panes of glass in +the door--a room in which the cook put all kinds of rubbish. Dampness +ran down the walls, and every evening from all corners crept out a +whole regiment of black beetles, and spread themselves over the boards. +The food? Well, it was sparing. Sometimes he only received what the +family had left on their plates. + +Was he not angry at this treatment? No. He found it quite in order at +that time. The well-fed, warmly dressed people impressed him, +especially the cap of Vauvara Ivanovna--that was the name of his +mistress. He felt a respectful shudder pass over him every time he saw +this structure of blonde, red flowers, and green ribbon. Except the +Kremlin, nothing impressed him so much as this house. + +When the whole family, in festival attire, went to church on Sunday, he +stood at the door, quite oppressed by the feeling of modest wonder, and +looked after the well-dressed, well-fed people. He did his best to make +himself useful and agreeable, and to please them. Yes, he was just so +small and pitiable, as a half-starved six-year-old pigmy. And then, +in conclusion, one day he simply could bear it no longer and ran back +to his mother. He found the way. With that quite animal sense of +locality and traces, which only children of the lowest classes of men +have, he found it. His mother was at home; she was frightened when +she saw him. Had they turned him out? Yes, she was frightened. In +the first moment she was frightened; then--here Lensky stammered +in his confession--naturally she was glad; for, what use of losing +words?--naturally she was glad. How she kissed him and caressed him +with her poor, rough, toil-worn, and still such gentle, warm hands. He +still felt her hands sometimes on him, in dreams, especially behind his +ears and on his neck. Then she fed him. She spread a red and white +flowered cloth over the table in his honor, and after that she gave him +a holy picture. Then she said it could not be otherwise; he must go +back to Simon Ephremitsch; it was for his own good. When he had become +a great artist, then he would come to fetch her in a coach with four +horses. + +That impressed him. And in order to calm him completely, she promised +to visit him very soon. + +But she did not come; and when he ran back to her, after about a month, +she was no longer in her old abode; he never found her! Soon afterward +she sent him two pretty little shirts, delicately embroidered in red +and blue. But she herself did not come. Never! + +At his first appearance in public--he had performed his piece +with the anxious assiduity of a little monkey that fears a blow, he +asserted--to his great astonishment, he was applauded. In the midst of +the hand-clapping he suddenly heard a sob. He was convinced that his +mother had been at the concert. + +At the conclusion they handed him a laurel wreath, the same which now +hung in his room; quite a poor woman had brought it, they said. He +guessed immediately that the wreath came from his mother; and suddenly, +just as a couple of music-lovers had stepped on the stage, in order to +see the wonderful little animal near by, he began to stamp his feet and +clench his fists, to scream and to sob, until every one crowded around +him. His principal threatened him with blows; a very pretty young lady +in a blue-silk dress took him on her lap to quiet him; but all was of +no use. + +He saw his mother once more--in her coffin. + +His benefactor told him that she was dead, and that, after all, it was +suitable that he should show her the last honors. The coffin stood on a +table, surrounded by thin, poorly-burning candles, and she lay within, +so small and thin, her hands folded on her breast, in a poor shroud, +that they had bought ready made for a few copecks. + +In the beginning, Natalie had interrupted him with questions, but now +she had long been silent. He looked at her challengingly, at every +pitiful, repulsive detail, especially if it brought forward a trace of +his own insignificance. It was quite as if he expressly tried to pain +her. But when he came to speak of the death of his mother, whose form, +in the midst of his glaring, sharp description, he drew so tenderly and +vaguely, obliterating everything disturbing, as if he saw her, in +remembrance, only through tears, he closed his eyes. + +Suddenly he heard near him a suppressed sound of pain, then something +like the falling of the over-abundant load of blossoms from a tree +among whose spring adornment there yet moves no breath of air. + +He started, looked up--there was Natalie on her knees before him, the +beauty, the queenly, proud one, and had embraced him with both arms, as +if she would shield him from all the woes of earth, and sobbed as if +she could not console herself for his past suffering. + +"Natalie! my angel, do you really love me so?" + +"One cannot love you enough, or recompense you enough for all that you +have missed," whispered she. + +And he had really for one moment suspected that---- + +He raised her on his knees. They did not speak another word. Through +the garden at their feet the birches rustled in the mild night breeze, +and from the distance one heard the sad voice of a marsh bird, who with +heavy beating wings flew to the neighboring pond. + +The most beautiful love will always be that which has been sanctified +by a great compassion. In that mild summer night, while all around them +was fragrance and veiled light, Natalie's love had received its +consecration. + + * * * * * + +Three, four years passed; a second little child lay in the pretty, +veiled cradle, from which little Nikolai first made his solemn +observation of the world--a dear little plump maiden, whom they +baptized Mascha, after the grandmother, and whom Boris particularly +idolized. There was still nothing to report of Natalie's married life +but love, happiness, and beauty. Lensky kept every unpleasant +impression far from her, surrounded her with the most touching care, +overwhelmed her with the most poetic attentions. Her life at his side +unrolled itself like a long, secret, passionate love-poem. + +Natalie's family had reconciled themselves to her marriage. Even for +the wise and arrogant Sergei Alexandrovitch it had the appearance that +he had been mistaken in his discouraging prediction, as happens even to +the wisest men, if with their predictions they have only the sober +probability in view, without thinking of the possibility of some +underlying miracle. After four years of married life Natalie was as +happy as a bride. + +Still, Lensky's happiness was not as unclouded as that of his wife. A +great unpleasantness became ever more significant to him, the quite +universal coldness of his artistic relations. + +It would be wrong to believe that Natalie, with systematic jealousy, +had wished to estrange him from the world of artists. On the contrary, +she had complied with his wish to make her acquainted with his +colleagues and their families, had herself asked it of him, +flatteringly. + +The world of artists interested her. There, everything was more +animated, more meaning, than the eternal sameness of good society which +she knew by heart, quite by heart, she assured him tenderly. She made +it her ambition to win his acquaintances for hers. But strangely +enough, in spite of all her seductive loveliness, she succeeded only +very incompletely. + +She had already known the _elite_ among the artists. There is nothing +further to be said of her relations with these favored of the gods, +exceptional existences, than that she always felt honored by +intercourse with them, and pleased, and that, when with them she ever +vexed herself over the worn-out old commonplace, that one should avoid +the acquaintance of famous men in order to prevent disappointment--a +commonplace which was probably invented for the consolation of those +who, in advance, are excluded from intercourse with celebrities. That +Natalie always succeeded in winning the sympathies of these exceptional +natures stands for itself. + +But when it was a question of that great crowd of artists, of the +mixture of sickly vanity, embarrassed affairs, depressing relations, +etc., then it was hard to build up a friendship between Lensky's wife +and his old colleagues. + +Envy of Lensky, envy which had reference largely to his artistic +results, and in a less degree to his marriage and social position, +peeped out everywhere from these people, and had its own results in +soon completely embittering the not very pleasant relations between +them and Natalie. + +In a truly friendly, touchingly friendly manner, they only met her in +quite modestly circumstanced families--families of a few true artists +who yet could accomplish nothing with their work but to honestly and +poorly provide for their seven or eight children. Families of simple +people, who had formerly been good to Lensky in the difficult beginning +of his career, and to whom he always showed the most faithful +adherence, the most prodigal generosity. She also felt happy among +these plain people. + +What wonder that these people would all have gone through fire for him! +They would also have all given of their best for Natalie, whom without +envy they worshipped with enthusiasm as a queen. They rejoiced that +Lensky, their pride, their idol, possessed such a beautiful and +distinguished wife--in their eyes the daughter of the emperor would not +have been too good for him. + +Natalie thanked them for their great attachment, as well as she could; +she reckoned it a special favor to receive these modest people in her +home, to invite them with their wives and children, to entertain them +with distinction, to stuff all the children's pockets full of bonbons, +and give them little parting presents. + +But intercourse with these poor devils was in reality only a +sentimental game, even as intercourse with the artistic _elite_ was +nothing but an ideal recreation. Neither the one nor the other sufficed +to firmly knit the band between Lensky's wife and his former world, or +to keep up his popularity in that world. + + * * * * * + +Of all the opposition and difficulty which would arise therefrom for +Lensky's future and especially for his yet to be won future as +composer, Natalie still suspected nothing. For her, the whole heaven +was still blue. + +Then the first deep shadow fell on her happiness. Lensky, to whom every +long separation from her was unbearable, when he undertook a long tour +through central Europe, in spite of her express request, could not +resolve to leave her behind with the children, in St. Petersburg. The +little children were left under the care of their grandmother. + +For the first time, Natalie was no amusing, but a dull and nervous, +travelling companion. An unbearable anxiety followed her like a +foreboding. All his attempts to console her were in vain. + +In Dusseldorf, she received, by telegraph, the news that little Mascha +was ill with diphtheria. When she arrived in Petersburg, half dead from +anxiety and breathless haste, the child lay in her coffin. + +He was almost as desperate as she. He overwhelmed himself with +self-reproaches;--who knows, if they had watched the child better, if +they had thought of this or that in caring for it.... What torment, to +be obliged to say that to one's self! A reproach never passed her lips, +she even concealed her tears lest they should sadden him. But from that +unhappiness on, something in her formerly so elastic nature, so capable +of resistance, was broken forever. The first jubilant time of their +marriage was at an end. + + * * * * * + +Together with the evermore unpleasant friction with his colleagues, and +the great pain for his lost child, still another worry announced itself +to Lensky--something gnawing, and incessantly tormenting: a daily +increasing money embarrassment. Natalie decidedly spent too much, but +quite naively, with the firm conviction that she could not exist more +economically; wherefore it was doubly hard for him to be finally +obliged to tell her that he could not raise the money to continue the +household on the footing to which she had been accustomed. + +It was quite touching to see how frightened she was when he made her +the first communication in reference to it--frightened, not at the +prospect of having to save, but only at the thoughtlessness by which +she had burdened Lensky with cares. She immediately showed herself +ready for the most exaggerated reforms. But to live with his wife like +a proletary, in St. Petersburg, among her brilliant relations and +friends, he could not bring himself to do. + +In the autumn of the same year, he moved with his family to ----, a +large German capital, where he had accepted the direction of a +significant musical undertaking. + +But here the conflict between his artistic and family life which had +arisen through his alliance with Natalie, came to light with more +detestable clearness. + +He was in his element, as an artist whose powers have found a wide, +noble sway. + +The great musical undertaking, at whose head they had placed him, +flourished wonderfully under his lead. The fiery earnestness with +which he undertook it won him all musical hearts. Also the atmosphere +in ---- was sympathetic to him for other reasons. He had a crowd of old +connections there, acquaintances of his first virtuoso period, people +who surrounded him, distinguished him, with whom he could speak of his +art--which always remained sacred and earnest to him, and never, for +him, deteriorated to a more or less noble means of earning his living, +or to a social pedestal--in quite a different manner than with the +elegant dilettantis who had gradually crowded out every other society +from his house in St. Petersburg. They gave one artistic festival after +the other in his honor, and all this entertained him. + +His wife appeared with him a couple of times on such occasions, then +she excused herself--she had no pleasure in them. She felt isolated, an +insurmountable home-sickness tormented her. + +Without confessing it, for the first time since her marriage the +position which she occupied with Lensky angered her. + +In St. Petersburg she had always remained with him the Princess +Assanow, he had ascended to her world; here she must suddenly satisfy +herself with his world. She was too vexed, too angrily excited to seek +in this world all the true interest, earnestness, and nobility that +were to be found therein. + +She had intimate intercourse only with an old friend of her youth, a +certain Countess Stolnitzky, who went out but little and consequently +had time enough for Natalie. + +Lensky begged Natalie to open her drawing-room one or two evenings a +week, that is to say to his friends. Natalie's drawing-room became a +meeting-place for all kinds of artistic leaders, among which the +dramatic element formed the principal contingent, and this chiefly +because Lensky wished to have an opera performed. + +For him, intercourse with dramatic artists had no unpleasantness; he +had been accustomed to it from youth. But it became unpleasant to +Natalie after she had satisfied that superficial curiosity which every +woman living in severely exclusive circles feels concerning these +theatrical people. + +The only people that were still more unpleasant to Natalie, in her +drawing-room, than this crowd of people still smelling of freshly +washed-off paint, were the aristocrats who came there to meet the +artists. And many of these came--very many, all who coquetted with a +little bit of musical interest--yes, and many others. "Very +interesting, these _soirees_ at Lensky's," they always said, when these +were spoken of; "very interesting; they always have very good music +there, and then one meets a crowd of amusing people whom one never sees +anywhere else. And the wife is really charming--quite _comme il faut_." + +"She is a Russian princess," a foreigner interrupted, who belonged to +the diplomatic corps. + +The native women turned up their noses repellently. They placed no +great confidence in the distinction of Russian princesses who married +artists. + +Natalie was so ignorant of their rooted prejudices that she greeted the +ladies who came to her house with the greatest frankness as her equals. +She caused offence by her naivete, and noticed it. People came to +Lensky, not to her--if she would only understand that they wished +to be as polite as possible to her, in the somewhat narrow limits of +well-bred society--but she must understand it. + +She did understand. When she observed that most of the ladies accepted +her invitations without returning them, yes, when it happened that the +art-loving Princess C. sent Lensky an invitation to a _soiree_, and +overlooked his wife, then she understood. It began to tell upon her, to +aggravate her. + +She fulfilled her duties as hostess with displeasure, did the honors +negligently, and did nothing to animate her receptions. My God! people +came there to hear music and to rave over her husband,--she was no +longer necessary. She became quite foolish and childish. + +She was used to the homage that was paid her husband, she would have +been fearfully angry if they had not paid him enough; but in Russia, +this homage was shown in quite a different, much nobler, intenser form; +in Russia he was a great man, before whom every one removed his hat, a +sacred being of whom the nation was proud; men and women of the highest +rank showed him the same respect. + +But in ----, except one or two particularly enthusiastic lovers of +music, none of the nobility appeared in his house, with the exception +of the ladies. Why did he ask them? He ridiculed them--but yet their +flattery pleased him. He had dedicated a composition to more than one +of them. + +Natalie was almost beside herself with rage. For the first time she +felt a certain jealousy. Among others, there was a little dark Polish +woman, married to a Swedish diplomat, and separated from him, a +Countess Loewenskiold. She purred around him like a kitten. + +Formerly he would have noticed the change in Natalie immediately, but +for the first time since their marriage he forgot, not only in his +study but elsewhere, his wife for his art. He was so happy in his art, +so completely occupied with it, that he scarcely noticed the pitiful +social pin-pricks which formerly would have caused him vexation enough, +and consequently did not consider the importance they had for Natalie. + +The study of his opera, for which they had placed at his disposal the +best facilities at the command of the ---- Theatre, went steadily +forward. The artists liked to work under his direction, and with +enthusiasm did their utmost to do justice to his work. Joy fevered in +every vein when he came home from the rehearsals. + + * * * * * + +It was toward the end of the carnival. One of Lensky's musical +_soirees_ had been visited by quite an unusual number of brilliant +visitors. A very large number of ladies of the best society had been +there. + +They had all appeared in brilliant toilets, with bare shoulders, and +diamonds and feathers in their hair. Natalie was also in evening dress, +while the wives of Lensky's colleagues and all the ladies present not +belonging to the court circle had come in high-necked dresses. + +When the aristocratic ladies, with profuse thanks for the musical treat +offered them, had withdrawn before eleven o'clock, because they must, +"alas!" still go "into society," into Natalie's social world, but which +was closed to her in ----, Natalie remained the only woman in her +drawing-room with bare shoulders. + +Lensky, who had just accompanied some tedious Highness politely out of +the room, now returned to the music-room, closed the door, behind which +the noble patroness had disappeared, and cried gayly: "So, children, +now we can be among ourselves, and enjoy a comfortable evening." + +"Among ourselves!" These words pierced Natalie like a poisoned +stiletto. "Among ourselves!" She bit her lower lip, angrily. + +Meanwhile, pushing back the hair from his temples with both hands, +Lensky asked: "Would the gentlemen like to play the Schumann E-flat +major quartette with me before we sit down to supper?" Then he looked +over at Natalie and smiled. She knew that he proposed this wonderful +quartette for her sake, because it was her favorite, but she was +already so over-excited that the touching little attention made no +impression on her. She remained as defiant and bad-tempered as before. + +While they played she let her eyes wander gloomily over the already +empty hired cane-bottomed chairs, which stood around in regular rows. +She asked herself bitterly, what really was the difference between her +"reception evenings" and any other concert?--that the people paid their +admission with compliments instead of money! And while she made these +useless and vexing observations, the most noble music that was ever +written vibrated around her heart, like an admonition of how small all +these worldly, outward vanities were in comparison with the lofty, +god-like being of true art! And her obstinate heart had already begun +to understand the sermon and to be ashamed, when she observed two bold +eyes of a man staring from across the room at her bare shoulders. The +eyes belonged to a certain Mr. Arnold Spatzig, the most influential +musical critic and journalist in ----. Scarcely had he noticed that her +look met his when he left his chair, in order, crossing the room, to +take his place near Natalie, and continue his insolent scrutiny from +near by. He was a disagreeable man, with thick lips, spectacles, and +boldly displayed cynicism. Natalie, who could not endure him, had +formerly tolerated him on Lensky's account. Now she felt so insulted by +his manner, that, with the vehement impoliteness of a spoiled woman +whose pride is wounded and who is excluded from her natural sphere, she +sprang up, and turning her back directly to Mr. Arnold Spatzig, +hastened away from him. + +And now the quartette was over, and also the supper which followed, +exquisite and over-abundant as ever, at which Lensky did the honors +with that heartiness, not overlooking the least of his guests, which +was peculiar to him. + +It was two o'clock, and the house was empty; the lights still burned. +Lensky was busy arranging the music on the piano, Natalie stood in the +middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, evidently trying to +suppress a nervous attack. She held her handkerchief to her lips--it +was no use. Suddenly she cried out: "Must I receive these people? I +would rather scrub the floor!" And with that she made a gesture as if +she would tear something apart. + +"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He had become deadly pale, and his +voice trembled. + +She only drew her brows gloomily together and continued to gnaw at her +handkerchief. + +Then he lost patience. He seized a large Japanese vase, and threw it +with such force on the floor that it broke in pieces; then he left the +room, slamming the door behind him. + +But Natalie looked after him, offended, and broke out in fierce, +whimpering sobs. + +A few minutes later when she, still weeping and trembling in every +limb, leaned against a sofa, in whose cushions she had buried her face, +she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up, Lensky had come up +to her. The traces of his difficultly mastered irritation were still on +his deathly pale face, but he bent down anxiously to her and said +gently: "Calm yourself, please, Natalie; it is no matter. Poor Natalie! +I should have thought of it sooner. You shall never again receive any +one--not a person--who does not please you, only stop crying; that I +cannot bear." + +At the first friendly word that he said to her, her whole ill humor +changed to tormenting remorse and shame. "You will not take what +I said to you in earnest," said she. "It is not possible that you +should take this madness in earnest. I am so ashamed--ah, I cannot tell +you how ashamed I am! I acted unjustifiably, but I was so tired, so +nervous--scold me, be angry with me, and only then forgive me, or else +your indulgence will oppress me too heavily," and with that she kissed +his hands and sobbed--sobbed incessantly. + +He caressed her like a little child whom one wishes to soothe, and she +continued: "I will suit myself better to my position, I will be +friendly to every one--as if I could not make that little sacrifice to +your artistic position!" + +Then he interrupted her: "I will accept no sacrifice from you, not the +slightest, that I cannot do," said he. "What have you to trouble +yourself about my artistic position? You have nothing at all to do but +to love me and be happy--if you still can," he added softly, with a +tenderness that for the first time since his marriage had a bitter +savor. + +But she looked up at him in the midst of her tears, with glorified +happiness. "If I still can?" she whispered, drawing his head down +to her--he now sat on the sofa beside her, with his arm around her +waist--"if I still can!" His lips met hers, her head sank on his +shoulder. + +The candles in the chandeliers had burned low down, one of them went +out, and in going out threw a couple of sparks down on the pieces of +the Japanese vase which Lensky had broken in his anger. He had sent it +to Natalie filled with roses, in Rome, while they were betrothed, +therefore she loved it and had brought it with them to ----. + +His eyes rested on the pieces with a peculiar sad look. "And now lie +down and see that you sleep after your excitement," said he to the +young wife. She followed him like a little child. He mixed her the +sleeping potion of orange essence, to which she was accustomed, and +calmed her with pleasant patient words. A happy smile lay on her lips +when she at length fell asleep. + +But he did not close his eyes during the whole night, he did not even +lie down; but sat in his room at the writing-table. He wished to work +on something, but the music-paper remained untouched beneath his pen. + +How could she so give way, at the first little trial which she had ever +had? Why had she spoken of a sacrifice? sacrifice! he would take no +sacrifice from her. + + * * * * * + +Natalie's reception days were given up under pretext of the illness of +his young wife. From that time, Lensky saw most of his friends only +outside of his house--his "patronesses" he saw no more. + +Natalie was ashamed of her small, pitiful discontent, was ashamed of +the scene she had made her husband, and still was foolish enough to +rejoice over her victory, and to fully profit by it. + +She offered all her intellectual, flattering, charming lovableness to +recompense for the loss she had caused him, and to quite win him again +for herself. She thought of all his preferences in her housekeeping, +which, in the beginning, she had somewhat neglected in ----; with half +unconscious slyness, she knew how to profit by his small as well as his +great qualities; to attain her aim, knew how to touch his heart as well +as to flatter his vanity. In full measure she attained what she strove +for. Forgetting all the prudence which his position demanded, he laid +just as enthusiastic homage at her feet as in the very first time of +his marriage. But she was so charming! And how well her defiant +arrogance became her! that arrogance which would bend to no one and +only with her loved one melted into passionate submission. + +What did the great artist coterie which his wife had repulsed say to +all this? Oh, who could trouble one's self about all these people? + +Meanwhile, during this happy intoxicated period he had met with one +vexation that concerned him very nearly. Three weeks before the +appointed date for the production of his "Corsair," the prima donna of +the ---- opera, Madame D., an artist of the first rank, for whom he had +quite specially written the principal feminine _role_, declared that +she would not sing it under any consideration. Lensky knew very well +that he had to thank the senseless arrogance of his wife for the sudden +opposition of this irritable leader; it was bitter to him; but without +telling Natalie a word of it, he choked down this unpleasant affair, +and submitted to seeing the part which the artiste had thoroughly +learned and brought to such splendid perfection intrusted now to the +weak powers of a talented but awkward beginner. + + * * * * * + +The evening of the representation came. They were both feverish, he and +she; but she fevered in expectation of a great triumph, he trembled +before a defeat. + +He knew that his work had three things against it: a libretto that, for +an opera, was over-finely poetic, and poor in dramatic effect, the weak +representation of the principal _role_, and the whole coterie of +artists and bohemians in the audience excited against him by the +arrogance of his wife. Perhaps his music would save the situation. The +music was beautiful, that he knew; he must build on that. + +Natalie made the sign of the cross on his forehead and hung a +consecrated Byzantine saint's picture, in a strange gold and black +enamel frame, around his neck before he went into the fire, that is to +say, before he drove to the opera-house to take the baton in his hand. +He smiled at this superstitious action and let it happen. + +The greatest heroes like to avail themselves of a little celestial +protection before a battle. + +In the opera-house he found everything in the best condition, +courageous, ready for battle. An hour later he mounted the director's +rostrum. + +Once he turned his head to the audience, and his eyes sought Natalie. +There she sat near the stage in a box in the first row, which she +shared with the Countess Stolnitzky. She wore a black velvet dress, in +her hair sparkled the diamond narcissi which he had given her as +bridegroom; around her neck was wound a thick string of pearls which +the Empress of Russia had sent him for her once when he played at +court. In the whole theatre there was no woman who could compare with +her in proud, beaming, and yet indescribably lovely beauty. She smiled +at him constrainedly. What was not hidden in that scarcely perceptible +smile! For the last time a kind of happy, proud delirium of love lay +hold upon him. He knocked on the desk, raised his arm, and the violins +began. + +With a kind of magnificent, fiery earnestness, and with that, quite +classically severe in the musical roundness and connection of the +motives, the overture sounded through the crowded hall. It was rather +too long, and as the learned ones among the audience remarked, was +better suited for the first movement of a symphony than the +introduction of an opera. But what of that! the music was beautiful, +wonderfully beautiful, full of sad sweetness and quite demon-like, +ravishing power. Here, also, sounded the strange Arabian succession of +tones again, which was the characteristic of all his compositions, the +devil's tones: Asbein. + +Natalie did not hear a sound, the buzzing in her ears, the beating of +her heart was too loud. + +The last piercing chord resounded through the hall. What was that? An +immense burst of applause, unending bravos; the overture had to be +repeated. + +It was with difficulty that Natalie could keep from sobbing aloud. +Again her smile sought his. A beautiful expression of noble, earnest +peace was on his features, but his glance did not answer hers, he had +forgotten her for his work. + +The curtain rose. Natalie scarcely breathed, her hot blood crept slowly +through her veins like chilling metal, her ears no longer buzzed, on +the contrary her hearing was uncommonly sharp; only she could not take +in the music, but listened to all kinds of other things. The rustling +of a dress, the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a voice caused her +such excitement that it seemed to her, each time, as if she had been +shot through the heart by a pistol. The unexpected result of the +overture had increased her nervous tension still further. + +During the first two acts the opinion remained favorable. After the +second act, the Russian ambassador presented himself to Natalie to +congratulate her. + +While she received his congratulations, still trembling with +excitement, she suddenly heard quite loud talking, in a box not far +from her. + +It was the box of that same Princess C., who was mentioned as +particularly musical, and who had invited Lensky to a _soiree_ and +passed over Natalie. Between her and another art-loving woman sat Mr. +Arnold Spatzig. Up to a certain point, he had access to the highest +circles of society, that is to say, he was patronized by a couple of +ladies who were bored in their "world," and who consequently liked to +attract men from some "other world" to them for a short entertainment, +not a long engagement, to be amused by them. + +"These plebeian men at least take pains to amuse," the ladies were +accustomed to remark, and Arnold Spatzig decidedly took pains to amuse. + +Once he raised his opera-glass to his eyes, and stared long and boldly +in Natalie's face. + +The third act began with an aria by Gualnare, that is to say, with a +kind of duet between her and the ocean, which was represented by the +orchestra. For a concert piece the number was interesting and original, +but peculiarly unsuited to the beginning of the third act of an opera. +Only the splendid vocal powers and the poetic comprehension of Madame +D., for whom the aria was written, could have saved it; the powers of +the beginner who sang the part of Gualnare that evening were not at all +equal to her task, her voice, wearied by the exertions of the two +preceding acts, sounded almost extinct, her acting was awkward. + +Natalie observed the bad impression which this number made on the +audience. Anxiously she looked around the theatre: the people were +patient, had too much sympathy for the virtuoso Lensky to +inconsiderately insult the composer. + +On the stage, still continued the endless ocean duet. Still, in the +same monotonous time, Gualnare advanced to the waves and retreated from +them, quite as if she were dancing a _pas de deux_ with the sea. Then +Natalie heard laughing; the laughing sounded from the box of Princess +C. + +Dr. Spatzig bent over to her, smiling, whispered something to her. She +laughed--how heartily she laughed! The opera-glasses of many ladies in +the boxes sought the Doctor's critical glance; Spatzig laughed, the +Princess laughed, the whole theatre laughed. + +The aria was at an end, the gallery applauded. "Ss--ss--ss." What was +that cutting, piercing sound which killed the applause? + +Natalie became white as chalk; her friend sought her hand; Natalie drew +it away; no human sympathy could be of use to her. + +From that moment the enthusiasm of the audience rapidly declined. The +lack of dramatic action in the libretto became more and more +significant. More and more difficultly the poor music dragged along +amidst a succession of glaring spectacular effects, which monotonously +made place for each other without ever forming an interesting contrast. +And the music was so beautiful. There was something so heavily majestic +in the rhythm, here and there at once a trifle monotonous and +over-laden, but in the accompaniment so wonderfully beautiful in spite +of all, and furnished with a richness of melody unattainable by any of +the other composers of the time, never approaching the trivial, but +always remaining noble. + +The audience was weary, and like every wearied audience, mocking; its +musical comprehension was worn out. From the middle of the fourth act +people began to leave the theatre, and when the curtain fell at the +close, not a hand moved. + +Countess Stolnitzky accompanied Natalie silently down the steps. +Natalie got into her carriage and directed it to the stage entrance. +She had promised to call for Lensky after the opera. More dead than +alive she sat in the pretty coupe and waited. The air was sharp, it was +a frosty March night, the stars sparkled as if in cold mockery from the +unreachable heavens, quite as if they were laughing to think that once +more a child of man had tried to storm this heaven and had so pitiably +failed. + +A half-hour had passed; at last Natalie sprang from the carriage and +hastened up the narrow stairs. There she met Lensky. He was deathly +pale, his hat was put on his head differently from usual, in a kind of +enterprising and challenging manner; his walk had something negligent, +swinging; there was a vagabond trace in his carriage that Natalie had +never before perceived in him. He held his cigarette between his teeth +and had the little singer on his arm who had to-day impersonated +Gualnare in his opera. Many of the singers, as well as the members of +the orchestra, came down the steps behind him, a gaudy, witty, +whispering throng. For the first time, Natalie remarked a certain +similarity, one might almost say a common family resemblance, between +her hero and these other "artists." The men all had the same manner of +wearing their hats and swaggering in their walk as he had to-day. + +Although these men were more than ever repulsive to her, she greeted +them with anxious politeness. "I was afraid you were ill," she said, +while she glanced sadly and anxiously at Boris. "I have already waited +half an hour for you." + +"So! I am very sorry," replied he, and his voice sounded rougher than +formerly. "I sent a messenger to you, he must have missed you. I cannot +go home with you this evening, we"--he looked over his shoulder at the +following crowd--"are going to have supper together. After a lost +battle the commander must care for the strengthening of his troops." He +laughed harshly and forcedly, and touched the hand of the singer who +hung on his arm. + +"A lost battle!" said Natalie. "Lost--but the first two acts were a +great success!" + +"'Don Juan' did not succeed at the first representation," remarked some +one behind Lensky. He turned around and looked at the man with a +comical, threatening gesture; then he said, with the expression of a +man with a bad toothache, who yet bursts out with a witticism: "Who +laughs last, laughs best!" + +Natalie still stood, helpless and desperate, in the middle of the +narrow stairs. Her splendid fur cloak had half slipped down from her +shoulders; her simple, distinguished toilet stood out in strange relief +from the glaring, tumbled, inharmonious, motley evening adornments of +the singers. + +"You will take cold, wrap yourself up better," said Lensky, while he +came up to her and drew the fur up around her neck. + +"Will you take me with you to your supper? I would come with the +greatest pleasure; _je serai gentille avec tout le monde!_" she +whispered, softly and supplicatingly to him. + +"What an idea!" said he, repellently. "No, to-night I sup as a +bachelor. You bar the passage. Drive home quite calmly. Adieu!" + +He pushed her into the carriage, and went. She put her head out of the +window of the coupe to look after him. She saw how he got into a fiacre +with the singer; one of the men crawled in after him; then she heard +some one laughing, harshly, gipsy-like, was that he? Then came a great +rattling of windows, and creaking and rolling of wheels. Her way and +his parted. Hurrying by a row of ghostly gas-lights, which all seemed +red to her, she rolled away in a great, cold, black darkness. And ten +minutes later, weary and miserable, she crept up the steps of her +residence. She knew that something terrible had happened, something +that not only embittered her present, but would darken the future, that +for her much more had gone wrong than the result of an opera. + + * * * * * + +"Who knows, perhaps the thing will pull through; even the best operas +have sometimes not immediately found approval with the public," said +Lensky, with the awkward, forced smile that had not left his lips since +the morning after his fiasco. The challenging, gipsy humor with which, +in the beginning, he had sought to bluster over his disappointment, had +not lasted long. Quiet, weary, and depressed, he dragged himself around +as if after a severe illness. Natalie did what she could to be +agreeable to him; her heart bled with pity, but she did not venture to +approach him. + +He avoided her, and if she spoke to him his answers sounded forced or +vexed. + +To-day, for the first time since the fatal evening, he turned to her +with a remark in reference to his work. It was the third day after the +first production of the opera, and at breakfast. Natalie had just read +to him many criticisms from the newspapers which had arrived. In many, +Lensky's magnificent musical gifts were praised. + +"Perhaps the thing will pull through," said Lensky, and Natalie +replied: + +"Naturally, the opera will make a career for itself. You must yourself +have forgotten how beautiful your music is, if you can doubt that." + +"Is it really beautiful? I really do not know," murmured he. "One is so +seldom able to believe it if others shrug their shoulders. To improvise +variations on the old theme _mon sonnet est charmant_ is a tasteless +occupation." + +There was a ring at the door-bell; he listened. + +"Do you expect anything?" asked Natalie, and then she accidentally +looked at the clock. It was already very late, and the hour at which he +formerly had been accustomed to sit down to work was long past. She saw +very well that he only trifled with time like a man who is too +tormented by inward unrest to be able to resolve on an earnest +occupation. + +"Yes," he replied. "I do not understand why the _Neue Zeit_ has not yet +arrived." + +Natalie lowered her eyes. The _Neue Zeit_ was the journal in which Dr. +Arnold Spatzig's musical criticism, or rather his musical +_feuilletons_, usually appeared. + +"That"--Lensky motioned to the pile of other papers "is all very pretty +and pleasant, but it is not decisive. I am anxious to see what Spatzig +will say." + +"Do you consider Spatzig decisive?" asked Natalie, constrainedly. + +"Yes." + +"But you told me yourself that his judgment was always one-sided, +prejudiced, and superficial; that he was really only a wit and no +critic," murmured Natalie. + +"I still think so, but nevertheless he has here taken upon himself the +monopoly of musical good taste," replied Lensky. "The most intellectual +part of the public, that is to say all the subscribers, fancy they can +only consider an article of his as true. He has taken out a patent for +it, like Marquis, in Paris, for good chocolate. He is witty, which +these people like. A criticism is so easily noticed, one always appears +intellectual if one cites it, the more malicious it is the better. +Until now, Spatzig has spared me, hm--hm--" Boris smiled forcedly. "He +even once compared me to Beethoven, but recently he has seemed to avoid +me. Have you had anything with him, Natalie?" + +Natalie blushed to the roots of her hair. "I cannot endure him," said +she; "and it is possible that he has noticed it; in fact, in reference +to a certain point, one cannot have patience with a man." + +"He surely has not presumed upon you?" Lensky started up angrily. + +"No, no! He did not have an opportunity," said Natalie, very +arrogantly. "Not that: but he has a way of forcing himself upon one; of +looking at a woman----" + +"That is to say he has bad manners," said Lensky. "Now----" + +At this moment there was another ring at the door-bell. Shortly after +the servant brought on a salver a whole pile of newspapers in their +wrappings, which had just come by post. Lensky opened them hastily; +they were all copies of the same paper--of _Fortschritt_, and in every +copy there was a twelve-column-long notice marked with a blue or black +pencil: "A musical enjoyment by design and intention," and with the +motto, for title, "From whence the great discord arises which rings +through this world (read opera)." + +Hastily, Lensky looked at the signature. + +"Arnold Spatzig," murmured he, dully. "I did not know that he also +wrote for _Fortschritt_." + +"Do not read the thing," said Natalie, who, with feminine quickness, +had already glanced over the article. "I beg you; why should you +swallow the poison?" + +But he shook her roughly from him, bent over the paper, and read half +aloud: "If there were a musical 'Our Father,' the last supplicating +request would be: deliver us from all evil, but especially from all +virtuoso music. By his opera, Lensky has again given us a significant +example of how greatly the reproductive activity of an artist hinders +the development of his creative powers. His first smaller compositions +really had always a certain melodic freshness. But in this last work, +Lensky, like all men poor in invention, has shown himself a follower of +that inconsolable musical pessimism which regards _ennui_ and a feeling +of universal, oppressive discomfort as a _sine qua non_ of every +distinguished musical work. + +"The public, in a sympathetic frame of mind with the loved and +distinguished master, in the beginning of the opera strained their good +taste so far that they desired the repetition of the extremely tiresome +overture, made up of badly connected motives, reminding one of +Meyerbeer, Halevy, Gounod. But with the best intentions, the +cut-and-dried wonder brought with them was not proof against the +yawning monotony of the never-ending fourth act. Only the grotesque +side of the unfortunate opera, which ever became more prominent in the +course of the evening, helped the ill-used public over the dry +emptiness of this musical desert. One could at least laugh heartily. +What a consolation that was for the spectator, but hardly one for those +who took part. + +"One cannot understand how such an artist of the first rank as +Mr. ---- could submit to make himself laughable in the _role_ of +_Conrad_...." + +Lensky became paler and paler; he reached for a glass of water. + +"Do not read any further," begged Natalie. "What does it matter what +the liar writes? your music speaks for itself. This evening you will +see how the public will applaud you, will receive you, to recompense +you for this pitiful insult." + +The second representation of "The Corsair" was fixed for that evening. + +There was another ring at the door-bell; the servant brought a letter. +Lensky broke it open hastily, and with a furious gesture threw it away, +struck his fist on the table, and sprang up. + +"What is it?" called Natalie, beside herself. + +"Nothing; a trifle; the opera is postponed; the tenor has announced +himself ill," said Lensky, cuttingly. "He has no pleasure in making +himself laughable a second time. It is over;" passing the palm of his +hand under his chin, with the gesture by which one understands that +some one has been executed. + +Natalie rushed up to him, but he impatiently motioned her away, and +hurried by her to the door. All at once he remained standing, reached +under his collar, tore off the little gold chain with the saint's +picture which Natalie had hung round his neck before the first +representation of "The Corsair," and flung it at her feet. Then he went +into his study. She heard how he locked the door behind him. + +How benumbed she still stood on the same spot where he had shaken her +off from him--he had shaken her off! + +How he must suffer to pain her so! Then she bent down to the poor +little amulet which he had thrown away. She understood him. She had +never been lacking in sentimental-poetic manners, but when it was +necessary to sacrifice a humor for him, her love had not sufficed. + +Her fault was great, but the punishment was fearful. + + + + + + THIRD BOOK. + + +A short time after the fiasco of his opera Lensky resigned his office +in ----. His position there had become unbearable to him. He had made +no plans for the distant future; for the present he travelled with his +family to Paris. + +How happy Natalie could have felt here if the still depressed mood of +Lensky had not caused her such heavy anxiety. Not that he had further +shown himself in the slightest degree disagreeable to her--no, not a +single direct reproof crossed his lips; he even, without speaking a +word about it, begged her pardon for his momentary roughness by a +thousand silent attentions. But what good did that do her? His +happiness was gone; he was gloomy and taciturn. Faint-hearted, like all +very self-indulgent men, even doubting his formerly revered talent as +composer, for the moment he had completely lost his belief in himself. + +She did what she could to distract him--all was in vain. And all might +have been so pleasant! The Parisian artist world was so large that she +quite easily, avoiding all impure elements contained therein, could +associate only with those who were lovable, interesting, and +sympathetic. Besides, she was now ready for the most exaggerated +concessions. If Lensky had wished to write a ballet she would have +invited the ballet dancers to breakfast, and been intimate with the +premiere danseuse. The lovely imprudence which, even with her uncommon +intellectual gifts, still made the foundation of her petted, +undisciplined being, drove her from one exaggeration to another. + +He gave a succession of concerts, and all Paris lay at his feet. +Natalie sat in one of the first rows in the concert hall and rejoiced +over the triumphs of her husband. Occasionally, if the hour for the +concert was early, she brought her little son with her and taught him +to be proud of his father. Little Nikolai looked charming in his +Russian costume, with the broad velvet trousers and silk shirt. He +always sat there quite brave and quiet, with the solemn expression of +face of a child whom one has taken to church for the first time; only +if the applause burst out quite too loudly, he became very excited +and stood up on his chair in order to see his father better. Then +Natalie kissed him, and blushed at her lack of restraint. And around +them the audience whispered: "That is his child"--"_Tiens! il a de la +chance!_"--"_Ils sont adorables tous les deux!_"--"_On dit qu'elle est +une princesse!_" + +After the concert she went with the little fellow in the green-room to +fetch her husband. The most beautiful women in Paris crowded around +him. He received their homage quite coolly, and while Natalie, smiling +and polite, did honor to his fame, he played with his boy, whom he +overwhelmed with caresses, without being at all confused by the +presence of strangers. "Admire this if you must admire something!" he +burst out once, angry at the intrusive enthusiasm of a very pretty +American woman, and with that he raised the child on a table to show +him to her. "He is worth the trouble," he growled, and truly such was +the case! + +One day, about the middle of May, when Natalie, somewhat out of breath, +holding her boy with one hand, and a bunch of red roses in the other, +came home to lunch, she found Lensky with two strangers in the little +hotel drawing-room. One of them was a young man with long hair and +short neck, in whom she recognized a famous piano virtuoso; the second, +a small, dried-up man, with a yellow, hard, sharp face, she saw for the +first time. + +At her appearance they both withdrew. Lensky accompanied them out. + +"How you have hurried," said he smiling, when he reentered the room. +"You are quite heated!" + +"Yes, I hurried very much; I was afraid I would be late to lunch. I +know how you hate unpunctuality." And then she sat down on the sofa, +and handed her hat and shawl to the nurse, who had come in to get +Nikolinka--a nurse by the name of Palagea, in a Russian national +costume which created a furore on the boulevard. + +"Why did you not take a carriage, little goose?" asked he. + +"To economize, Boris Nikolaivitch," replied she, with mischievous +earnestness. Then laughing up at him with her great tender eyes, she +added: "Besides, the doctor has expressly advised me to take more +exercise." + +"The doctor?" said he, anxiously. "Do you feel ill? Why did you consult +a physician?" + +"Yes, why?" murmured she, softly. "Sit down on the sofa by me, so that +I can whisper something to you." + +"What are you talking about?" said he, hoarsely, without stirring. +"What do you mean? What?" + +"You are fabulously uncomprehending to-day," laughed she, and went up +to him. "One cannot scream such a thing across the whole room, and as +the mountain will not come to Mahomet"--she had now become very red; +laying her hand on his shoulder, she whispered: "O Boris; can you still +not guess?... I am so glad!" + +"Natalie!" he burst out. "You do not mean to say" ... He shook her from +him, stamped his foot, and with a furious exclamation left the room. + +Ten minutes later, when he entered the little dining-room where they +had served lunch, Natalie's maid announced that he must not wait for +her mistress, as she was feeling ill. He hurried to her bedroom. She +sat on a sofa, her hands in her lap. Her great eyes stared into the +distance, she looked like a corpse. + +He sat down by her, drew her on his knee, and overwhelmed her with +caresses. + +"You are right to be angry, quite right. I was detestable," said he; +"but you know what a bear you have for a husband. It is only because I +love you so dearly that now, just now, the thing is so inconvenient. +Oh, my little dove, my heart!" He pressed the palms of her hands to his +lips and stroked her cheeks. + +Every vexation melted away in the warmth of his manner. She suddenly +began to sob, but not from grief. + +"Do you think, then, that I would not have been glad?" he said to her +tenderly. "But now, do you see, just now----" + +Then he told her the state of affairs. The man in the Havana brown +overcoat was the famous impressario Morinsky, with whom Lensky had just +made an engagement for a concert tour in the United States. Morinsky +had offered him a small fortune. "You know how hard it is for me to +part from you," he concluded. "I wished to take you with me--you and +the boy, for he can put off school for another year. I thought it was +the most favorable moment, and now--it is so stupid, so horribly +stupid!" + +She had listened very quietly; now she raised her head and said +uneasily: + +"And now you naturally will have to give up the American project?" + +"That is impossible," replied he, turning his face from her, "but I +will try--that is, I will put off my departure in any case until the +great event is over." + +"And then?" She had slipped down from his knee and walked up and down +the room uneasily. "And then?" she repeated, while she beat on the +floor quite imperiously with the tip of her little foot. + +"Then," said he slowly. "Well, then you must either decide to accompany +me and leave the children behind, or I must go alone." + +"How long will you stay away?" she asked with short breath. + +"Eight months, ten months." + +"So--ten months!" she spoke slowly. "And you will part from +me--voluntarily, without compelling necessity--for ten months?" + +Her face had become ashy, the words fell harsh and cutting from her dry +lips. + +"You must not take the thing so desperately," replied Lensky, with an +embarrassment which did not escape her. "Ten months are soon over." + +Something that sounded half like a laugh, half like a cry of anguish +escaped her lips. She stroked the hair back from her temples with both +hands. Her eyes had suddenly become unnaturally large, and were opened +uncommonly wide. They were no longer the eyes of a usually wise woman. + +"Ten months!" she murmured, with extinguished voice, like one who +speaks in the midst of an oppressive dream, "ten months--do you no +longer remember how you used to miss me, if it was only a question of +weeks, of days, and not--ten months! But this is no separation, this is +a final parting, this is the end of all! Oh, do not look at me so!--I +am not crazy, I know what I am saying--I know very well! You will come +back--certainly you will come back, if no malicious illness snatches +you away during your journey; but how will you come back? Like a +stranger you will return under your own roof, and a stranger, from that +hour, will you remain. You will have acquired other customs, other +needs; the tender restrictions of family life will confine you like a +forced burden! The good, and magnificent, and beautiful in you will +still exist, because it is immortal like everything that is god-like; +but it will be grown wild and soiled, and I will no longer be able to +force my way through what has towered between me and your heart! And, +more than all that, the sweet voice which, until now, has whispered +such wonderful songs within you, will be silenced in the confusion of +your wandering life; your genius will no longer be able to express +itself, it will from then burn in you like a great unrest, and you will +feel the treasure which Providence has implanted in you as an +oppressive burden, and will no longer be able to find the magic word +which can lift this treasure!" + +He stared gloomily before him. +"Ah, Boris! do not sin against yourself, because I have sinned against +you," Natalie began once more, with hoarse, broken voice. "Do not let +your wings be broken by this first disappointment. Your opera was +wonderfully beautiful--yes--but it was not the best that you can give! +Give your best, it will stand so high that the hand of envy can no +longer reach it. Have patience, sacrifice the virtuoso to the composer +in you, and you will see what a splendid reward you will reap!" + +With heavily contracted brows, he listened to this speech, vibrating +with desperation. When Natalie had ended, he remained silent. She +believed she had conquered. Leaning against him she laid both arms +around his neck, and whispered to him: "You will stay, Boris--will you +not?--you will stay!" + +For a little while he let her stay, then he freed himself from her +arms, as one frees one's self from a shackle, and called out: "It +cannot be--torment me no longer--I must go!" With that he sprang up to +leave the room. At the door he turned round to Natalie, and said: "Are +you coming? Lunch will be cold." + +"Presently!" said Natalie, "presently!" She shivered, she felt the +chill of a great fright in all her members. It was worse than she had +believed! Something allured him away. After the first unpleasant +surprise at the frustration of his plans had disappeared, he rejoiced +at the opportunity of being able to free himself from the chain, and to +separate himself from his family for a time. What she had feared for +the future had already arrived--the gypsy element in his nature had +awakened! + + * * * * * + +The agreement between Lensky and the impressario was really completed, +the contract was signed, Lensky's departure fixed for the beginning of +October. Meanwhile, he would pass the summer quietly with his wife, in +the country, in the vicinity of Paris. + +The place which Natalie chose was about an hour's journey from Paris, +and perhaps fifteen minutes from the railway-station, a charming old +house in the shadiest corner of a park, in the midst of which a large +castle stood empty. The castle was modern; the house, on the contrary, +a carefully reconstructed ruin of the time of Francis First. The castle +was called "Le Chateau des Ormes," and the small house "L'Eremitage." +The last owner had restored it, in order that his favorite daughter +might pass her honeymoon there. Since the daughter had died the +Hermitage stood empty, and to reside in the castle was painful to the +owner. Both were to let. Lensky left the choice to his wife. What would +she have done with the large castle? The Hermitage pleased her better. +The windows were all irregular, one small and narrow, another very +broad, all surrounded by artistically carved and voluted stone +framings. The trees grew up high above the roof, and through the whole +day sang sweet, dreamy songs, to which a little brook, that ran close +by the house, furnished a harmonic accompaniment. + +The ground floor was built in accordance with the architecture of the +early Renaissance period, with brown beams across the ceilings of the +room, and artistic wainscoting on the walls. Gigantic marble mantels, +iron chandeliers and sconces, and heavy furniture did what they could +to transport the spectator's imagination back to the much sung old +times of gay King Francis. At the right and left of the entrance door, +set far back in its carved niche, grew lilies, tall and slender; they +were in full bloom when the married pair moved in, and their white +heads nodded in a friendly manner through the windows of the rooms even +with the ground. Sage, lavender, and centifolias bloomed at their feet, +tall rose-bushes nodded a fragrant greeting to them from above. The +branches of the old trees before the windows were thick enough to +partially exclude the sunbeams if they became too intrusive; not thick +enough to completely bar the way for them. + +In this lonely solitude, Natalie fought a last time for her happiness. +She tried to make her whole home as attractive and poetic as possible, +so that in Lensky's remembrance something might remain for which he +must long. She no longer tormented him with jealous, isolating +tenderness, but cared for his distraction and intellectual as well as +artistic recreation. She knew how to allure not only the first +musicians in Paris, but celebrities of the most different kinds from +the capital and surrounding villas, to the Hermitage; earnest men of +lofty aims and noble endeavors, together with an animation and +susceptibility which did away with the hindering respect which towers +between every plain, modest child of man and great people. It always +gave Natalie pleasure to see Lensky in the company of these prominent +men. He grew in such surroundings. + +He was never very talkative; his intellectual capabilities were of a +heavy calibre, unsuited for the purposes of small talk. But how he +listened, what questions he asked! Then, quite without haste, he would +make some remark so peculiarly sharp and far-reaching in reference to +some impending political, artistic, or literary question, that, every +time, an astonished silence would follow. + +One of the guests once remarked: "If Lensky mingles in the +conversation, it is as if one fired a cannon between pistol shots." + +He was not one-sided in his interests, as other musicians. When one +learned to know him more intimately, for every accurate observer it had +always the appearance that his musical capabilities formed only a part +of his universally abnormally gifted nature. + + * * * * * + +Quietly and still animatedly passed the days, weeks, and months. +Natalie never spoke of the approaching separation. + +An inexplicable discomfort tormented Lensky. Natalie had guessed +rightly--he had concluded the engagement with Morinsky with quite +precipitate haste, not only in order thereby to win the opportunity of +acquiring with one stroke a large sum of money which would put an end +to his pecuniary difficulties, but because in intercourse with the old +friends of his bachelor days in ---- he had first significantly +realized how much he had had to restrain himself to live morally and +uprightly at the side of his wife; and because his gypsy nature, bound +for years, now demanded its rights. + +Still it vexed him that Natalie remained so calm in the face of the +approaching parting. Now, when the farewell drew near, his heart failed +him. Did she, then, no longer love him? + +The thought was unbearable to him, prevented him from working. He wrote +everything wrong on the note paper. + +The lilies were dead, the days became short, and the first leaves fell +in the grass, but the foliage was still thick, only here and there one +saw a yellow spot in a bluish green tree, and the rustling had no +longer the old soft sound. + +"The trees have lost their voice, they have become hoarse, the old +melting sound is gone!" said Natalie. The roses, in truth bloomed more +beautifully than in summer; still one saw, significantly, the approach +of autumn, and Lensky had the repugnant feeling that near by something +lay dying. + +His work did not please him. Three times already he had heard Natalie +pass by his door; each time he had thought, now she will come in; he +had already stretched his arms out to her, but she did not come. He +threw away his pen and sprang up to look for her. + +It was a late September afternoon. It had rained for three days, and +the air was cool. + +Natalie sat in the brown-wainscoted ground-floor sitting-room, in one +of the gigantic, high-backed arm-chairs near the chimney, in which +flickered a gay wood fire. The windows were open. The noise from +without of the rain drops softly gliding down between the leaves, the +blustering of the high swollen brook, mingled with the crackling and +popping of the burning wood. + +In the middle of the room, on a large table with a dark-red cover, +stood a copper bowl filled with champagne-colored _Gloire de Dijon_ +roses. From without came the melancholy odor of autumnal decay and +mingled with the sweet breath of the flowers. + +The veil of twilight sank down from the mighty rafters of the ceiling. +The corners of the large, somewhat low room were already, as it were, +rounded off by brown shadows. Freakish, pale reflections slid over the +dark wainscoting, and over the brass and copper dishes which adorned +it. + +Little Kolia crouched on a stool before his mother, and with both tiny +elbows rested on her lap, gazed earnestly and attentively up at her. + +One could think of nothing more charming than this mother and this +child. Involuntarily Lensky's heart beat high in his breast. "How +beautiful my home is, how happy I am here. Why am I really going away?" +he asked himself. + +"Ah!" cried Natalie when he entered, pleased and at the same time +surprised, for his appearance at this hour was something quite unusual. +"Do you wish anything?" + +He shook his brown, defiant head silently and sat down near the chimney +opposite her. The little boy had sprung up, embarrassed, and now leaned +against his mother, with his little arm round her neck. + +"You have been telling him fairy tales," began Lensky. + +"Oh, no! I told him of the ocean, and how one lives and is housed on +the wide boundless water--of the ocean and of America. Before it was +too dark we were busy with something much more important," said +Natalie, and she pointed to a low child's table which was covered with +writing materials and lined paper. "Show papa what we have finished, +Nikolinka." + +The little boy became very red and drew his brows together. "But, +mamma," said he, excitedly stamping his foot, "why do you tell that? It +is a surprise." + +His mother stroked the offended child's cheek soothingly. "We will not +give papa your letter to read, only show it to him, so that he can be +pleased with it. Bring it, Nikolinka." + +Resistingly the little fellow freed himself from his mother, then he +brought the document, which was concealed behind a vase, and carried +it, with importance as well as embarrassment, to his father. On the +already extensively sealed envelope, between three lines, stood the +unformed, but neatly and industriously written letters: + + + A + MONSIEUR BORIS LENSKY, + EN + AMERIQUE. + + +"The letter is to be sent to you when you are over there," explained +Natalie. + +"How nicely the wight writes for his five years," said Lensky touched, +looking at the envelope. "You guided his hand, Natascha?" + +"Oh, no!" declared Natalie. + +"But you prompted him?" + +"Certainly not; he thought it out all by himself; did you not, +Nikolinka?" said Natalie. + +The little one nodded earnestly; he was quite crimson with pride and +embarrassment. His father took him between his knees, called him +"Umnitza," which in Russian means paragon of wisdom, kissed and +caressed him, then rang the bell for Palagea, and told him he must go +now and wash his hands, and have his curls brushed smooth, and then he +should take dinner with his parents, because he had been so clever. + +When the child had tripped out at the nurse's hand, Lensky threw +himself down on the stool at his wife's feet. It had now become quite +dark. The heavy, regular-falling rain still rustled in the foliage +without, in a dreamy, melancholy cadence. + +"Listen; how sweet, how sad!" said Natalie, turning her head to the +window, through which the landscape, behind its double veil of rain and +twilight, looked to one like a greenish-gray chaos only, without any +distinct outlines. + +"The D-flat major prelude of Chopin," said Lensky. + +She shook her head. "No, I did not think of that," whispered she. "But +see! Sometimes it seems to me that the ghost of the poor young wife who +died here creeps around the Hermitage, and sighs for the happiness +which she might not finish enjoying. She died after the first year, +while I, Boris--I was happy six years. It is too much for one human +life. Sometimes--it is a sin; I know it--and still, sometimes I quite +wished I might die, but I dare not; Kolia still needs me." + + * * * * * + +Soon after this she brought a little girl into the world, who was +baptized Marie, after the grandmother and the little dead sister. + +A few weeks passed, she convalesced rapidly. The day of farewell came, +on which everyone hastened, with everything overhurried, incessantly +imagined there was too much to do in preparing for the journey, and +finally had nothing more to do. The day on which all the usual +occupations were sacrificed in honor of the pain of parting, when one +aimlessly trifled away the hours, tormented by nervous unrest, which +finally expressed itself in the dullest _ennui_. + + * * * * * + +They sat together; now here, now there, and did not know what to do. +Lensky was to take the six o'clock train to Paris; from there, the same +evening, he would travel with Morinsky's troupe to Boulogne, for they +would take ship in Liverpool for America. + +The dinner-hour was changed from seven to four, lunch and breakfast +were combined at ten o'clock. These irregular hours took away one's +appetite, accustomed to regular hours, and increased the general +discomfort. + +In order to kill the last half-hour before dinner they took a walk +through the immense, solitary park. Kolia went with them. + +It was a beautiful October day, with a blue heaven over which only +filmy white clouds spread themselves, and from which the sun looked +down so sadly and mildly as only the October sun looks down on the +dying beauty of the year. Masses of foliage still hung on the trees, +but it was already withered--it no longer lived. And in the midst of +the windless peace, one heard, again and again, the gentle sighing of a +dead leaf that fell on the turf. + +Both the parents were silent, only the little boy asked, from time to +time, tender, important questions of his father, whom he loved very +much, although he felt a kind of shyness of him. At first Lensky led +the child by the hand, then he took him in his arms, in order to have +the pleasure of holding the supple little body quite closely to him and +feel the soft, warm little arms round his neck. + +They hurried back to the house so as not to delay dinner, and naturally +arrived much too early. + +"Play me something for a farewell," begged Natalie. + +"One of the Chopin nocturnes which I transposed for your sake?" asked +he. + +"No, just what you have in your heart," replied Natalie. + +He took up his violin. It was the same violin which he had tried in the +Palazzo Morsini, the Amati which Natalie had given him when they were +betrothed. He was very excited, and became paler with every stroke. + +The whole desperation of a great nature which feels an unavoidable +degradation approaching, spoke from his improvisation, and in the midst +of the passionate and painful madness rose melodies so pure, so +beautifully holy, like the resting in heart-felt prayer of a nature all +in uproar. + +When he had finished and wished to put the violin back in the case in +which he should take it with him to America, Natalie took it from his +hand. + +"What do you wish with it?" he asked. + +She kissed the violin and then handed it to him. "Here you have it," +said she, very softly. "It will never sing so again until you return." + +At last the servant announced that dinner was served. They sat down to +the executioner meal, the executioner meal for which all his little +favorite dishes had been prepared, at which everything was so abundant +and so good, only the appetite was lacking. + +It was still light when they went to dinner. The light slowly died in +the course of the meal. The words fell seldomer and more seldom from +Lensky's lips; there was a leaden silence; the brook sobbed without. + +Lensky held his wine-glass toward Natalie. "To a happy meeting!" said +he; "to a happy meeting!" She repeated, dully: "I will await you here +next year when the roses bloom." He pressed her hand; he could not +contain himself during the whole meal, but got up before the dessert +and began to walk up and down restlessly. + +"You have still time," Natalie assured him; "the coffee will come +immediately." + +"Thanks; is baby asleep? I would like to give her a kiss before I go." + +They brought little Maschenka. He kissed and blessed the tiny, rosy +child, bundled up in lace and muslin. He has kissed Kolia, loudly +crying from excitement, and commissioned him to be brave and not to +grieve his mother. + +Now he goes up to his wife. They have brought the lamps; he wishes to +see her distinctly before he goes. She tries to smile; she raises her +arms to stretch them out to him--the arms sink. + +"My heart, be reasonable," says he, and draws her to him. A fearful +groan comes from her lips; she presses her mouth against his shoulder +so as not to scream aloud; her form shook. + +He held her to him so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. For one +moment he is all hers--it is the last in her life! She knows it! The +happiness of her love rallies once more in a feeling of awful, +delirious happiness, and dies in a kiss! + +Now he has gone! She accompanied him to the house-door. There she now +stands and gazes along the street, through the twilight, where he has +disappeared between the trees. It did not seem to her that she had +parted from a dear man who was about to make a journey. No; as if they +had carried a corpse out of the house. It is all over--all! Whatever +further comes is only more dry bitterness and inconsolable torment of +the heart. She sees his footprints in the half darkness. Why had she +not accompanied him to the railway? she asks herself, why--why? From +stupid anxiety, from pride of giving the few loafers at the station the +sight of her despair had she renounced the pleasure of enjoying his +presence until the last moment? She steps outdoors, hurries her steps, +wishes to hurry after him, to see him once more, only one moment--then +the loud voice of the railroad bell breaks the universal silence--a +shrill whistle--it is over! She falls down, buries her face in the cool +autumn grass at the edge of the garden path, and sobs as one sobs over +a fresh grave. + + * * * * * + +About three hours later, Lensky, with his colleagues and Morinsky, sat +penned up in a coupe of the first class. The train was over-full, there +were eight of them in the small compartment. + +In one corner slept Morinsky, his fur collar drawn up over his ears, +his head covered with a fez, whose blue tassel waved to and fro over +his left ear, which lent his sharp yellow face a diabolical expression. + +Opposite him sat an old woman with a copper colored skin, and held a +basket of lunch on her knees. At first she had uninterruptedly chewed +and smacked her lips, now she snored. She was the mother of a famous +staccato singer, who, large and blond, with her head and shoulders +prudently wrapped in a red fascinator, embroidered with gold, and +painted, and smelling of cosmetics, coquetted with the 'cellist, a very +effeminate young man who looked like an actor. They had spread a shawl +over their knees, and the diva laid the cards for him, which gave +occasion for the most entertaining allusions. + +The accompanist of the troupe, a pedantic young pianist, afflicted with +a chronic hoarseness, which alone prevented him from becoming a tenor +of the first rank, formed the public to the beautiful duet, while he +laughed loudly at every particularly poor witticism. + +The 'cellist and the diva were very familiar with each other, and both +constantly made use of expressions of the commonest kind. + +The laughter of the diva became ever shriller, while that of the +'cellist sounded ever deeper from his boots. + +Opposite Lensky, the short-armed, fat piano virtuoso of the troupe, a +very solid father of a family, who tried to sleep, and from time to +time looked round angrily at the disturbers of his rest; and near +Lensky, wrapped in furs to the tip of her nose, sat a new prima donna, +Signora Zingarelli, of whom Morinsky promised himself the highest +success, a beautiful, red-haired Belgian, with long, narrow sphinx +eyes. She had tried to enter into conversation with Lensky, but he had +turned from her, monosyllabic and coarse. + +The train sighed and groaned. Fiery clouds flew by the window in the +black night. The close atmosphere in the coupe, the odor of paint, +musk, fat meat, hot fur and coal, maddened Lensky; he wished to open +one of the windows--the singers protested, Morinsky awoke, settled the +dispute:--the window remained closed. + +A terrible longing for his love, for his beautiful, poetic home, came +over Lensky. He thought of his last night journey, with wife and child, +quite alone in a coupe. He saw the charming serpentine lines which the +slender, supple figure of his young wife described on the cushions. She +slept. Her little head rested on a red silk cushion which she took +about with her on all her travels. How tender and delicate her profile +stood out from that colored ground! She coughed in her sleep; he stood +up to draw the fur mantle which covered her closer up around her +shoulders. Drunk with sleep, she opened her eyes and with half +unconscious tenderness rubbed her smooth, cool cheeks against her hand. +The sweet fragrance of violets which exhaled from her person smote his +face. Then--a jolt!--He started up--he must have slept. In any case he +had dreamed. His travelling companions all slept now; their heads on +their breasts, only the pretty red-haired head of the Zingarelli lay on +Lensky's shoulder. She opened her long, narrow eyes, smiled at him--a +shrill whistle--the train stopped. + +"Amiens!" cried the conductor. "Amiens!" All got out. + +While his colleagues plundered the restaurant, Lensky, smoking a +cigarette, wandered around the platform alone. The others had all taken +their places again, when Morinsky, who had gotten out to look for him, +and saw him wandering to another coupe, called after him: "Here, +Monsieur Lensky, here!" + +But Lensky only stamped his foot impatiently: "Leave me in peace, I am +not obliged to make the whole journey in the same cage with your +menagerie!" he said. + + * * * * * + +Six weeks later not a trace of his homesickness remained. At the artist +banquet, which usually followed the concerts, symposiums which began +with bad witticisms and ended with an orgy, he was the most +unrestrained, the wantonest of all. + +He was like one who, suddenly relieved from the pressure of iron +fetters, at first, unaccustomed to every free movement, can scarcely +move his limbs, but afterward cannot weary of stretching them, and +moving them in unlimited freedom. + +He broke every bond, indulged every humor. He no longer thought of +Natalie and the children, he did not wish to think of them. Remembrance +was ashamed to follow him on the way he now went. + +It was hard for him to write to his wife, but it was still harder for +him to read her letters. And yet she wrote so charmingly, so lovingly! +She did not say much of herself, but so much the more of the children, +especially of Kolia. With what shining eyes he listened, when she read +the reports of the triumphs of his father to him, she wrote, and how he +seized every newspaper that he saw, and then asked her: "Is there +anything in it about papa?" and how, with his little playmates--she +passed the winter with her mother, in Cannes--he boasted importantly of +the homage which fell share to his father, and how she did not have the +heart to reprove him for it. How he drew ships incessantly, and how she +made use of the interest which he took in his father's journey to give +him his first lessons in geography, and many other such tender trifles. + +These letters vexed him; when he had read them, he despised himself and +his surroundings, and for two, three days, remained melancholy and +unsociable. + +At last he no longer read them, at most only glanced over them, +convinced himself hastily that "all was as usual," and then folded them +up and laid them aside. + +Then came the time when he told himself it was foolish to have such +scruples. He was what he always had been, an exceptional man, a Titanic +nature. He could not be judged like the others, he could not have +exercised his compelling charm over the masses without the fiery +violence of his temperament. His success was wonderful. Since they had +celebrated the reception of Jenny Lind with discharge of cannon in New +York or Boston--history differs as to which, is always careless in +relation to prima donnas--no artist had received more homage than Boris +Lensky. The women especially seemed as if bewitched by him. + +He did not take the situation sentimentally, but rather cynically; +still he accustomed himself to the horrible noise of the public, which +followed his performances, to the cries of the crowd which accompanied +him without, when he left the concert hall, to the illuminated streets +in which every window was filled with gazers when he drove home. + +When the excitement was once over, a kind of shame overpowered him. +What signified these virtuoso triumphs? People always applauded the +stupidest piece the loudest. He attained no such effect with a sonata +of Beethoven, or Schumann, as with a mad tarentella which he had +composed long ago for his wonderful fingers, and of which he was now +ashamed. + +In Boston, he omitted this tarentella, which had become a nightmare to +him, from the programme. + +The people remained lukewarm, and so much already did his over-excited +nerves desire the shrill storm of applause, that he voluntarily added +the trivial and wearying piece of artifice--he, who had formerly so +despised his virtuoso triumphs! + + * * * * * + +The lilies stand straight and slender, with golden hearts in their +deep, white calices, right and left of the door of the little +Hermitage, into which Natalie has again moved when the first roses +bloom. + +It is July. Lensky has fixed his return for the fifteenth. "Afternoon, +with the first train that I can catch; but do not worry if I should be +late," said his letter. + +Not at the station, no, only to the hedge which incloses the park, will +Natalie go to meet him. + +Kolia quivers with impatience. Natalie counts the hours, draws out her +watch--it has stopped. She hurries in the dining-room to consult the +clock on the mantel, and discovers Kolia, who, kneeling on a chair, +moves the hands. + +"What are you doing?" says she, laughing. + +The boy sighs impatiently. "I am fixing the clock, mamma. I am sure it +must be sick, it goes too slowly to-day." + +How she kisses him for it! How pleased she will be to tell Boris of it! + +"Hark!" + +A shrill sound of a bell, a penetrating whistle; the train has come. + +She fetches her little daughter, who has had a charming little white +dress put on her, in honor of her father's arrival. + +With the little one on her arm, and Kolia at her hand, she steps out +under the lindens, which are in full bloom, and throw a sunlit shadowy +carpet over the path. Oh, how her poor heart beats! She kisses the tiny +hands of her little daughter from excitement, looks scrutinizingly at +the little child. Will he think her pretty? + +She stands at the hedge of the park, looks out on the street, gazes, +waits, sees the people return from the railroad. Now he must come! but +no, the white, dusty street is empty; a scornfully whispering breeze +blows away the footprints of the last passer-by, a couple of white +linden-blossoms fall from the tree-tops--he has not come! + +And with slow steps, as one wearily drags himself along after a great +disappointment, she turns toward the house. Kolia gives a deep sigh. "I +don't understand it, mamma," says he. + +"Papa will come with the next train; he has missed this one," his +mother consoles him. + +For a while he trips silently beside her, then suddenly raising his +head and looking at her with his earnest, thoughtful child's eyes, he +says: + +"We would not have missed the train, would we, mamma?" + +And once more the bell sounds in the solemn quiet, and Natalie's heart +beats loudly--and he comes not. + +Ever sadder, she wanders through the empty rooms, into which the +sunlight presses through a shady, cool, perfumed curtain of foliage. + +"How can one stay an hour longer than one must in the sultry, dusty, +sunny, wearying Paris?" she asks herself. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Lensky sits with his colleagues in the _Trois Freres_ at a +breakfast which began at one o'clock, and now at five o'clock has not +yet ended. A breakfast at which all laugh and make jokes--only he +broods silently. + +He is satiated with this rope-dancer's existence--heartily satiated--he +longs for his home, for his dear, incomparable wife, but he delays the +moment of meeting as long as he can. A kind of shame contracts his +throat at the thought of meeting her eyes. He knows she will ask him no +questions, but still---- + + * * * * * + +Once more the railway bell has in vain startled Natalie and her little +son. Evening has come. The excellent little dinner which was prepared +in honor of the return has been served and taken away quite untouched. +Kolia incessantly pulls his mother's sleeve and asks ever more +importunately: "Why does not father come? Why does he not come?" + +Maschenka has long been divested of her white muslin finery, and lies +in her cradle. Kolia obstinately refuses to go to bed until his father +has returned. Weary and tearful he wanders from one corner of the +drawing-room to the other and will not play. + +Now, with little head on his arm, he has fallen asleep over his picture +books at a low child's table. + +The roses which Natalie arranged so carefully in the vases wither. The +white draperies of her dress are limp and tumbled. + +Once again the bell rings. It is the last train to-day. She does not +wake Kolia. Why should he uselessly vex himself this time also? + +Softly she steps on the porch. The moon stands in the heavens; the +trees are black. A gray, transparent mist arises from the earth which +obliterates all contours. The flowers smell unusually sweet, and, in +luxuriant melancholy, confess so much to the pale, cold moon that they +have shamefacedly been silent about to the sun. + +Why does the little brook sob so loudly? Can it not be silent a moment? +Natalie's whole being is now only a strained, longing listening. Why +does her heart beat so loudly? Why does her strong imagination charm up +things in the stillness which do not exist? Or--no--no; she hears a +sigh, a step, slow, slow! Who can that be? No man walks so slowly who +after long, oh, how long absence, returns to wife and child! It is a +messenger of misfortune, who delays to announce some ill news to her. + +Then, from out the shadow, in the foggy moonlight, comes a +broad-shouldered form. + +"Boris!" calls Natalie, half to herself. She cannot go to meet him--she +cannot. Trembling in her whole body, she stands there, in the carved +Gothic portal, against the bright golden background of the lighted +hall; stands there in her white dress, between the tall, pale lilies, +like an angel before the door of a church, into which a wicked sinner +would like to slip. + +"Is it you, at last?" she breathes out. + +"Yes; I am somewhat late. You know, with one's colleagues, one must +offend no one; it is always so." + +How rough his voice sounds! How fleetingly, how hastily he kisses her. +Is she dreaming? + +"How are you; how are the children?" He steps in the hall, blinking +uneasily in the light. + +Is this really the man to whose coming she has so foolishly, so +breathlessly looked forward? This irritable, heavy man with the tumbled +clothes, the badly arranged hair, the fearfully altered face, with a +new expression of God knows what! Her feet refuse her their service; +she catches hold of a support, and sinks down in a chair. + +"How pale you are, Natalie!" says he. "Are you ill?" + +"No--no--only--I have waited for you since five o'clock. I--I thought +you would never find the way back to us." + +For an instant he hesitates; then he sinks at her feet, embraces her +knees with both arms. He, who at parting had not shed a tear, now, at +their meeting, sobs like a desperate one. What pretext, what falsehood +can he utter? As if his colleagues could have withheld him if he had +only really wished to come home! + +"O Natalie! Natalie! Pardon me. We all fear to return to Heaven when we +have accustomed ourselves to Earth. Natalie! be good to me; never let +me leave you again." + +He had plunged a dagger in her heart, but her whole tenderness is +awakened. + +She bends over him, strokes his rough hair with her tender, white hand. +"My poor genius!" she whispers gently. "My poor, dear genius!" + +"Papa!" calls a silvery voice, joyfully. "Pa--pa!" he repeats, +hesitatingly, frightened. Kolia has run up. + +If he lives to be a hundred years old he will never forget how he saw +his father sobbing at his mother's feet after the first long +separation. + +Then he did not understand, but later he understood--understood only +too well. + +How sad life is: how sad! + + * * * * * + +It was the morning after his arrival. Lensky stood at the window of his +room, and looked down in the quiet garden. The little brook which +tumbled down the hill at the side of the Hermitage with exaggerated +violence, quite like a little waterfall, in front of the house from +whence Lensky looked down on it, plashed quite calmly, earnestly, and +dreamily along its here scarcely susceptibly descending bed, and bore +away on its dark waves only as much of the sunshine as could reach it +between the lindens. A cool breeze rose from the water, all around was +dark green, dewy and luxuriant--luxuriant without the slightest +indication of decay, without the least trace of approaching withering. + +And what an abundance of roses stood out in gay, blooming colors +against the sober, dark-green background! Great Marechal Niel roses, +with heavy, earthward-bent heads, dark-red Jacqueminot, fiery Baroness +Rothschild, delicate pink, capriciously crumpled La France. The Gloire +de Dijon roses climbed quite in the window of his room in their race +with the quite small, pert little running roses. + +Light steps crunched the gravel, large and small steps. Natalie stepped +out from the shady lindens in front of the house. She held her little +daughter in her arms. Kolia walked near her, and with the important +earnestness of six years carried a basketful of strawberries, which he +had evidently just helped his mother pick. One could think of nothing +more charming than the young woman in her white morning-dress, with its +lilac ribbons, and the tiny, rosy being in her arms. The little thing +was bareheaded, and her little arms and feet were also bare. She +quivered and danced with animation. There she discovered a butterfly, +cried out gayly, and clapped her little hands. + +"Oh, are you ready so soon?" called Natalie, when she saw her husband +at the window. "Come to breakfast; I have had the table laid in the +garden." + +He hurried down. The breakfast-table stood in a shady spot, over which +the blooming lindens reached their branches. + +Oh, what a table! How very pretty the Rouen service made it! a service +whose old-fashioned gayness combined harmoniously the most incongruous +colors, set out on the dazzling white damask table-cloth. How inviting +and appetizing everything was! These curiously shaped dishes, with +their fragrant burden of still warm golden cakes and rolls of pale +yellow butter between glittering pieces of ice, and ham covered with +transparent aspic! Around the greenish twilight, fragrant, cool, only +here and there the reddish glimmer of a sunbeam curiously wandered into +the shadow, and now held captive by the lindens. + +When she saw her father coming, little Mascha became quite unruly, +almost danced out of her mother's arms, and, without resisting, let +herself be taken, hugged, and kissed by him. While he held her in his +arms, Kolia seized her little bare legs, and pressed his mouth to her +tiny pink feet. + +"She is charming, a beauty! Is that really my daughter, can something +so wonderfully pretty have such an ugly man for father?" he said from +time to time, laughingly, tenderly, while he kissed her bare shoulders, +and especially the dimple in her neck, again and again. + +"She looks very like you, your pretty daughter," jested Natalie. "More +than the boy! It vexes him if I say that, and I also would prefer it to +be the other way." + +Lensky laughed somewhat constrainedly. The nurse came up to get baby. + +"Just a moment," said Lensky, swinging the little thing high in the +air, to its great delight, "so--and one more kiss on the eyes, the +neck, on these dear, sweet little hands, so----" + +The nurse already had the little thing in her arms, when the sweet +little rogue looked round at her father. + +Meanwhile, Natalie busied herself with the samovar, which stood on a +small stand near the breakfast table. No servant was near, Kolia helped +mamma serve tea, and waited with a sober expression until his mother +had confided the cup for his father to him. Carefully, as if he held +the Holy Grail in his hands, he carried it over to Lensky. Natalie sat +down opposite her husband, and buttered him a piece of bread. + +He looked at her with a peculiarly sad, touched look. "You are all much +too good to me," he murmured; then he added, tenderly: "Either I had +really forgotten during my absence how beautiful you are, or you have +really gained in charm." + +How awkwardly that came out! how stumblingly! He had wished to say +something loving to her, but he had not succeeded well. He felt it +himself. A petulant smile shone in her sad eyes at his well, or much +rather, badly put little speech. Some reply trembled on her lips, then +she suddenly closed her lovely mouth, as if she feared her husband +would take what she wished to say somewhat ill, and busied herself in +fastening a napkin round Kolia's neck. + +After a while Lensky began anew: "How charming my home is. Ah, Natalie, +how have I renounced it all for so long! How could I exist so long +without you!" + +"If you only are really pleased over your return we will make no +further remarks about your absence," said Natalie very lovingly, and +then hesitated with embarrassment and blushed to the roots of her hair. + +Breakfast took its course. Here and there, by turns, Natalie and Lensky +made a remark, but the conversation did not become fluent. A strange +irritation vibrated in every nerve of the virtuoso. Formerly there had +been no end of talking between them, and now-- What was she thinking +of, to speak about the weather as if he were any guest to whom one +feels obliged to be polite, and to whom one does not know what to say, +because no common interest unites him with us? + +He remembered the words which she had spoken in the Hotel Windsor at +that time before the conclusion of his contract with Morinsky: "As a +stranger you will return to us, and a stranger you will remain among us +from that time." + +Was she right? Foolishness! She had only become a little too +distinguished among the wearisome crowd with whom she had passed the +winter. The forced mood which reigned between them was her fault, not +his. + +"You are so stiff and formal, Natalie," he remarked at last, vexedly, +quite irrelevantly. "You have again accustomed yourself to such +fearfully aristocratic manners." + +"How can you say anything so foolish?" she answered him, laughing +constrainedly. + +"Oh, it is not laughable to me," he growled, and suddenly, without any +reason, only to air his inward uneasiness, he burst out: "It is painful +to me, I cannot endure it--cannot bear it." He pushed his cup away with +an involuntary motion. + +"But, Boris!" Natalie admonished him. "My poor, unaccountable, dear +genius!" She looked at him so roguishly therewith that his anger was +scattered to the four winds. + +He stretched out both his hands to her across the table; she took them. +He bent somewhat forward, wished to draw her hands to his lips, when a +light step was heard on the gravel. Natalie blushed, and with a quick, +almost frightened movement, drew them away from him. He scowled +angrily. Before whom was she embarrassed then? + +A young woman in a very elegant _neglige_ costume, profusely trimmed +with Valenciennes lace, without hat, and a yellow parasol in her hand, +stepped up to the breakfast table. She resembled Natalie, although she +was smaller, stouter, and the features of her pretty face were coarser. +Lensky recognized in her his wife's sister, Princess Jeliagin, a person +whom he detested from the bottom of his heart, even if he had until +now only known her slightly, before his marriage with Natalie. Kind +friends had told him that she had described his alliance with her +sister as _une chose absurde_. Wife of a rich, quite incompetent +diplomat, she had during her ten years' life in foreign countries made +all the most absurd aristocratic prejudices her own, and was always +addressed as "Princess," although her husband had no title. With all +these Western-Europe grimaces she combined something of her Russian, +half Asiatic exaggeration, by which she became still more grotesque and +tactless. In spite of her boasted exclusiveness she had never quite +learned to understand the shades of foreign society, and made frequent +mistakes in her choice of acquaintances. + +Besides this, with all her weaknesses and affectations, she was good +natured to silliness, and hospitable to prodigality. + +"So early in the morning, Barbe what a surprise!" Natalie called to +her, while she tried not to let it be perceived how inopportune her +sister's visit was to her just at that moment. "That is charming, I +must introduce my husband to you." + +"We know each other already, at least I hope that Boris Nikolaivitch +remembers me--once in St. Petersburg, at the Olins. In any case, I am +very happy to renew the acquaintance," remarked the Jeliagin, and at +once reached him her fat little hand, in a buckskin garden glove. Her +voice was guttural and rough, her whole face, as Lensky could now see +plainly, was painted. + +"How are you, Nikolas?" She turned to little Kolia, while she stroked +his head in a friendly manner. "Please greet a person, or have I fallen +as deeply in your displeasure as my Anna? I assure you that I cannot +help it if she talks foolishly. Only think, Boris Nikolaivitch, he +cudgelled my daughter Anna, day before yesterday, because she ventured +to assert that a prince was greater than a genius. He answered her that +not even an emperor was greater. A genius came next to the dear God, +and as she would not agree to that, he struck her, and hard." + +The Jeliagin laughed. Lensky also laughed involuntarily, but remarked +in a tone of admonition to his son, who had shyly concealed himself +behind his mother: "A boy should never strike a girl; that is not +proper." + +"But why did she say such foolish things?" little Nikolas defended +himself, while he wrinkled his small forehead. "I cannot bear that, and +then she is larger than I, so much"--he measured the width of his hand +above his head. + +"She gave him quite a scratch, she was not defenceless," said Barbara +Alexandrovna, while she sat down and closed her umbrella. "But to come +to something more interesting," she continued; "we have, in spirit, +followed you on every step of your American triumphal march, Boris +Nikolaivitch; the newspapers gave us the guide thereto. I hope we will +now see very much of you. Natascha can tell you how well all artists +are received at our house,--and h'm!--and if it is a question of a +relation--_a propos_, could you not come and dine with us this evening? +We are quite _entre nous_, only Lis, Princess Zriny, that eccentric +Hungarian, Marinia Loewenskiold, a good friend of yours, you remember +her, a few diplomats, etc.; and we are bored as only _gens du monde_ +are bored if they have been together under the same roof for ten days. +Natalie can tell you how bored we are--merely people from our coterie, +who know each other by heart; if you please. And how stupid we are! ha, +ha, ha! In desperation we arranged a race in the drawing-room +yesterday. Arthur de Blincourt, while jumping a barrier, dislocated a +joint, and now lies on a lounge, and lets himself be looked after. But +we all long for a new element--_on vous attend comme le Messie_, Boris +Nikolaivitch. You will come, will you not? We dine at eight o'clock." + +While she chattered on with self-satisfied fluency, it seemed to Boris +as if some one scratched a knife on a porcelain plate. + +"Why does she roll her eyes so incessantly when she speaks? They do not +look more beautiful when one sees so much of their orange-yellow +whites," he thought to himself. Aloud he only remarked: "Do you really +believe that I would amuse you better than a drawing-room race?" + +"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed she. "That is splendid! I must repeat it to +Marinia Loewenskiold, who raves about you. You will come, will you not?" + +"No, I will not come," replied he sharply. "I do not feel myself equal +to the task of amusing a dozen _gens du monde_ who are bored." + +"Well, as you will," said the Jeliagin, shrugging her shoulders. "Try +to persuade him before evening, Natalie, and come, or send me word. I +must go, we wish to ride out _en bande_, at eight. Adieu! Give me your +hand, please, Kolia, and come and lunch with us. Anna will be pleased, +and you shall have strawberries and whipped cream. Adieu!" With that +she went away. + +Lensky stared gloomily before him for a while, then he struck his +clenched fist on the table so that all the dishes rattled: "From whence +did this goose drop down so suddenly?" asked he. + +"She lives in the castle in the park," said Natalie. "She has hired it +for the summer." + +"So!" grumbled Lensky. "Now if I had known that, I should never have +thought of coming here." + +"But I wrote you of it." + +"Not a word." + +"Certainly, in many letters; did you not have time to read them?" + +Instead of replying to this, for him very unpleasant remark, Lensky +said, in increasing rage: "Oh! now I understand the change which has +taken place in you. She is horrible, your sister! For what does she +hold me, that she takes this tone with me?" + +"I cannot help her lack of tact," replied Natalie, gently and +reproachfully. + +"Ah, you are still influenced by your relations, by that narrow stupid +crowd," he growled, crimson with rage. "You are condescending to me, +yes, that is the right word, condescending, indulgent. Why do you start +back from me when this silly machine comes near? Are you then ashamed +of our love before her?" + +"Our love!" repeated Natalie, with broken voice, strangely emphasizing +the word "our." + +He did not suspect anything from the trembling sadness of her voice, +and did not once look at her. + +Meanwhile he felt the anxious touch of a silky, soft child's hand. +Little Kolia had come up to his father, and whispered to him shyly and +pleadingly: "Papa, mamma is crying." + +Lensky looked up, frightened. Yes, she had done her utmost to +courageously smile through the unpleasant scene, but her overexcited +nerves could not bear it; she sobbed convulsively. + +"But Natalie, my angel, my little dove!" He could not see any woman +weep, least of all his wife, whom he loved. He sprang up, took her in +his arms, covered her eyes, her mouth, her whole face with kisses. "Do +not torment yourself, my treasure! You are much, much too good to me; +you are an angel! How could you ever take such a rough clown as I am? +We are not suited to each other, Natascha." + +"Oh, Boris! do you mean that?" + +"Yes, I mean it," said he, gloomily. "Better, a hundred times better, +would it have been for you if you had never seen me! You are so +charming, so good, and I love you so idolatrously; but I am a fearful, +a horrible man, and I cannot always govern myself--I cannot! I will yet +torment you to death, my poor Natalie!" And he did not cease to caress +and to kiss her. + +Then she raised her head from his shoulder, and looking at him from +eyes still shining with tears, with a glance full of tender fanaticism +she said: "What does it matter, even if you kill me? it would still be +beautiful! I would change with no woman in God's world, do you hear, +with none! Think of what I have said to you to-day when one day you +give me a last kiss in my coffin!" + + * * * * * + +Lensky could no longer get back into the old ways at home; however much +he tried, he could not. As in the former year, only more significantly, +more tormentingly, the feeling of growing discontent made itself felt +in him. It seemed to him as if he could not remain for any length of +time on the same spot; as if he must incessantly seek something which +was no longer anywhere to be found. + +For a couple of days he ill-humoredly stayed away from the castle, but +when his brother-in-law paid him a visit and repeated the invitation of +Barbara Alexandrovna in the most polite manner,--when one day, all the +ladies staying at the castle as guests had come out in a body to give +him an ovation and especially when he had become immeasurably weary of +the poetic monotony of life in the Hermitage; he replied to Natalie, +when she once asked him smilingly, with the intention of freeing him +from his own constraining obstinacy, whether he thought it was really +worth the trouble to longer play the bear: "No!" + +From that time, he passed every evening in the castle. + +At first Natalie had been glad that the social intercourse there +offered him a distraction. But soon the evenings in "Les Ormes" became +a torment to her. The hateful change which had taken place in him +during his long absence from his family, that change which Natalie had +predicted, and by which she yet had been frightened at his return, as +by something quite unexpected, never became more significant than +during these evenings at the castle. + +If, during the first years of his marriage, through the lovely +influence of his young wife, and especially through the wish to +satisfy, to please her in everything, he had learned with quite +incredible rapidity to follow the usual social customs of the country, +and no longer to bear himself in the world as a genius, but as any +other cultivated, well-bred man, he had completely forgotten it during +his vagabond life, or rather it had become wearisome to him. + +More than ever, his circle of action in a drawing-room limited itself +to producing music and then being raved over by ladies. The incessant +self-bewilderment in this smoke of incense how, where and whenever it +might be, had become a necessity of existence for him. Everything in +him had gone wild, even his art. + +Together with a preference for perilous technical artifices, +challenging musical unrestraint of every kind showed itself. Oftener +than ever he fell into those mad moods in which he demanded things of +his poor violin which it could not perform, until it groaned and +screamed as if in the torments of hell, and if he had formerly +complained that he could not govern himself, he now boasted of it. It +was his specialty, by which he was distinguished from all the virtuosos +of his time. And, in spite of all the underlying lack of restraint and +the impurity, that the sense-enslaving glow of his art now unfolded +stronger than before, there could be no doubt. Especially over the +feminine portion of his listeners his playing exercised a quite +degrading charm. The triumphs which he achieved in "Les Ormes" proved +this. + +He profited by the situation. Although it would have been tiresome to +him to have passed a whole evening among these people of the world, far +removed from all his most intimate interests of life, without playing, +he sometimes let himself be urged almost to lack of taste before he +took up his violin. It happened once that he waited until a +particularly crazy enthusiast presented, kneeling, his violin to him. + +One of the musical ladies present sat down to the piano to accompany +him; the others grouped themselves as near as possible round him, while +they anxiously tried to express by their positions a kind of dying-away +charm. He felt the longing glances of their eyes resting on him while +he played. He saw the beautiful heads bent forward. It went to his head +like a stunning oppression; he no longer knew himself. But they no +longer knew themselves. If in the bearing of the great ladies who +frequented his house in ----, in spite of all their enthusiasm for his +art, there had still been a trace of patronage with reference to the +artist, many of these beauties now fawned upon him like slaves who +would sue for his favor. + +When he had finished, no one of them knew by what special insanity she +should over-trump the others, in order to prove to him her enthusiasm. +And while the music-bewitched women crowded around him, to beg +autographs or locks of hair from him, and carefully picked out the +remains of his thrown-away cigarettes from the ash receiver, in order +to keep them as relics, the Jeliagin told some new guest, in an +adjoining room, the "romance of her sister," which she always concluded +with the words: "My poor sister; so courted as she was! You know that +she refused Prince Truhetzkoi. We were inconsolable when we heard of +her betrothal with Lensky. He is really a great genius!" And then she +sighed. + +But Natalie stood on the terrace which opened out of the music-room, +quite alone. She was happy if she could remain alone; if no one came up +to her to ask if she had a headache, or if anything else was the +matter. Was anything the matter with her? No one could feel what she +suffered, and there was also no human consolation which she would not +have felt as an insult, however tenderly it was offered to her. + +What were the little pin pricks which had excited her impatience +in ---- to this pain! + +Around her was the summer night, sultry and still. The black shadows of +the trees stretched themselves in the moonlight over the gray-green +turf on which not a single dew-drop sparkled. + +Out into the stillness of the night sounded a loud, harsh laugh. +Natalie looked through one of the flower-encircled windows into the +drawing-room. There sat Lensky in a circle of ladies. + +Heated by his wearying performance, he wiped the perspiration from his +temples, from his neck. He was relating something that Natalie could +not hear distinctly, but which evidently seemed very droll to him, and +which convulsed his listeners; they exhibited a kind of comically +exaggerated irritation. An embarrassed smile appeared on his lips, he +seized the hand of the lady who sat nearest to him, played with it +appeasingly, and drew it to his lips. This was his manner of making his +apologies if he had said something too racy. + +Natalie stepped back in the shadow. A desperation, which was mingled +with aversion, lay hold of her. Then, hollow, paining, quenching all +the pleasure of life, quite like a physical discomfort, something crept +over her which she would not explain to herself, which at no price +would she have called by its name--jealousy. + + * * * * * + +The whole mud of his inner nature was stirred up as a stream highly +swollen and unsettled after a wild storm, raving and foaming, tumbles +in its bed, and can no longer find peace and rest therein. + +From time to time he invited guests from Paris; sometimes they came +uninvited. They usually remained to luncheon only, but Natalie had +always time enough to be alarmed at them and to wish them away. They +were no longer artistic celebrities like those whom Natalie had charmed +to the "Hermitage" the year before; no, Lensky had reached that point +in his career when an artist only tolerates courtiers and court fools +about himself. + +What a motley rabble that sometimes was which assembled around +him--artistic Bohemians, freed from all social and moral restraint! + +The men usually remained to luncheon. Natalie did her utmost to conceal +the repulsion which the bearing and manner of expression of the throng +caused her, even from her husband. But sharp-sighted as he was he +guessed her feelings. + +At first he tried to spare her; to keep the conversation in suitable +bounds as long as she was present. But one day it became too tiresome +for him. Whether the wine had gone to his head, or whether some secret +vexation irritated him, in any case he felt the need of breaking his +conventional shackles. Scarcely had he given the sign for excessive +freedom of speech, when the other men followed his lead. They laughed, +jested with Natalie and about her, without the slightest consideration +for her, as men heated by wine do when they are together--Lensky by far +the worst among them all. + +From time to time he looked at Natalie challengingly and angrily. Why +was she so prudish? Why was she so affected? It was laughable in a +married woman of her age--was nothing but foolishness and affectation. + +At dessert she could bear it no longer; she left the table and locked +herself in her room. + +A kind of illness had come over her; she was near a swoon. + +How painful the recollection of his roughness was to him later she knew +nothing of. He was much too proud to let it be noticed. On the +contrary, when he was with her again he acted as if he had a humor of +hers to pardon. + +From that time Natalie no longer appeared at these lunches. But in the +distance she heard the rattling of glasses, the laughter. + +She stopped her ears and bit her teeth into her lips. + + * * * * * + +With all this he became daily more out of temper and discontented. + +At first his drawing-room triumphs in "Les Ormes" had amused him; +gradually he lost the taste for them, found everything empty childish. +His position in the midst of this exclusive worldliness vexed him. +While the women threw themselves at his head, he noticed a smile on the +lips of the men which offended him. If, even at the beginning of his +career, he had felt quite _a son aise_ with the ladies of the +aristocracy, he never, on the contrary, to the end of his life, learned +to live in harmony with the men of that rank. Their treatment of him +always remained objectionable to him. True, they always met him with +the greatest politeness, but they never treated him as their equal, and +were always a trifle too polite to him. If he entered the smoking-room +while they, with hands in their pockets and cigars between their teeth, +confidentially talked of politics, race-horses or ladies, the +conversation immediately took a more earnest tone. As soon as he opened +his mouth the others all listened in solemn silence; then one of them +would leave the group, take him apart from the others, and try to talk +of music with him. He embarrassed them and they embarrassed him. + +Formerly, he had taken such things quite philosophically, but his +sensitiveness had increased in recent times. In the long months which +he had passed, going from city to city, winning triumphs and absolute, +surrounded only by artists of the second and third class, he had +gradually begun to feel himself the central point of the world. But +here, in spite of the insane homage of the ladies, he very soon saw +what a small _role_ he really played on the world's stage, although he +could give pleasure to so many by his art. + +He could still tolerate the Russians, but sometimes strange diplomats +came to the castle. The condescending flattery of these gentlemen was +unbearable to him. What was he really in the eyes of these empty heads? +he asked himself; an acrobat of the better sort, a man who existed +merely for their accursed amusement. As if music were not the most +beautiful of all arts, an art ten times holier, more God-like than the +political, bungling work of these diplomats! "Art is the most enduring +in the world. I am the only immortal among you all!" he said to +himself. But then came the question: "Yes; am I then immortal? What +have I accomplished up to this time to deserve artistic immortality?" + +He only felt really happy on the days when all the men were occupied in +hunting, and he and a handsome Spanish painter with a wooden leg were +the only men in a circle of ten or twelve ladies, although, in his +heart, the unmanliness of his position struck him bitterly enough. + + * * * * * + +The most charming of his admirers in "Les Ormes," the one who had +decidedly taken the first place in his favor, was the Countess Marinia +Loewenskiold. As already mentioned, she was a Pole, and married to a +northern diplomat, from whom she lived separated, _a l'aimable_. + +Naturally, she was an idealist, as almost all women are who have +departed from the usual course in life. In addition, she was very +musical. What was most piquant about her was the fact that, in spite of +the separation from her husband, whom, besides, no one could bear, and +in spite of her perilous coquetries, no one could say anything against +her which could seriously injure her reputation. + +Perhaps it was just this, her former haughty blamelessness, which +attracted Lensky to her. She was very beautiful, she pleased him; and +then--why did they say that this little Pole was invincible? He would +see! + +Among the guests in the castle was Count Leon Pachotin. Touchingly +faithful to his old enthusiasm, he busied himself by singling out the +wife of the virtuoso on every possible occasion, with the most +exaggerated homage and attentions. He was still a very handsome man, +was rich, had changed his military career, as is quite customary with +young cavaliers, for that of diplomacy, in all appearances bid fair to +reach the highest honors, and--was still unmarried. It was +indescribably bitter to Natalie to play the humiliating _role_ which +had fallen to her in life, so near to him. Sometimes she felt his kind +blue eyes resting upon her in sad compassion. Then the proud blood +boiled within her. She collected herself in order that nothing might be +noticed, and was again, so truly the charming, seductive, +unapproachable Natalie Assanow of former days. + + * * * * * + +On a sultry evening, toward the middle of August, the company in the +castle was unusually brilliant and numerous. The men and women sat in +groups here and there in an immense pavilion--in which, by means of +screens and thickets of flowers, all kinds of confidential nooks were +formed--talked, laughed, coquetted, and sipped the refreshments which +tall servants with solemn bearing and brilliant liveries presented. + +Natalie had the consciousness this evening of looking particularly +beautiful. Pechotin scarcely left her side. She observed that the +count's manner to her irritated Lensky, that he looked over to her more +than once uneasily, and she was glad and doubled her lovability to +Pachotin. + +Then she noticed that Boris had left the pavilion. With instinctive +jealousy her eyes sought Countess Loewenskiold. She also was missing. +Natalie's blood throbbed in every vein, she suddenly found Pachotin +intrusive and awkward, wished to do nothing more speedily than to get +rid of him. + +"Please see if you can get me an ice, Count," she remarked. He rose +obligingly. Scarcely had he left her when she stepped out from the +pavilion on the terrace. + +There was no one there, but out in the park, not very far, no further +than a lady should permit herself to wander in the garden on a +beautiful summer night in the company of a gentleman, she discovered +two figures--he and she. A quite irresistible impulse drove her to +follow them, to interrupt their conversation in some manner. Already +she had taken a step forward, then, blushing for herself, she remained +standing. Had it already gone so far with her that she should show +herself capable of a degrading, pitiful act! She stood as if rooted to +the ground. The pair in the park, yonder, also remained standing. She +saw how Lensky stamped his foot, and threw back his brown head. She +knew this despotic, violent movement. Then it seemed to her that she +heard the words: "_pas de sens commun--enfantillages!_" Her heart beat +violently, she turned away and reentered the room. Soon after, Lensky +joined the other guests, so did the Countess Loewenskiold. It did not +escape Natalie that the latter entered the room by another door from +him. The Polish woman was deathly pale, and her lips burned with fever. +In Lensky's manner, on the contrary, not a trace of excitement betrayed +itself; he was even more lovable than usual, and polite to all the +ladies, and without being specially urged, took up his violin. + +While he played, he turned away from the Loewenskiold, and he charmed +such tones from his Amati that evening, tones of such touching, painful +sweetness, that the most earnest men present, with the women, bowed +before his art. + +While he played, the nervous countess was seized with a fit of weeping, +and left the room. + +A little later, Natalie and Lensky walked home together through the +park. The way which they took was enclosed on both sides by thick +bushes, which almost met over their heads in a transparent arch. The +moonbeams slid through the branches, and the shadows of the leaves +spread themselves out like ghostly lace-work over the yellow gravel. An +oppressive sultriness, the breathless, sticky sultriness of the old +heat of the day, which remained hanging in the thicket, made breathing +difficult. + +Neither of them spoke a word. But while she, holding her head very high +in the air, looked straight before her, his glance rested ever more +frequently on her. In accordance with the custom which ruled in the +castle, she wore evening dress, and, on account of the heat, had let +the white, gold-embroidered burnous slip down a little from her bare +shoulders. The moonlight shone on her neck. She held her little head +somewhat averted. In vain he tried to look in her eyes; he only saw the +outline of her cheek, her chin, and neck; but how charming all that +was! Never before, since his return, had she pleased him so. It really +was worth the pains to only look at another woman near this one. Giving +way to a sudden excitement, mingled with remorse, he drew her to him +and pressed his lips to her shoulder. But she escaped his embrace, not +without a certain correcting roughness. His arms fell loosely at his +sides, but he could not remove his gaze from her. How high she held her +head, what annihilating arrogance her little mouth expressed! In his +mind he saw Pachotin bent over her chair, humbly intent on the +slightest sign of her favor. + +Who knows? perhaps she regrets, thought he to himself, and a furious +rage gnawed at his heart. + + * * * * * + +About three days after this scene--three days, during which Natalie and +Lensky had lived together in mutual wrath, without speaking a word to +each other, Lensky told his wife he must to-day go to Paris, in order +to arrange with Flaxland the publication of one of his works; at the +same time he wished to make use of the opportunity to see and hear +Gounod's new opera. He could, therefore, only come home the next day on +the five o'clock train. He said all that in a very grumbling tone, did +not give her a kiss for farewell, and immediately went to the railroad. + +She fancied him already far away, when he returned again. "Have you +forgotten anything?" she asked him. + +"Yes; namely, I would like to know if you perhaps have anything to be +done in Paris--and then--if you wish, you can come with me; we will go +to the opera together. I will wait, as far as I am concerned, for the +next train, so that there will be time enough for you to make ready." + +If he had only said that pleasantly, but he said it roughly, +disagreeably, as if it did not concern him at all. He had offended +Natalie too much recently for her to agree with his first attempt at +reconciliation. + +"I thank you very much," she replied coldly; "you will amuse yourself +much better without me." + +For one moment he hesitated; then he shrugged his shoulders and went. + +Scarcely had he gone when Natalie was overcome with remorse for her +stubbornness and obstinacy. + +Truly it was unwise and hateful not to come to meet him, if he, proud +as he was, took the first step. She could have cried from anger with +herself. A true child, as in the bottom of her heart she still was, she +could not cease to think of the pleasure which she so petulantly had +renounced. How charming it would have been to pass a whole day alone +with him in Paris. To dine in the Cafe Anglais, very quickly and quite +early, so as not to miss the opera, but still very excellently; she +even made out the _menu_--ah! she knew all his favorite dishes so well; +then the next day they would have bought all kinds of useless, pretty +things together. She knew, from former years, how good-naturedly and +patiently he would let himself be dragged in the great bazaars. She +would have bought Kolia playthings and baby an embroidered dress--she +saw the little dress before her--and instead of all that--ah, how +vexatious! + +The hours dragged slowly; she scarcely put her foot out of the house. +She also remained at home in the evening; the castle had really no +power of attraction for her. When Kolia took the place opposite her at +dinner, and unfolded his napkin with an important air, he remarked: +"See, mamma, now it is just like the day after papa had gone away to +America, only you are not so sad, because you know that he is coming +back soon." + +Natalie smiled at the child. After awhile Kolia began anew: + +"Mamma, shall we go to meet papa tomorrow?" + +She nodded. + +Kolia rested his little head thoughtfully on his hand. + +"I wonder if he will miss the train again?" said he. + + * * * * * + +In accordance with a loving agreement, Natalie had formerly been the +only one who possessed the right to move anything in Lensky's sanctum, +and to remove the dust from his writing-table. With devoted punctuality +she had always performed this task. Only very recently had she been +untrue to this dear custom. But this time he should observe, as soon as +he returned, that she had busied herself for him during his absence. + +She was in an optimistic frame of mind. She would no longer be angry +with him because he of late had caused her so many bitter hours. He +himself had not been happy. He was not yet really acclimatized at home. +She had known that she must first win him back again after his long +absence. Why had she from exaggerated pride so soon crossed arms? To +remember the low expressions which he sometimes now made use of, and +especially in company with the motley crowd that came over to him from +Paris, this really sent the blood to her cheeks--but still he had +scarcely known what he said. She had needlessly irritated him by her +childish prudery; one must take these great natures, always inclined to +exaggeration, as they were, and not make them obstinate by quite +uselessly checking and restraining them. + +Only at the thought of the Countess Loewenskiold an unpleasant shudder +ran over her. And suddenly the thought flashed through her: "What does +he really wish in Paris?" But almost laughingly she answered herself: +"As if he could wish anything evil when he asked me to accompany him!" + +After she had carefully and daintily set everything to rights on the +writing-table, she went down in the garden to cut for it the most +beautiful roses which she could find. + +Softly humming one of the songs which he had dedicated to her as bride, +she carried the flowers, tastefully arranged in a vase, into his room, +and placed them on his writing-table. There she discovered in a brass +ash receiver a half-burned paper which had formerly escaped her. She +looked at the paper to see whether she might throw it away. Her heart +stood still. She read the words written in French: "O thou my creator, +my redeemer--my ruiner--broken--Paris." The rest of the lines were +burned. + +She could scarcely stand. From whom were these lines? was not that the +writing of Countess Loewenskiold? No, no, it was not possible--he asked +me to accompany him. Yes, he asked me to accompany him. She repeated it +ten times, a hundred times, in order to shake off from herself the +conviction that began so pitilessly to weigh down upon her. She could +not believe such a thing, she would not. Countess Loewenskiold had +certainly not left "Les Ormes"! + +But, however she fights with her distrust, she cannot overcome it. A +thousand little particulars occur to her. + +The sun shines down hot and full from the sapphire-blue heaven. Natalie +does not trouble herself about that; straight through the park she +hurries, without parasol, without hat, over to the castle. She will +inform herself with as little risk as possible. There is no one at +home; the ladies have not yet returned from a walk. What a shame! "_La +princesse regrettera beaucoup_," remarked the _maitre d'hotel_, who had +received her in the entrance-hall. "Perhaps madame will remain to +lunch; they will lay a place for madame." + +He is an old acquaintance, a servant whom Natalie has known for years. +"Oh, no; I cannot stay; I only wished to inquire after the health of +the Countess Loewenskiold; she has looked so miserable of late," +murmured she. + +"Madame la Comtesse Loewenskiold?" says the man, astonished. "Ah! she is +no longer here. The poor countess left day before yesterday evening, +quite unexpectedly. It occurred to me that she looked very badly. Did +madame also notice it?" + +What she stammered in answer to his question she does not know. A few +minutes later she hurries homeward again through the park, hatless, +parasolless. The sun still beams down full and golden upon the earth +from the sapphire sky. She does not feel the burning of the sun, and +does not see that the sky is blue. For her the sun is dead and the sky +black. It seems to her that it sinks slowly down upon her, heavy and +breath-robbing, like a sultry, bruising weight. + +"He wished to take me with him," she still repeats, as if the words +held consolation; "yes, he wished to take me with him." Then she +remembers the embarrassed, uneasy expression which his face wore when +he returned at the last minute to ask her to accompany him. Evidently +he had had a fit of remorse. + +"I could have prevented it," she murmured, with hollow voice. Then she +shook in her whole body with rage and horror. + + * * * * * + +About this time, gloomily looking before him, Lensky went through the +Rue de la Paix. He did not know why he went along this street rather +than another. It was quite indifferent to him where he was; he only +wished to kill time. A furious anger with himself shook him; at the +same time disgust tormented him. It was always the same; one woman was +just like the others. The only one who was different was his own wife; +and he--well, he had taken the first slight opportunity to insult her. + +He came by the hotel in which he had lived with her the former year. He +hastened his steps. From a jeweller's shop the most wonderful jewels +sparkled at him. He entered. He would take something to Natalie; would +give her a little pleasure. He purchased a pretty pin set with +emeralds. She had a preference for emeralds. Scarcely had he left the +shop when it seemed to him that the little case in his pocket weighed +upon him, pulled him down to the ground. How had he dared venture to +offer her a gift in this moment! He took the little case and threw it +on the ground--trod on it, once, twice, raging, beside himself. So! +that did him good. He must vent his wrath in some way. + + * * * * * + +When he returned home about five o'clock, he was calmer. What had +happened could not be changed, it was now only worth while not to ruin +the future. It disquieted him that Natalie did not meet him, but after +all, he was not very astonished. She still felt a little vexed with +him. He would soon make an end of that. He asked where she was. "In her +room," they told him. But what was that? Everything was upturned, +chests stood open, on chairs and tables lay piles of linen, clothes, as +before a departure. He did not yet understand, but still he noticed +that she started violently at his entrance, without looking around at +him. + +"What are you doing, Natalie? Are you preparing for departure?" asked +he. + +"As you see," replied she shortly, and continued her strange +occupation. + +"It is a good idea," said he. "I already myself wished to make the +proposition to you to move away from here. But how did you really come +to think of it?" + +Instead of any answer, she merely shrugged her shoulders. A short pause +followed. + +He stepped somewhat nearer to her. "Natalie," said he, earnestly, +warmly and gently, with his old, dear voice, the voice which always +went so deep to her heart, and which she now heard again for the first +time since his return from America, "Natalie, do you not think that we +would do better to make peace with each other?" + +He wished to put his arm round her, but she repulsed him. In so doing, +for the first time she turned her face to him. With horror he perceived +how miserable she looked. + +Her lips were pale, her features sharpened like a dead person's. For +one moment she still restrained herself, her eyes sought his. An +unrest, a hope fevered in her. "Perhaps I have in vain martyred and +tormented myself," she said to herself. "He certainly could not speak +so to me, if----" + +With trembling hand she opened a little box, and took out the +half-singed letter which she had not been able to overcome herself from +carrying about with her. She handed Lensky the letter. + +He changed color. "What accident has played this silly note into your +hands?" he burst out. + +"No matter about that," she replied dully, and with that she tottered +so that she must catch hold of a chair so as not to fall. "Were you--in +company--with the Loewenskiold--in Paris--or--not?" + +Why could he not lie? He remained silent. + +Once more she looked at him, despairingly and supplicatingly. He turned +away his head. + +She gave a gasping cry, pushed back the hair from her temples with both +hands, and sank in a chair. Then she pointed with her pale, trembling +hand to the door. + +Lensky did not move. + +"Go!" said she, severely; and her hand no longer trembled, and her +gesture was more imperious, more proud. + +Instead of obeying her command, he sank down at her feet and covered +the hem of her dress with kisses. "I have sinned against you," he said; +"yes, but if you knew how furious I am with myself, and how little my +heart was concerned in the affair, you would pardon me. You will not +certainly be jealous of something that is quite beneath one's notice; +one does not always think immediately what one is doing." He shrugged +his shoulders impatiently. "For this reason you are still the only +woman in the world for me. Really, my angel, it is not worth the pains +that you should torment yourself!" He took her hand in his. + +But she started back from his touch. "Leave me!" said she, violently. +"All is at an end between us--go!" + +For the first time he comprehended the gravity of the situation. "All +at an end--" he murmured, while he rose. "What do you mean?" + +"That I will no longer bear to be under the same roof with you; that I +will go back to my mother; that I insist upon a separation--that is +what I mean. Did you, then, expect anything different?" + +He clutched his forehead. "A separation! but that is impossible!" he +gasped. "A separation--the children!" + +She started. "Yes--the children!" murmured she, dully, inconsolably; +"the children!" And with a bitter smile she looked down on her +preparations for the journey, on the trunks, the effects lying about. + +Then he once more stepped up to her. "You see that the bond between us +can never more be broken," said he, gently. "You cannot go!" + +"No!" said she harshly. "No, I cannot go--not even that consolation +remains to me. As the mother of your children I must remain under your +roof. But in everything else between me and you all is at an end. Go!" + +He went. + + * * * * * + +He betook himself to his study. Scarcely had he entered here when a +peculiar feeling of mingled emotion and anxiety came over him. He +noticed that she had been here, noticed that she had everywhere removed +the dust; that she had arranged his of late neglected writing-table, +and how understandingly, with what loving consideration of all his +whims! He noticed the vase with fresh roses. Evidently she had busied +herself for him during his absence. She had wished to be reconciled to +him, and while she troubled herself for him she must have found the +note somewhere in this room. "It is all over," he told himself; "but +that is really not possible. It is jealousy that speaks from her; that +will pass away." Jealousy! Yes, if it had really only been jealousy, +but that which he had read in her features was something else--almost a +kind of loathing. What, then, had he done? He had left a distinguished +young woman, beautiful as a picture, alone for eight months, and when +he returned, instead of recompensing her for her long, sad loneliness +by loving consideration, he had daily, before her eyes, let himself be +raved over by other women, and at last---- + +"She despises me, and she is right!" he murmured to himself. "If she +had borne this also, she would have been pitiable, and I must have +despised her like the others--she, my proud, splendid Natalie!" + +He sat at his writing-table, and rested his head in his hand. + +The twilight shadows spread over the floor, and slid down from the +ceiling, and made the corners of the room invisible, and obliterated +the outlines of the furniture. The colors died; only the white roses +shone in a ghostly manner in the half light. + +Then the door opened; the servant announced that dinner was served. + +It seemed strange to him that he should go to the table to-day as any +other day; it was not possible for him to eat anything, but he was +ashamed to cause talk among the servants, and so he went into the +dining-room. "Will she be there?" he asked himself. How could he have +even fancied such a thing? Naturally she was missing. Only Kolia was +there, and stood expectantly near the silver soup tureen, which shone +on the table. In their little family circle, Lensky always himself +served the soup. Kolia had raised himself on tiptoes, and with one +slender finger had pushed the cover of the dish somewhat to one side. +He stretched his little nose eagerly forward, and slowly inhaled the +rising odor, while with a deliciously old, wise connoisseur expression +he drew down his nostrils and closed his eyes. + +"I see already, it is crab soup--my favorite soup, papa!" he remarked, +and then with agility he climbed up on the chair, which, on account of +his still insufficient stature, was prepared with a cushion for him. + +It was certainly only a quite trivial little affair, and yet it stabbed +Lensky to the heart. + +_Potage au bisque_ was also his favorite soup. He stared at Natalie's +place, which remained vacant. + +A great embarrassment mingled with his pain. He sent the servant, busy +at the side-board, out of the room on some pretext. + +"Mother is not coming?" he turned to the boy, who had already begun to +eat his soup. + +"No; mamma has a headache. Poor mamma!" + +"Do you wish to be a very clever boy, Kolia?" + +"Yes, papa!" + +"Then take this bowl of soup to your mother. Do not spill it; perhaps +mamma will take a few drops." + +With an important face Kolia undertook his errand. Lensky opened the +door of the dining-room for him, and looked after him while he tripped +along the green-carpeted, dimly-lighted corridor. How pretty and +pleasing all that was! The lamps, which stood out from old-fashioned +inlaid plates of polished copper, the stags' antlers on the brown +wainscoting. And he had not felt happy at home! + +Then Kolia came springing back. "I left the soup there," he told his +father, who had remained listening and spying in the doorway, "but +mamma did not wish to eat it." + +"What is mamma doing?" + +"She is holding little sister on her lap." + +In the course of the meal, and when he noticed that his father's plate +continually remained empty, Kolia also lost his appetite. At first, in +the most caressing tones, he urged his father to eat. + +"But, papa, don't you see, you must help yourself to a little bit; it +is such a good dinner to-day. We made out the bill of fare, mamma and +I, early this morning at breakfast, and I remembered all your favorite +dishes which she had forgotten. She was so gay to-day, before she had a +headache, and she only got that headache because she ran through the +park to-day without any hat, in the noon sun. But eat something, papa." + +Lensky still stared at Natalie's empty place. + +All at once he noticed an unusual commotion in the house; confused +talking together, quick running to and fro. He sprang up and went out +in the corridor. + +There he saw Natalie's maid, with disturbed face, and anxious, +over-hasty steps, coming out of her mistress' room. + +"What is the matter; is madame more ill?" he asked in sudden fright. + +"No, monsieur, but the little girl is very ill; it came on quite +suddenly. Madame has told me to hurry over to Chancy for the doctor." + +For one moment he stood still; then he turned to the +sick-room--entered. + +It was no contagious illness. Kolia was not sent away from the house; +only they told him to keep very quiet, for which he was ready without +that, for the weight which oppressed the house was sufficient to +constrain the fresh animation of his elastic child-nature. Quite +cautiously he only occasionally crept up to the sick-room, opened the +door, whose knob he could scarcely reach with his little hand, and +whispered: "How is little sister now?" + +Yes, how was the little sister? + +It was an inflammation of the lungs which had attacked the little one. +The physician did not conceal from the parents what little hope there +was of recovery. + +Two days, three nights long, they both sat together near the cradle +in which the sick little girl lay; two days, three nights, in which +the tiny body restlessly threw itself here and there between the +lace-trimmed pillows, while the breath, interrupted by fierce and +tormenting fits of coughing, with difficulty gaspingly forced itself +out from the little breast. Sometimes Maschenka cried impatiently and +pulled at the coverings with her weak little hands, and then looked at +her parents with that hurt, reproachful look with which quite little +children desire relief from their parents. + +Why did not her parents help her--why must she suffer so? + +And Natalie, who formerly had been the tenderest mother in the whole +world, took this all wearily, almost indifferently, as a person whose +heart, benumbed by a great despair, is no longer susceptible to a new +pain. She scarcely worried herself over the endangered little life. +Yes! Maschenka would die, she told herself, the dear, charming +Maschenka, over whom she had always so rejoiced. She still heard her +cooing laughter like a distant echo in her remembrance. Yes, Maschenka +would die! Why should she not die? It was really better for her than to +grow up to feel such grief in the future as had burned and parched her +mother's heart. Yes, she would die, and then Natalie would lay her head +down on the little pillow, near the pale face of the child, and fall +asleep forever rest forget! When Maschenka was dead, Natalie had no +more duties!--Kolia?--Oh, Kolia would make his way in the world. + +But Maschenka did not wish to die: this world pleased her too well, she +did not wish to. + +The fever became higher; ever more impatiently the child threw herself +about in the cradle. On the evening of the third day the doctor, a +skilful, wise, conscientious family physician, whom Natalie had +frequently consulted for any little illness of the children, and who, +under the direction of a Parisian specialist, fought with death for +Maschenka's little life,--on the evening of the third day he said that +probably the crisis would occur in the night; he would come again at +six o'clock in the morning and look after it. He said that very sadly. +Lensky accompanied him out. When he came back in the sick-room, the +expression of his face was still sadder than before. + +The little one became still more restless--she would not stay in her +cradle. Incessantly she raised herself from the pillows, cried +pitifully, and stretched out her little arms. Natalie took the little +patient, warmly wrapped in coverings, on her lap, but the little one +would not stay there either. She felt that her mother was not just the +same to her as formerly. Quite angrily she turned away from her, and +stretched out her little hands to her father. Lensky took her in his +arms, wrapped the covering still closer round her tiny limbs, and with +a thousand tender words, coaxed her to rest. With what evident pleasure +the little body leaned against his breast! + +Natalie's eyes rested on him. It had been just the same for two days. +He had cared for the child, not she. Only she now, for the first time, +took account of it. How tenderly he held the child! what touchingly +poetic words of love he whispered to it! Expressions, such as one finds +only in those songs in which the people complain of their pain! Just +such words had he formerly found for her--at that time--in those old +days, when he still loved her--and a stream of new, animating warmth +crept through her benumbed heart. + +She still watched him. Her eyelids became heavy. + +Suddenly she started up, looked confusedly about her; she had been fast +asleep. What had happened meanwhile? The morning light already streamed +into the room; without the rain rattled against the window panes. When +had it begun to rain then? Where was Lensky? He stood near the window +and gazed out. How sad he looked, how pale! + +The child!--and with a feeling of immeasurably painful anxiety her +heart now fully awoke to new life. She had not the courage to look in +the cradle. Then Lensky turned to her. "The child!" murmured she. + +He laid his finger on his mouth. "She sleeps--" Then listening: "The +doctor comes." + +The physician entered. He bent over the cradle; the little patient +slept calmly and sweetly, her little fist against her cheek. Her little +face was very pale and sadly lengthened, but her brow was moist and a +peaceful expression was on her tiny mouth. + +"She is better," said the doctor, astonished and pleased. He scarcely +understood it. "The fever is gone, the crisis is past, and if there are +no quite unusual circumstances, the danger is over. A couple of +spoonfuls of strong broth when she wakes, and no more medicine. Adieu, +_a tantot!_" and he left the room. + +The door had closed behind him, his steps resounded in the corridor. +Natalie rose; she did not know what she wished; to look at the child, +to fall on her knees, to pray! Then her eyes met Lensky's. She started, +stretched out her arms as if to repel a suddenly awakened pain--a swoon +overcame her--she sank down. He took her in his arms, carried her into +the adjoining room, and stretched her out on a couch. He opened the +window and let the spicy, rain-cooled morning air stream in. Then he +wet the temples of the unconscious woman with cologne and loosened her +dress. At that her only carelessly fastened-up hair loosed itself and +slid down in all its dark abundance over her shoulders. + +How wonderfully charming she looked in her pale, melancholy loveliness! +Involuntarily he approached his lips to her temples; then she opened +her eyes; a shudder shook her frame and she turned her face away from +him. + +It went through him from the top of his head to the sole of his foot. +He had forgotten, but now he remembered accurately. How dared he +approach this woman so confidentially!--she was no longer his wife. She +had only tolerated him near her as long as the child lay sick, really +only tolerated! With fearful bitterness he remembered how she had held +herself far from him, even near Maschenka's bed of pain. And now, when +the little one was well--why let himself be shown the door a second +time? + +"You need not be afraid, Natalie, I am going; I had only +forgotten--pardon!" With that he could not deny himself to take her +hand; he believed she would draw away her hand from him; no, she let it +lie quite passively in his. Now he wished to free it, but then, quite +softly, but ever firmer, her fingers closed round his. She herself held +him back. Rejoicing and sobbing he drew her to his breast. + +Scarcely a moment later he felt in his inmost heart quite strangely, +uncomprehendingly, a cold gnawing vexation. + +He did not understand that she could pardon so easily. He had not +expected that of her. + + + + + + FOURTH BOOK. + + +Dear Natalie!--Owing to business affairs which will claim me still +longer, it will be impossible for me to come to Trouville before the +beginning of September. I am very sorry, but I hope and wish that you +will not, on this account, put off your journey to the sea-shore; you +know how you need the stay in the bracing air. I have engaged a +residence for you through Madame de C., and also had everything +arranged for your comfortable reception--a low chalet with a look-out +over the sea. I know how you love it,--the poor wild sea, that cannot +help it if it sometimes crushes a ship, and that finds no rest from +despair over the evil which it does and cannot prevent. + +You must not take any sea-baths; Dr. H. suitably impressed that upon me +in the spring. But in any case, wait until I come. + +From my great, clever boy I often receive long, pretty, regularly +written letters which please me very much. I will show them to you when +we are together again. The boy is romantic, through and through, which +touches me in these our present times, and also a little of a pedant, +which makes me impatient, but still, he is a dear, splendid fellow, and +that you must tell him from me. + +The little note, which I recently received from Maschenka, was +laughably comic, and sweet enough to eat. The little witch wrote me +quite secretly, without telling you anything about it. She confessed +all her naughtinesses to me very remorsefully and over hurriedly, from +anxiety that you might write something about them to me. Is she really +so naughty, and passionate, and wild? She is still charming in spite of +all, so thoroughly good-hearted and tender and generous, and withal so +incredibly gifted. I tell you her little note--it was adorned with +three ink spots, and I could not read a word of the writing--but still +it was a little poem. + +And how she loves you! Just as she is, I find her charming enough to +make one lose one's head over her; and I am very sorry that one must +cure her of her amusing little faults; they are so becoming to her. +That you must naturally not tell her from me, but give her a very warm +kiss from me on her full, defiant lips, of which you always assert that +they are like mine. Do not vex yourself too much over it,--rejoice in +our little gypsy as she is. And if you again worry over her inherited +good-for-nothingness, then look in her wonderfully beautiful, large +eyes, which she did not inherit from me. You will find your soul in +them--let that be your consolation. Farewell, my angel, spare yourself +really--really! Only do not think of saving at all on the journey. You +know that I cannot bear that. Think only of your comfort and of what a +joy it would be to me if, at our next meeting, I should find your poor +thin cheeks somewhat rounder than when I left you. + + Your boundlessly devoted + + BORIS. + + +It is in Berlin, in the Hotel du Nord, nine years after the first +violent quarrel, the first passionate reconciliation with her husband, +that Natalie receives this letter. + +She had left St. Petersburg a few days before, in order, as by +agreement, to meet Lensky, whom she has not seen since the beginning of +March, in the German capital. It had been a great disappointment for +her that she had not found Boris in Berlin, but he has accustomed her +to disappointments. + +She reads the letter once more. It is a dear, good letter. Ah! Natalie +has received such dear, good, tender letters from all the large cities +in Europe and America--and knows---- + +Not that Boris is deceiving her when he writes to her in this tender +tone. No, every trace of falseness is strange to him, his attachment to +her, his anxiety about her, are sincere--but---- + +What use to grieve over it? These great geniuses are never different. +One must not judge them like other men! With this shallow commonplace, +with which she has so often put to sleep her inconsolable heart if it +sometimes wishes violently to rise up against its oppressive, +ignominious lot, she compels it to rest again to-day. It is easier now +than formerly; her poor heart has already accustomed itself to +grievances. + +Nine years have passed since that time in the pretty, cosey Hermitage +when she--forgave him too easily, and thereby lost her power over him +forever. She has known it a long time. Late in that following autumn a +great symphony by him was given in the "Gewandhaus," in Leipzig. The +work was beautiful, the success moderate, Lensky's discouragement +exaggerated, quite morbid. A few months later he took up his wanderer's +staff anew, and left Petersburg, where he had returned with his family, +in order to distract himself by the most exaggerated virtuoso triumphs +from the humiliation which had befallen the composer. Oftener, ever +oftener, he had then left wife and children, and now, in his own house, +he had long been only an indulged, distinguished guest. + +But in the time which he every year devoted to his wife, to his family, +he behaved in an exemplary fashion. He did everything that lay in his +power to make life bearable to Natalie--everything except to lay a +restraint upon himself; that he simply could not, and for that reason +he must leave home so often in order to vent his passion. + +Natalie's nature was broken. An unexpressed, numbing, blunting +conviction that this was the natural course of things, and that nothing +of all this could be changed, had overpowered her. As to what might +take place while he was away from her, of that she did not permit +herself to think. + +With his art matters had long gone downward, even more rapidly +than Natalie--who already after his return from America had been +startled by the exaggerations to which he had accustomed himself in his +playing--had deemed possible. At that time he had given the reins to +his temperament with assiduity in order to dazzle the public. Now--now, +he had long lost power over himself. And concerning his compositions! A +fearful pain contracted Natalie's heart if she thought how she had +formerly, in her tender enthusiasm, called him the last musical poet, +in opposition to the other great composers of modern times, whom at +that time she had described as--musical bunglers. She could no longer +remember the speech without blushing. + +The bunglers had all grown above his head. One scarcely spoke of his +compositions now, and the worst of it was--Natalie herself no longer +cared to hear them. + +Where was the sweet, sunny, charming element of his first little works? +Where the fiery earnestness, the penetrating, noble sound of pain in +his later works? + +Sleepy monotony, noisy emptiness were now the characteristics of his +musical creations. Certainly, here and there appeared melodies of +wonderful beauty; but who had the patience to seek out the lovely oases +in this sterile musical wilderness? + +Once, Natalie had hesitatingly made a remark to him about a new +composition. But he, who had formerly showed himself of such +unimpeachable gentleness toward her, had flown into a passion, and had +even for many days remained irritable. Since that time she said nothing +more, but let him have his way, as she let him have his way in +everything, only that she might not break the last thin thread which +still held them together. + + * * * * * + +She had read the letter a third time. "Business affairs detain him," +she murmured to herself. "Business affairs! He writes from Leipzig; why +does he not ask me to come to him?" She shrugged her shoulders--what +good to think of it? + +Suddenly her cheeks burned, her breath came short. She pours out a +glass of water, throws a couple of bits of ice from a porcelain bowl in +it, and drinks thirstily. "Such great geniuses are never different," +she says to herself again. She begins to walk up and down in the room +uneasily. At last she goes to the window and looks out. + +A great weariness lay over everything. The lindens slept, wrapped in +white dust; the stony heroes at their feet looked morose and weary, as +if they were satiated with letting themselves parch on their pedestals. +They throw pitch-black shadows over the sun-burned road. A black poodle +lies at the foot of one of the memorials, on its back, and does its +utmost to pull off the muzzle on its nose. The people are weary and +pale, and crowd into the shadow wherever they can. Everything flees the +sun. No one remembers another such hot, dry, oppressive summer. And +suddenly a strange longing for shade comes over Natalie; for some deep, +cool, shady place in which she can rest. + +The hollow, oppressive feeling about her heart has become more +significant, has taken, at length, the form of a piercing physical +pain. She lays her hand on her breast; the physicians have told her +that she should spare herself, should guard against every vehement +sensation, because her heart is affected. Suddenly she breaks out in +convulsive sobbing. Spare herself! Is it worth the trouble to spare +one's self; to exert one's self for the preservation of this poor life; +is it worth the trouble to bend down again and again in the mire for +the poor little bit of happiness that is thrown to one as an alms? + +Then the door opens; a charming little girl of about ten years, +large-eyed, gay, with wonderful curly hair hanging far down her back, +with very long black stockings and very short white dress, hops +in--Maschenka, who had been to walk with the maid. The first thing +which she discovers when she has scarcely greeted her mother and given +her a somewhat breathless and hurried account of the various +impressions she has formed on her walk, is Lensky's letter, which has +remained lying on the table. "Oh, from papa!" says she. "When is he +coming; to-morrow?" and her eyes shine. + +"He is not coming; we are going to Trouville without him," replies +Natalie, wearily. + +"Without him," repeats Maschenka; her sweet, large-eyed cherub's face +lengthens. "Oh!"--looking at Natalie attentively--"Did you cry over +that, mamma?" + +Natalie says nothing, only turns her head away with a gesture of +displeasure. + +"He is coming after us?" asks Maschenka, embarrassed. + +"He promises to," replies Natalie, with difficultly restrained +bitterness. + +"Poor mamma!" and Maschenka tenderly kisses the tears away from her +mother's cheek. "You must not cry, it is not good for you. You know +papa cannot bear to see you cry." + +It is quite inexplicable how nature has been able to bestow upon this +tender, childish, velvet-cheeked little being such a striking likeness +to the face stamped by time, weather, and life of the virtuoso. The +troubled, strangely deep look with which Maschenka regards her mother; +the tender and still defiant expression of her full lips; the manner of +drawing together her delicate brows, all that reminds one of her +father. But that in which her likeness to him is most strikingly +announced, is the bewitching heartiness of her manner, the flattering +insinuation of her caresses. + +Natalie observes her with quite fixed attention, then draws her to her +and kisses her passionately on both eyes. + +Meanwhile there is a knock at the door. It is a waiter, who brings a +telegram from Petersburg. Natalie starts, her thoughts fly to her son +whom she has left behind them. But no the telegram has nothing to do +with Kolia. It is really not from Petersburg, but has only sought her +there, and has been sent after her to Berlin. She reads: + + + Dresden, Hotel Bellevue, _August 4th_. + +Can you not take the roundabout way through Dresden? We would be very +glad to see you. + + Sergei. + + +Why should she not take the roundabout way through Dresden? Why should +she hasten to reach Trouville, the full, empty Trouville, where no one +will be glad to see her? + + * * * * * + +Shortly after his reconciliation with his sister, Sergei had left St. +Petersburg, in order to follow his brilliant but exacting diplomatic +wandering career from one important but remote post to another, and now +he had at length been recalled to Petersburg, to fill a high position +at home. Natalie cherished the conviction that he suspected nothing of +the slow crumbling together of her happiness. How should he! Before +him, more than before all the others, she had concealed her great +inconsolableness. In the long letter which, by agreement, she wrote him +every month, she had always forced herself to take as gay as possible a +tone, and even if she was accustomed, in the description of her +"domestic happiness" to dwell at especial length on the lovability and +happy dispositions of both of her children, she yet had never failed to +mention the goodness of their father and his unwearied consideration +for her. "How he would triumph if he knew!" she said to herself, on the +platform in Dresden, while she uneasily looked round for her brother, +whom she had informed by telegram of the hour of her arrival. "If he +knew anything of it!" she said to herself, and at the mere thought, it +seemed to her that she would flee to the end of the world, rather than +bear the cold scrutinizing glance of his eye. Then a very slender man +in blameless English clothes came up to her, looked at her a moment +uncertainly, put up his eye-glass--"Natalie! it is really you!" and +evidently truly pleased to see her again he draws her hand to his lips. +And now she is also glad to see him, is pleased to be with her brother, +as she has never yet been glad since her betrothal to Lensky. He has +changed very much since that time in Rome when he had vainly sought to +destroy Natalie's illusions; but, as with all really distinguished men, +growing old was becoming to him. If his bearing is still proud, it has +yet lost much of its harsh, nervous, immature arrogance of that time. +His fine features are still sharper, but his glance has become softer, +more benevolent. + +"That is your little girl?" says he, bending down to Maschenka, +pleasantly. "May one ask a kiss of such a large young lady?" + +The gay Maschenka, always bent upon the conquest of all hearts, hops up +to him with hearty readiness, and throws both her little arms round his +neck. "_Elle est charmante!_" whispers Sergei in a somewhat patronizing +tone to Natalie. + +"We find her very like the Maria AEgyptica of Ribera--your favorite +picture in the Dresden Gallery. Do you not remember it?" + +"Indeed!" The prince bends down a second time, wonderingly, to +Maschenka. Suddenly his face takes on a discontented expression. "She +chiefly resembles Lensky; I do not understand how that could escape +me!" says he, and his tone expresses decided displeasure. + +"And still if he knew!" thinks Natalie. + +"Kolia looks like you," says she, hastily. + +"They have often written me that," says the prince. "Besides, they tell +me only good things of him; I shall be glad to see a great deal of him +in Petersburg. And now come, Natalie. I wished to have rooms in +Bellevue for you, but there were none to be had; not a mouse hole; all +engaged. We ourselves live at the extreme end of a corridor. So I have +taken a little apartment for you in the Hotel du Saxe. It is a plain +house, but the nearest one to us, and you will not be there much. Send +your maid ahead with the luggage. I hope you will now come direct to +our rooms with me, you and the little one; my wife awaits you at +dinner." + + * * * * * + +And now Natalie has been in Dresden since many hours. The joy of the +meeting with her brother has fled, a great depression benumbs her whole +being. What a home! Sergei's wife, born a Countess Brok, who is two +years older than he, and whom he has married on account of the +influential position of her father, suffers with rheumatism, on which +account she fears a little bit of too warm sunshine as well as a slight +draught. The meal is taken in the drawing-room of the married pair, +instead of down on the gay, sunny terrace, as Sergei had ordered. After +the princess has welcomed Natalie, and has said something in praise of +Maschenka's beautiful hair, her remarks consist in commanding her +companion, a very homely little Frenchwoman, by turns to open or close +a window. + +After dinner the married couple quarrel over several immaterial +trifles, which momentarily interest no one; over the latest Russian +table of duties, and as to whether it is better to treat scarlet fever +with heat or with cold. Then Varvara Pavlovna busies herself in her +favorite occupation; that is to say, twisting paper flowers. Natalie +took part in this, but Maschenka, to whom they have confided an album +with views of Dresden for her entertainment, has uneasily crept about +the room, now reached after this and now that, has hopped around first +on the right, then on the left leg, until at last Natalie's maid +presents herself to ask her mistress if she has anything to command or +to be done, whereupon Natalie has commissioned her to take the little +one out for a walk, and then to take her to the Hotel du Saxe. + +Then Sergei read something aloud from the newspaper; then tea was +brought. + +It is nine o'clock. Natalie rises, says that she is tired, and that she +would like to retire early to-night. Sergei asks: "Do you wish to +drive? Shall I send for a carriage? It would really be a shame! The +evening is lovely; if you go on foot, I will accompany you." + +They go on foot. "I do not know what fancy has seized me to loiter +about a little," she says in the passage, where Sergei has remained +standing to light a cigarette. "Would you have time?" she asks her +brother. + +"Yes," replies he, "I am very willing to walk a little. Where do you +wish to go?" + +"Anywhere, where it is quiet and pretty, and where one does not hear +this cafe chantant music." She points over the Elbe, where from out a +dazzlingly lighted enclosure, frivolous dance measures sound boldly and +obtrusively over the dreamy plash of the waves. + +"Come in the fortress grounds," says Sergei, and gives her his arm. And +suddenly a kind of anxiety at being alone with him overcomes Natalie. +"Now he will question me," thinks she, and would like to tear her arm +away from him and--has not the courage to do it. + +They are quite alone in the court-yard, the world-renowned court-yard +of the fortress, with its enclosure of strange, carved, exaggerated, +and charming irregular architecture; only the sentinel continually goes +along the same path, up and down, and above, on the flat terrace roofs +of the fortress, a couple of friends are walking. One hears them laugh, +jest; yes, even kiss, standing in the court below. They may be lovers, +or some couple on their wedding tour. + +The lanterns burn red and sleepily in the transparent pale gray of the +summer half light, and the buttons of the sentinel shine dully; all +other light is extinguished in the world, but up in heaven the stars +slowly open their golden eyes. What is there down here to-day for them +to look at? + +A thunder-storm threatens, but one does not see it as yet, but only +hears its hollow voice growling in the distance. + +Slowly the brother and sister wander along the narrow way between the +old-fashioned, regularly laid-out flower-beds. The stony faces of +satyrs and fauns grin down upon them with triumphant cynicism. One can +still see their small eyes, slanting upward toward the temples, +distinctly in the dull, shadowless, clear twilight. The air is sultry +and close, and quite immoderately impregnated with the sad, penetrating +perfume of weary flowers which have been tormented by an over-hot +summer day. + +"Do you remember the last time that we walked around here together?" +remarked Sergei, at length breaking the silence. + +"Yes," says Natalie. "It was the year before our father's death. I was +not much older than Maschenka, and you had not completed your studies." + +"Quite right, I did not yet feel myself obliged to be ambitious, in +order to help raise our family from its sunken condition," said Sergei +very bitterly. "Father had taken me with him during my vacation, in +order to cultivate my aesthetic taste. Only think, Natalie, at that time +I wrote a poem on the Sistine Madonna! I! that is very laughable, is it +not?" + +"You--a poem," says Natalie, astonished, and still absently; the affair +has in reality little interest for her. + +"Yes, I--a poem!" repeats Sergei. "I--now at that time I was an +idealist, however improbable that may seem to you! Now, now I am a +machine, who still sometimes dreams of having been a man!" He laughs +harshly and forcedly, and is suddenly silent. After a while he begins +again: "Just look at the roses, Natascha," and he points to the slender +bushes which are almost broken under their weight of dried blossoms. +"Have you ever seen such an Ash Wednesday? Early this morning they were +still fresh! It is a pitiless summer." + +Natalie lowers her head. "Now it is coming," she thinks. "Now it is +coming." But no, not what she has expected, but something different, +comes. + +"Did it ever occur to you," continues Sergei after a little while, "how +very much a tree struck by lightning resembles one killed by frost? In +the end it all tends in the same direction." He is silent. After a +while he says, looking her straight in the eyes: "Did you understand +me?" + +"Yes, I understand," murmurs she, tonelessly. + +"Hm! it was plain enough. You are dying of heat, I of cold!" says he, +and laughing slightly to himself, he adds: "Do you still remember how I +lectured you at that time in Rome?" + +Instead of any answer, she pulls her hand away from his arm. +Compassionately her brother looks at her through the gray veil of the +now fast-descending twilight. "Poor Natascha!" he says. "You surely do +not believe that I will return to my wisdom of that time--no! I will +make you a great confession!" His voice sounds hissingly close to her +ear. She feels his breath unpleasantly hot on her cheeks. "There are +moments when I envy you!" he whispers. "Bah! that one must say of one's +self: it is over, one is old, one will die, without once having been +deeply shaken by a true shudder of delight,--_sans avoir connu le grand +frisson_--it is horrible! I know what you have to bear, Natalie, and +still--yes, there are moments when I envy you!" + +"Who has then permitted himself to assert that I have anything to +bear?" Natalie bursts out. + +"Who?" Sergei raises his eyebrows. "You surely do not fancy that it is +a secret?" says he. "Many wonder that you endure it; as it seems, he +exercises an incredible charm over all women!" + +Her eyes and his meet in the sultry half darkness. "What have they told +you?" asks Natalie, with difficulty. + +But then he replies with fearful emphasis: "You surely do not demand an +answer of me in earnest?" + +She breathes heavily. "It is not true!" says she. "They have lied to +you!" + +Thereupon he remains silent. The sultriness becomes ever more +oppressive. Heavy thunder-clouds creep slowly and threateningly over +the roof of the fortress and blot out the stars from the heavens. + +Natalie has turned away from her brother, and with uneasy haste she +hurries to the gate of the yard; he comes after her. "I am sorry to +have wounded you," he says. "I had not that intention." + +She answers nothing; silently she walks along near him. From time to +time he pulls her gently by the sleeve and says: "This is the way." The +stars are all extinguished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and close to +the ground sighs a heavy wind which cannot yet rise to a hurricane. +What is it in this depressing sound of nature which chases the blood +more rapidly through her veins? + +At the door of the great, many-storied hotel, Natalie wishes to take +leave of her brother. "I will accompany you to your room," says Sergei. + +Silently, she lets him remain near her. With bowed head she goes up the +broad staircase to the first landing; then something wakes her from her +brooding thoughts--the rustling of a woman's dress. She looks up--there +goes a man up the stairs to the second story with a heavily veiled +woman on his arm. She sees him for one moment only; then the shadow of +his profile passes quickly over the wall; she turns away her head. It +is he--she has recognized him! Silently and with doubled haste she +follows her brother's guidance. "Your room is No. 53," says he, and +turns the door-knob of a room. The lamp is lighted, everything cosily +prepared for her reception. "I will disturb you no longer," says +Sergei. His manner has become very stiff, his voice is icy cold, and +before he leaves the room his glance seeks a last time the eyes of his +sister. + + * * * * * + +She is alone. Trembling in all her limbs, she has thrown herself down +on a sofa. The maid presents herself with the question whether her +mistress wishes to undress. Natalie signifies to her to go away, to +retire for the night to her room in an upper story. The maid goes, +happy to be released from her service, weary, sleepy. Natalie does not +think of sleeping. How should she think of it when she knows that here, +under the same roof, a few rooms distant from her-- It is horrible! It +seems to her that she is slowly suffocating in a close, oppressing +dread. + +The lamp burns brightly. As a maid of good form, Lisa has already +unpacked those little objects which luxurious women always carry about +with them, even on the shortest journey, in order to make a hotel +residence cosey. On the table lies Natalie's portfolio; her travelling +writing utensils stand near by; and near the ink-case two photographs +in pretty little leather frames the pictures of her husband and of her +son. Shuddering, she turns away. She pushes the hair back from her +temples. "Sergei recognized him also!" murmurs she to herself. "It was +impossible not to recognize him," whispers she, "and Sergei believes +that I will still bear this also. And why should he not believe it?" + +For years she has waded through the mire after a _fata morgana_, and +the world laughs, and points its fingers at her. What does she care +about the world, if she can only once shake off the feeling of +boundless degradation which drags her down to the ground? In a few days +he will come to her with loving glance, uneasily concerned about her, +with a thousand anxious, tender words, with open arms. And she--well, +she--she will rush into those arms, forgive and forget everything as +before. Ah!--she springs up. + +A few moments later she stands near the bed of her little daughter. The +child looks very lovely in her white night-gown, richly trimmed with +lace and embroidery. One of her hands rests under her cheek, the other +is hidden under the pillow. Formerly Natalie has come every night to +the bed of the child in order to kiss and bless her, still asleep. But +to-night her tortured heart is capable of no tender emotion. + +"Wake up!" she commands, in a harsh, strange voice. Maschenka starts +up, thereby involuntarily drawing her hand out from under the pillow, +and with the hand a little letter which she immediately tries to +conceal again from her mother. But Natalie tears it away from her. +"What have you to conceal from me?" she says to the little girl, +imperiously. + +"I have only written to papa!" replies Maschenka excusingly, tearfully. +"I wrote him that you are sad, and that he must come very soon because +we will be so glad--that was all." + +Natalie tears the poor little letter apart in the middle. "Dress +yourself!" she orders. + +"Is there a fire?" asks Maschenka, frightened. + +"No, but something has happened; we cannot stay in the hotel; do not +ask." + +Sleepy, but obedient, as a good child who has the most complete +confidence in her mother, Maschenka sets about putting on the clothes +daintily arranged on a chair near her little bed. Natalie helps her as +well as her fingers, trembling with fever, will permit her, then +wrapping head and shoulders in a lace scarf, she takes the child by the +hand and hurries down the stairs. + +"Is the princess going out?" asks the porter, who has not the heart to +give the sister of Prince Assanow another title. "The weather is very +threatening; shall I send for a carriage?" + +Natalie takes no notice of him, pushes by him like a strange, +inexplicable apparition. + + * * * * * + +The stars are all extinguished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and +close to the ground sighs a weary wind. + +What is it in this confused, depressing sound of nature which chases +the blood through her veins? In the midst of her excitement she hears +the chromatic succession of tones--her breath stops--it is that +inciting, musical poison, that now follows her with a longing +complaint, a strange, alluring call--Asbein. + +The wind rises, screams louder and more shrill, its sultry breath rages +so powerfully against Natalie that she can scarcely proceed. One, two +great water-drops splash in her face, then more. Pointed hailstones +prick her between them; all drive her back--back. + +Has not some one seized her by the dress? She looks round. No! she is +alone on the street with her child and the raging storm. Forward she +hastens, panting, breathless. The way to Bellevue is quite easy to +find--quite straight along the street. It grows darker and darker, the +rain falls in streams, the clothes hang ever heavier on her body, she +can scarcely lift her feet from the paving; it is as if all would drag +her down to the ground--all! Twice she loses her way, twice she +suddenly, as if attracted by an evil charm, stands before the Hotel du +Saxe. + +Maschenka cries silently and bitterly to herself. There--this wall +ornamented with black lead, Natalie remembers, and here--the large mass +of formless shadow--is not that the Catholic church? + +A flash of lightning rends the darkness--Natalie sees the immense +stairs of the Bruehl terrace, with its adornments of colossal gilded +statues; she sees the broad, black river flowing along, cool, alluring; +hastily she goes across the place, for one moment her eyes rest on the +stream--Maschenka pulls her by the arm with her tender little fingers, +and whispers: "I am afraid, mamma; I am afraid!" + +Then Natalie turns away from the most alluring temptation that has ever +met her in life, and the water ripples behind her as if in anger that +they have torn away a sacrifice from it. + +Now they have reached the Hotel Bellevue; the phlegmatic Hollander in +the porter's lodge looks after her in astonishment as she rushes past +him, stretches his powerful limbs, sticks his thumbs in the arm-holes +of his vest, closes his eyes, sleepily, and murmurs, "These Russian +women!" + +She finds the number of her brother's sitting-room. Light still shines +through the keyhole. She bursts open the door. Varvara Pavlovna is +still busy making flowers. Sergei sits bent over a railroad courier, +the eternal samovar stands on its small table. + +"What has happened, Natalie, for God's sake?" says Varvara, as she +discovers Natalie's figure, dripping with water, her pale, staring +face, her burning eyes, and the little girl by her side. "What has +happened?" + +The brother does not ask. + +"I come to seek shelter with you," murmurs Natalie, breaking down, as +she sinks upon a sofa; then turning to Sergei, she with difficulty +gasps out: "You understand--I could not stay there--it--it is all +over!" + + * * * * * + +Yes, it was all over--all. The bond between him and her was broken. He +was beside himself when he discovered what had taken place, begged for +a meeting, wrote her the tenderest letters. She left his letters +unanswered. + +Then a wild defiance overcame him. It angered him that she had placed +herself under her brother's protection--that brother, who from the +beginning had wished to sow discord between him and her. He also could +not be persuaded that the prince had not alone been the cause of the +separation. + +The circumstance that Natalie travelled in advance with her +sister-in-law to Baden-Baden, while Assanow remained in Dresden to +arrange with Lensky, strengthened him in his conviction. + +It did not come to a legal separation. Lensky was not the man to use +compulsion with a woman; if she did not wish to stay with him, he let +her go voluntarily. That she wished to keep the child with her was +understood of itself; he could see the child from time to time, for a +couple of weeks, on neutral ground. Nikolas, as one could not interrupt +him in his studies, quite naturally remained with his father in St. +Petersburg. + +"All that is understood of itself; why lose words over it?" thought +Lensky to himself, while he quite passively consented to all the +propositions of the diplomat. + +For what reason did the unendurable man remain sitting there and +tormenting him? + +Quite everything was wound up between them--it was afternoon, and the +brothers-in-law sat opposite each other at a long table strewn with +papers, in a large, gloomy room, with dark green damask hangings, in +the Hotel du Saxe. A pause had occurred. + +"What does he still wish?" thought Lensky, and drummed unrestrainedly +on the top of the table, while at the same time he gave a significant +glance toward the door. + +Assanow coughed a couple of times; at last he began: "In conclusion, I +must touch upon a delicate point--the question of money. My sister +formally rejects all assistance on your part, Boris Nikolaivitch, and +wishes strictly to limit herself to live on her own income!" + +Then Lensky flew into a rage: "And you have declared yourself agreed to +that?" he cried, to his brother-in-law. + +"I should have considered it undignified in my sister if she had wished +to act otherwise!" replied Assanow. + +Lensky clutched his temples with a gesture which was peculiar to him. +"Ah! leave me in peace with your pasteboard dignity," said he, +impatiently. "I cannot endure the word--a parade expression which means +nothing--live on her own income--my poor luxurious Natalie--but that is +madness, simply not possible! You are indeed her brother, but still you +do not know her. Such a tender, guarded hothouse plant as she is! Why, +she would die if she did not have what she needed." + +"With the best will, I would not be able to persuade her to take +anything from you," replied Sergei, earnestly. + +"Not?" Lensky struck his clenched fist on the table. "Listen, Sergei +Alexandrovitch, you are not only pitiless, you are also stupid. If she +will not take anything from me, deceive her a little, tell her that the +rents of her estate have increased, that you have sold building land +for her, or what do I know! With women that is so easy, especially with +her, poor soul!--who has never understood the difference in appearance +between ten rubles and a thousand--but force the money upon her, she +must have it! And hear me! if you do not so care for it that she takes +it, then I will make a scandal for you, and insist upon a legal +exposition!" + +For a moment Assanow was silent, then he said: "Good, I will arrange +it!" with that he rose and offered Lensky his hand. + +But Lensky refused it. "Let that go! Between you and me there is no +friendship. After the 'service' which you have rendered me such +grimaces are repulsive." + +"You are mistaken if you believe I would have persuaded Natalie to the +separation," assured the Prince. "Naturally, however, as a +conscientious man, I could not dissuade her therefrom." + +"Conscientious! Certainly, hangmen are always conscientious--that one +knows," murmured Lensky, and stamped his foot on the ground. "Well, you +will see what you have done! Meanwhile--go. I will not longer bear +it--go!" + + * * * * * + +When Assanow hereupon wrote Natalie in Baden that the affair was +arranged with Lensky, and the separation declared he added, at the same +time: "I feel myself obliged to say to you, that Lensky in this whole +affair has acted not only honorably, but really nobly." + +To his wife wrote Sergei at the same time: "I do not understand the +man!--_figurez-vous_ that I myself for a moment, was _sous le charme_. +What a depth of nobility is in this prodigy! His is an enormous +nature!" + + * * * * * + +As long as the separation was still impending, as long as the +conferences still lasted, a kind of restless life fevered in Natalie; +she forced her being, naturally inclined to tender reliance and +dependence, to an independent strength of will, of which no one had +thought her capable. + +But when the last word was spoken, the separation at length validly +arranged, she fell into a condition of brooding sadness from which +nothing more could rouse her. + +For still three years she lived after the separation; three years, in +which every hour endlessly dragged itself along, and which flowed +together in the recollection into a single endless, cold, dull day; a +day in that northern zone where the sun, with far-extending, weak, +weary beams, tardily remains the whole twenty-four hours long, standing +on the horizon, and grudges the night its refreshing darkness and the +day its light. + +Her torment reached an exquisite culmination when Maschenka, who +idolized her father, and who, in her childish innocence, had no idea of +the state of affairs, in the beginning incessantly and anxiously asked +her mother little questions referring to the separation. Natalie gave +her no answer, frowned and turned away her head. And sometimes +Maschenka then became ungovernable and angry. Her little warm, loving +heart could not understand why they had taken away her idol. + +Once, Lensky asked for his daughter for two weeks. Maschenka, with her +English governess, was sent to Nice to her grandmother, where Lensky +daily visited her. When, loaded with presents, her heart full of sweet, +tender recollections, she came back again to Cannes, where Natalie had +meanwhile awaited her, with fearful obstinacy she insisted in relating +to Natalie endless things about the goodness and lovability of the +father, and especially how impressively and anxiously he had inquired +after mamma. Her full, deep little voice trembled resentfully thereby, +and an angry reproach darkened her large, clear child's eyes. + +For a while Natalie was quite calm, then, without having replied a word +to the child, she stood up and left the room. + +Maschenka observed with astonishment how she tottered and hit against +the furniture like a blind person. Thereupon the child remained as if +rooted to the ground, with thoughtfully wrinkled brow, her little hands +glued to her sides, standing, staring down at the carpet as if she +there sought the solution to the great, sad riddle which so occupied +her. Then with a short motion as if shaking off something, which she +had caught from her father, like so much else, she threw her little +head back and hurried after her mother. + +Natalie had retired to her bedroom. Maschenka found her deathly pale, +with helpless, stiff bearing, and hands folded straight before her, +sitting in an easy chair; her weary glance, directed in front of her, +expressed inconsolable despair. + +"Little mother, forgive me, oh, forgive me!" begged the child, +embracing her mother with her soft, warm arms. "Sometimes it seems to +me as if you love him as much as I, only you do not wish to. But why do +you cover your soul with a veil; why? Oh, why did you separate yourself +from him? He was not very much with us without that, but still it was +so lovely to expect him and to rejoice over him from one time to +another!" And Maschenka burst out in violent weeping. + +Natalie remained silent, but she raised the child on her knee and +kissed her, ah, how tenderly! Every tear she kissed away from the round +little cheeks. And Maschenka never repeated her question. + +Once, in the night--Maschenka's little room was next to her mother's +bedroom--the child awoke; from the adjoining room sounded soft, +whimpering, difficultly restrained sobs. + + * * * * * + +She wandered from Venice to Florence, from Florence to Nice, from Nice +to Pau--all the European cities of refuge for uprooted existences she +sought out. Nowhere could Natalie find rest. Sometimes she tried to +distract herself. She never visited large entertainments, but she +associated with her old friends if she met them in their different +exiles, gradually slid back into the old, aristocratic atmosphere in +which she had been brought up; but, strange! she no longer felt at home +therein, and in her inconsolable misery a feeling of insensible _ennui_ +mingled itself. + +His name never crossed her lips. Did she ever think of him? Day and +night. The more she tried to accustom herself to other people the more +she thought of him. How empty, how shallow, how insignificant were all +the others in comparison to him; how cold, how hard! + +Her health went rapidly downward. A short, nervous cough tormented her, +her hands were now ice-cold, now hot with fever. Associated with that +was something else strangely tormenting: she almost incessantly had the +feeling that her heart was torn away from its natural place; she felt +in her breast something like an uneasy fluttering, like the beating of +the wings of a deathly weary, sinking bird. + +She slept badly and was afraid of sleep, for always the whole spring of +her love, with its entrancing charm and perfume of flowers, arose in +her dreams again. Again vibrated through her soul the swelling musical, +alluring call--Asbein. Little trifles, which in her waking condition +she no longer remembered, came to her mind, and when she awoke she +burned with fever and hid her face, gasping, in her pillows. She +consumed herself in longing; a longing of which she was ashamed as of a +sin, and which she fought as a sin. + + * * * * * + +Gradually she became wearier and more calm. His picture began to +obliterate itself from her memory. + + * * * * * + +It was in Geneva, in a music shop. Natalie, who had gone out to attend +to a few trifles, entered and desired the Chopin Etudes, which she had +promised to bring the extremely musical Maschenka. While a clerk looked +for the music, she observed an elderly man--she divined the piano +teacher in him--talking about a photograph which he held in his hand, +to the woman who managed the business. + +She glanced fleetingly at the photograph--she shuddered. + +"So that is he; that is the way he looks now! _C'est qu'il a +terriblement change_," said the piano teacher. + +"_Que voulez-vous_, with the existence which he leads?" replied the +woman. "If one burns the candle of life at both ends!" + +"But he should stop it, a married man, as he is," said the music +teacher. + +"My goodness; his marriage is so--so--he has been separated, who knows +how long, already." The woman shrugged her shoulders. + +"Ah! Who, then, is his wife?" + +"Some great lady who has made enough out of him, and to whom he has +become inconvenient," replied the old woman. + +"So--h'm! that explains much," said the musician, and laying down the +photograph, he added: "_enfin c'est un homme fini_." With that he +seized the roll of music which had been prepared for him and left the +shop. Natalie bought the photograph, without having the courage to look +at it before strangers. Arrived at home, she unwrapped the portrait. +For the first time since that evening when she ran out of the Hotel du +Saxe she looked at a picture of him. She was frightened at the fearful +physical deterioration designated in his features. Around the mouth and +under the eyes hateful lines were drawn; but from the eyes still spoke +the deep, seeking glance as formerly, and on the lips lay an expression +of inconsolable goodness. "A great lady who has made enough out of him, +and to whom he has become inconvenient," Natalie repeated to herself +again and again. That truly was false from beginning to end. Still, a +great uneasiness overcame her. The reproofs which she believed she had +expiated once for all by the easy, tender confession that she had set +aside her beloved husband on account of her scruples, now rose sharply +and reprovingly before her. + +A nervous condition, which culminated in a long-enduring cramp of the +heart, befell her; the cramp was followed by an hour-long swoon which +could not be lifted. + +When she could again leave her bed, a great change had taken place in +her. She no longer evaded the recollection of Lensky; the old love was +dead, but a new love had risen from the ruins of the old, a new +enlightened love, which was nothing more than a warm, compassionate +pardon. + + * * * * * + +With the restlessness of those mortally ill, who in vain seek relief, +she was again driven to leave Geneva, where at first she had intended +to pass the whole winter. She longed for Rome. + +The physicians laid no difficulties in the way. In the end, a dying +person has the right to seek out the place where she will lay down her +weary head for the last time. + + * * * * * + +In Rome, it seemed at first as if she would be better again. At the end +of March, Nikolas came to visit her. He was now a young man, tall, +slender, with great dreamy eyes in an aristocratically cut face, and +with pretty, still somewhat embarrassed manners. + +Already he had twice come to foreign countries to visit his mother, but +never had she been so glad to see him. + +As the day was beautiful, and she felt better than usual, she proposed +a drive. "To the Via Giulia," she ordered the coachman. "I will show +you the Palazzo Morsini, in which we lived when your father was +betrothed to me," she said to her children. Mascha looked at her mother +in astonishment; it was the first time in quite three years that she +had mentioned her father before her. + +So they drove in the Via Giulia, on a bright March afternoon they drove +there. But Natalie in vain sought the Palazzo Morsini; she did not find +it. A pile of rubbish stood in its place, surrounded by a board fence. +Disappointed almost to tears, with that childish, foolish +disappointment such as only those mortally ill know, she turned away. +On the way, it occurred to her to order the coachman to stop at the +Trevi fountain. She quite started with delight when she saw the +irregular collection of statues again. "Here I met your father for the +first time in Rome; it is just twenty years ago," said she, and rested +a strange, brilliant, dreamy glance on the old wall. The sculpturing +was still blacker and more weather-worn than twenty years before, but +the silver cascade rushed down more arrogantly than ever in the gray +stone basin, and the sky, which arched over the time-blackened walls, +was as blue as formerly. "Ah, how much beauty, nobility, and +immortality there still is in the world, together with the bad that +passes away," murmured Natalie, softly; then passing her hand over her +eyes, and as if speaking to herself, she added: "It is thus with great +men, and therefore I think, considerately overlooking their earthly +failings, one should rejoice over that which is immortal in them!" + +Maschenka had not quite understood the words, but Nikolas sought by a +glance the eyes of his mother, and raised her hand to his lips. + +It was evening of the same day, in Natalie's pretty apartment on the +Piazza di Spagna, opposite the church of Trinita dei Monti, and the +sick woman, relieved of her constricting and heavy street-clothes, lay, +in a white, lace-trimmed wrapper, on a lounge. Mother and son were +alone. He had read her a couple of verses from Musset, which she +particularly loved--_les souvenirs_--but it had become dark during the +reading; he laid the book away. For a while they were both quiet, +silently happy in each other's presence, as very nearly related people +when they are together after a long separation; but then Nikolas laid +his hand on that of his mother and said, softly: "Little mother--do you +know that it was really papa who sent me to you?" + +The hand of the mother trembles, and softly draws itself out from under +the son's. Nikolas is silent. But what was that? After a while his +mother's hand voluntarily stole back into his, and the young man +continued: "Yes, papa sent me here, so that I might accurately report +to him how you are. You really cannot imagine how he always asks after +you, worries about you." + +The hand of the poor woman trembles in that of her son, like an aspen +leaf. After a pause, quite as if he had waited so that his words might +sink warmly and deeply into her heart, he continues: "Father +commissioned me to bring before you a request from him--namely, whether +you would not permit him to visit you?" + +Again Natalie drew her hand away from her son, but more hastily than +the first time. Her breath comes quickly and pantingly, for a few +moments she remains silent, then she says slowly, wearily: "No! it must +not be; tell him all love and kindness from me, and that I think only +with emotion of the great consideration which he always shows me, but +it must not be--it is better so!" + +After she had made this decision, which had a sad and intimidating +effect upon the inexperienced boy, she remained for the rest of the +evening taciturn and with that, out of temper and irritable, as one had +never formerly seen her. + +In the night she had one of her fearful attacks; the doctor must be +sent for. When the horrible oppression of breath and shuddering had +subsided, as usual, she fell into a condition of pale, cold numbness, +which resembled a deep swoon. + +Nikolas, who had watched by the sick one, accompanied the physician +without. He begged him, in the name of his father, to tell him the +truth about the condition of the sufferer. The physician told him that +her condition was very serious, and a recovery absolutely out of the +question. It might last a few weeks still, perhaps only a few days. + +When Nikolas, with difficulty restraining his tears, came up to his +mother's bed, she lay exactly in the same position as when he left the +room; still, something about her had changed. Her eyes were closed, but +around her beautiful mouth trembled a smile whose happy loveliness he +never forgot. + +After a while she looked up and said in a quite weak voice: "Perhaps +only a few days"--she had heard the doctor's speech. After a pause, she +added: "Write your father--write--he must hurry--only a few more days!" + +Nikolas telegraphed to St. Petersburg. + + * * * * * + +The consciousness of her near death had given her back her lack of +embarrassment toward Lensky. She insisted that he should stay in her +house, that they should prepare a room for him. + +One day she was well enough to overlook the preparations herself. But +the improvement did not last. Quite every night came on an attack, +shorter and weaker, but still very painful; in between she slept, and +always had the same dream. It seemed to her as if she could fly, but +only about two feet from the ground; if she wished to rise higher, she +awoke. Of the young happiness of her love, she dreamed never more. + + * * * * * + +Lensky had telegraphed back that he would set out immediately. They +counted the days and nights which must elapse before his arrival--Kolia +and she; they consulted railroad time-tables together--so long to +Eydtkuhnen--so long to Berlin--so long to Vienna--so long to Rome. They +were twelve hours apart in their reckoning. Natalie expected Lensky +already on the morning of the fifth day, Nikolas not until the evening. + +On the fourth day she was so well that she wished to undertake a walk. +"I would so like to see the spring once more," said she. + +Nikolas begged her to save herself until his father had come, in order +not to aggravate her heart by excitement--that great, rich heart +through which she lived, and of which she was now dying. "We will bring +the spring in to you," said he tenderly. + +They brought flowers, whatever kind they could buy, and placed them in +the pretty, pleasant boudoir in which she lay, stretched out on her +couch bed. The broad sunbeams slid like a golden veil over the +magnolias, violets, and roses. + +Dreamily the dying woman let her eyes wander over the fragrant +splendor. "How lovely the spring is!" murmured she, and then she added: +"How can one fear to die, when the resurrection is so beautiful!" The +windows stood wide open; it was afternoon; from without one heard the +rattling of carriages which rolled along in the heart of the city. + +It sounded like the rolling of a stream which forced its way to the +sea. + + * * * * * + +The night came. Nikolas sat near his mother's bed and watched. She +slept uneasily. Frequently she started and listened, then she looked at +her watch--it could not yet be! Once Maschenka came in, with little +bare feet peeping out from under her long night-dress, and face quite +swollen with weeping. On tip-toes she crept up to the dying woman's +bed. Since a couple of days Natalie had no longer permitted her to +sleep in the adjoining little room, from fear that the child might be +awakened by her painful attacks. Maschenka had dreamed that her mother +was worse; she wished to see her mother. Natalie opened her eyes just +as she entered. + +Then the child ran up to her, kneeled down near her, and sobbing hid +her little face in the covers. Natalie stroked her little head with +weary, weak hand, and asked her to be brave, and lie down and sleep; +that would give her the greatest joy. + +Then Maschenka stood up, and went with hesitating steps as far as the +door; then she turned round, and hurried back to her mother. Natalie +made the sign of the cross on her forehead, then kissed her once more, +and held her to her thin breast. It should be the last time--the child +went. + +Natalie looked after her tenderly, sadly. + +Toward morning Nikolas fell asleep in the arm-chair in which he watched +by his mother's bed. All at once he felt that some one pulled him by +both sleeves. He started up; his mother sat half upright in the bed. + +"Wake up, your father is coming!" she called quickly and breathlessly. + +"But, little mother, it is quite impossible--not before evening can he +be here." + +With a short, imperious motion she admonished him to silence. Now he +heard quite plainly--softly, then louder--the rolling of a single +carriage through the deathly-quiet, sleeping city. It came nearer +stopped before the house. + +"Go to meet him, Kolia; I do not wish him to think we did not expect +him." + +Kolia went, did, like a machine, whatever was required of him. Natalie +sat up, listened--listened. If she had been mistaken--no. Heavy steps +came up the stairs. Steps of two men--not of one--and this voice! +rough, deep, going to the heart. She did not understand a word; but it +was his voice. + +A quite numbing embarrassment and shyness overcame her. She drew the +lace cuffs of her night-dress over her thin arms, she arranged her +hair; she felt as shy as before a stranger. What should she say to him? +She would be quite calm--calm and friendly. Then the door opened--he +entered, dusty, with tumbled, badly arranged gray hair, with fearful +furrows in his face, aged ten years since she last had seen him. + +What should she say to him? + +He did not wait for that; he only gave one look at her pale face, then +he hurried up to her and took her in his arms. + +Behind the church of Trinita dei Monti there was already a golden +light, and the whole room was filled with brilliancy and light. + +"Oh, my angel! how could you so repulse me!" are the first words which +he speaks. + +She says nothing, only lies on his breast, silently, unresistingly. +Through her veins creeps for the last time the feeling of pleasant, +animating warmth which has always overcome her in his nearness. She +tries to rouse herself, to consider; she had certainly wished to tell +him something for farewell. But what was it--what---- + +Ah, truly! + +"Boris," she breathes out softly, "do you know--at that time in your +study--in Petersburg--do you still remember how you once said to me I +should show you the way to the stars?" + +"Yes, my little dove, yes." + +"I was not fitted for my task," whispers she, sadly; "forgive!" + +For one moment he remains speechless with emotion; then he presses his +lips to her mouth, on her poor emaciated hands, on her hair. + +"Forgive--I you! O my heart!" murmurs he. "How could you draw me up +when I had broken your wings! But now all is well; we will seek our old +happiness hand in hand. You shall become well, shall live!" + +"Live," whispers she, quite reproachfully; "live," and shakes her head. + +He looks at her with a long, tender glance, and is frightened. + +Her face is still angel beautiful, but there is nothing left of her +lovely form. It pains him to see the sharp, harsh lines which outline +her limbs under the covering. That is no longer a living woman who +stretches out her arms to him, it is only an angel who wishes to bless +him. It is quite clear between them, and also the last shyness, which +still held her back from him, has vanished. + +"Yes, it is over," whispers she; "only a few more days--how +many is that?--three days--five days--oh, perhaps it will last +longer--physicians are so often mistaken. We will drive out once more +together to see the spring--out there where the almond trees bloom +between the ruins--by St. Steven, do you still know?--and until I feel +it coming--the last, the end--then you will hold me by the hand, will +you not? like a child that fears the dark, you will lead me quite +tenderly up to the threshold of eternity--is it not true? No one can be +so tender and loving as you. But do not be sad--not now; to-day I feel +well, quite well. Ah!----" + +What is that? She clutches at her heart--there it is again, the strange +fluttering feeling in her heart. Her face changes, her breath fails. + +"The doctor, Kolia!" calls Boris beside himself. + +Kolia hurries away; at the door his mother calls him back once more. + +"Not without a farewell, my brave boy," she says, and kisses him. "God +bless you!" + +Then he rushes away down the stairs, to fetch the doctor--there is +haste. + +No, there is no more haste--the attack is short--only a couple of +strange shudders--then the invalid grows calm in Lensky's arms. + +"How wonderfully the trees bloom--" murmurs the dying one. "It grows +dark--give me your hand--do not grieve--my poor Genius----" + +Suddenly her eyes take on a peculiarly longing expression. A last time +the Asbein tones glide through her soul, but no longer an inciting, +alluring call--but as something elevating, holy. She hears the tones +quite high and distinct, as if they vibrated down to her from Heaven, +resounding strangely in a sublime, calm harmony that is no longer the +devil's succession of tones, that is the music of the spheres. + +"Boris," she murmurs, and raising her hand, points upward, "listen ..." + +The hand sinks slowly, slowly--when, a little later, the physician +enters she is dead. A wonderful smile lies on her countenance, the +smile of one set free. + + + + FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: When the Devil, banished from heaven, resolved on the +temptation of mankind, he loved to make use of music which had been +made known to him as a heavenly privilege when he still was a member of +the eternal hosts. But the Almighty deprived him of his memory, so he +could remember but a single strain, and this mysterious, bewitching +strain is still called in Arabia "The Devil's Strain--Asbein."--_Arabian +Legends_.] + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Asbein, by Ossip Schubin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASBEIN *** + +***** This file should be named 35396.txt or 35396.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/9/35396/ + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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