For eight days this torture was prolonged. Elena appeared calm; but she could eat nothing, and did not sleep at night. There was a dull ache in all her limbs; her head seemed full of a sort of dry burning smoke. 'Our young lady's wasting like a candle,' her maid said of her.
At last by the ninth day the crisis was passing over. Elena was sitting in the drawing-room near Anna Vassilyevna, and, without knowing herself what she was doing, was reading her the Moscow Gazette; Bersenyev came in. Elena glanced at him—how rapid, and fearful, and penetrating, and tremulous, was the first glance she turned on him every time—and at once she guessed that he brought good news. He was smiling; he nodded slightly to her, she got up to go and meet him.
'He has regained consciousness, he is saved, he will be quite well again in a week,' he whispered to her.
Elena had stretched out her arm as though to ward off a blow, and she said nothing, only her lips trembled and a flush of crimson overspread her whole face. Bersenyev began to talk to Anna Vassilyevna, and Elena went off to her own room, dropped on her knees and fell to praying, to thanking God. Light, shining tears trickled down her cheeks. Suddenly she was conscious of intense weariness, laid her head down on the pillow, whispered 'poor Andrei Petrovitch!' and at once fell asleep with wet eheeks and eyelashes. It was long since she had slept or wept.
XXVII
Bersenyev's words turned out only partly true; the danger was over, but Insarov gained strength slowly, and the doctor talked of a complete undermining of the whole system. The patient left his bed for all that, and began to walk about the room; Bersenyev went home to his own lodging, but he came every day to his still feeble friend; and every day as before he informed Elena of the state of his health. Insarov did not dare to write to her, and only indirectly in his conversations with Bersenyev referred to her; but Bersenyev, with assumed carelessness, told him about his visits to the Stahovs, trying, however, to give him to understand that Elena had been deeply distressed, and that now she was calmer. Elena too did not write to Insarov; she had a plan in her head.
One day Bersenyev had just informed her with a cheerful face that the doctor had already allowed Insarov to eat a cutlet, and that he would probably soon go out; she seemed absorbed, dropped her eyes.
'Guess, what I want to say to you,' she said. Bersenyev was confused. He understood her.
'I suppose,' he answered, looking away, 'you want to say that you wish to see him.'
Elena crimsoned, and scarcely audibly, she breathed, 'Yes.'
'Well, what then? That, I imagine, you can easily do.'—'Ugh!' he thought, 'what a loath-some feeling there is in my heart!'
'You mean that I have already before...' said Elena. 'But I am afraid—now he is, you say, seldom alone.'
'That's not difficult to get over,' replied Bersenyev, still not looking at her. 'I, of course, cannot prepare him; but give me a note. Who can hinder your writing to him as a good friend, in whom you take an interest? There's no harm in that. Appoint—I mean, write to him when you will come.
'I am ashamed,' whispered Elena.
'Give me the note, I will take it.'
'There's no need of that, but I wanted to ask you—don't be angry with me, Andrei Petrovitch—don't go to him to-morrow!'
Bersenyev bit his lip.
'Ah! yes, I understand; very well, very well,' and, adding two or three words more, he quickly took leave.
'So much the better, so much the better,' he thought, as he hurried home. 'I have learnt nothing new, but so much the better. What possessed me to go hanging on to the edge of another man's happiness? I regret nothing; I have done what my conscience told me; but now it is over. Let them be! My father was right when he used to say to me: "You and I, my dear boy, are not Sybarites, we are not aristocrats, we're not the spoilt darlings of fortune and nature, we are not even martyrs—we are workmen and nothing more. Put on your leather apron, workman, and take your place at your workman's bench, in your dark workshop, and let the sun shine on other men! Even our dull life has its own pride, its own happiness!"'
The next morning Insarov got a brief note by the post. 'Expect me,' Elena wrote to him, 'and give orders for no one to see you. A. P. will not come.'
XXVIII
Insarov read Elena's note, and at once began to set his room to rights; asked his landlady to take away the medicine-glasses, took off his dressing-gown and put on his coat. His head was swimming and his heart throbbing from weakness and delight. His knees were shaking; he dropped on to the sofa, and began to look at his watch. 'It's now a quarter to twelve,' he said to himself. 'She can never come before twelve: I will think of something else for a quarter of an hour, or I shall break down altogether. Before twelve she cannot possibly come.'
The door was opened, and in a light silk gown, all pale, all fresh, young and joyful, Elena came in, and with a faint cry of delight she fell on his breast.
'You are alive, you are mine,' she repeated, embracing and stroking his head. He was almost swooning, breathless at such closeness, such caresses, such bliss.
She sat down near him, holding him fast, and began to gaze at him with that smiling, and caressing, and tender look, only to be seen shining in the eyes of a loving woman.
Her face suddenly clouded over.
'How thin you have grown, my poor Dmitri,' she said, passing her hand over his neck; 'what a beard you have.'
'And you have grown thin, my poor Elena,' he answered, catching her fingers with his lips.
She shook her curls gaily.
'That's nothing. You shall see how soon we'll be strong again! The storm has blown over, just as it blew over and passed away that day when we met in the chapel. Now we are going to live.'
He answered her with a smile only.
'Ah, what a time we have had, Dmitri, what a cruel time! How can people outlive those they love? I knew beforehand what Andrei Petrovitch would say to me every day, I did really; my life seemed to ebb and flow with yours. Welcome back, my Dmitri!'
He did not know what to say to her. He was longing to throw himself at her feet.
'Another thing I observed,' she went on, pushing back his hair—'I made so many observations all this time in my leisure—when any one is very, very miserable, with what stupid attention he follows everything that's going on about him! I really sometimes lost myself in gazing at a fly, and all the while such chill and terror in my heart! But that's all past, all past, isn't it? Everything's bright in the future, isn't it?'
'You are for me in the future,' answered Insarov, 'so it is bright for me.'
'And for me too! But do you remember, when I was here, not the last time—no, not the last time,' she repeated with an involuntary shudder, 'when we were talking, I spoke of death, I don't know why; I never suspected then that it was keeping watch on us. But you are well now, aren't you?'
'I'm much better, I'm nearly well.'
'You are well, you are not dead. Oh, how happy I am!'
A short silence followed.
'Elena?' said Insarov.
'Well, my dearest?'
'Tell me, did it never occur to you that this illness was sent us as a punishment?'
Elena looked seriously at him.
'That idea did come into my head, Dmitri. But I thought: what am I to be punished for? What duty have I transgressed, against whom have I sinned? Perhaps my conscience is not like other people's, but it was silent; or perhaps I am guilty towards you? I hinder you, I stop you.'
'You don't stop me, Elena; we will go together.'
'Yes, Dmitri, let us go together; I will follow you.... That is my duty. I love you.... I know no other duty.'
'O Elena!' said Insarov, 'what chains every word of yours fastens on me!'
'Why talk of chains?' she interposed. 'We are free people, you and I. Yes,' she went on, looking musingly on the floor, while with one hand she still stroked his hair, 'I experienced much lately of which I had never had any idea! If any one had told me beforehand that I, a young lady, well brough
t up, should go out from home alone on all sorts of made-up excuses, and to go where? to a young man's lodgings—how indignant I should have been! And that has all come about, and I feel no indignation whatever. Really!' she added, and turned to Insarov.
He looked at her with such an expression of adoration, that she softly dropped her hand from his hair over his eyes.
'Dmitri!' she began again, 'you don't know of course, I saw you there in that dreadful bed, I saw you in the clutches of death, unconscious.'
'You saw me?'
'Yes.'
He was silent for a little. 'And Bersenyev was here?'
She nodded.
Insarov bowed down before her. 'O Elena!' he whispered, 'I don't dare to look at you.'
'Why? Andrei Petrovitch is so good. I was not ashamed before him. And what have I to be ashamed of? I am ready to tell all the world that I am yours.... And Andrei Petrovitch I trust like a brother.'
'He saved me!' cried Insarov. 'He is the noblest, kindest of men!'
'Yes... And do you know I owe everything to him? Do you know that it was he who first told me that you loved me? And if I could tell you everything.... Yes, he is a noble man.'
Insarov looked steadily at Elena. 'He is in love with you, isn't he?'
Elena dropped her eyes. 'He did love me,' she said in an undertone.
Insarov pressed her hand warmly. 'Oh you Russians,' he said, 'you have hearts of pure gold! And he, he has been waiting on me, he has not slept at night. And you, you, my angel.... No reproaches, no hesitations... and all this for me, for me——'
'Yes, yes, all for you, because they love you, Ah, Dmitri! How strange it is! I think I have talked to you of it before, but it doesn't matter, I like to repeat it, and you will like to hear it. When I saw you the first time——'
'Why are there tears in your eyes?' Insarov interrupted her.
'Tears? Are there?' She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. 'Oh, what a silly boy! He doesn't know yet that people weep from happiness. I wanted to tell you: when I saw you the first time, I saw nothing special in you, really. I remember, Shubin struck me much more at first, though I never loved him, and as for Andrei Petrovitch—oh, there was a moment when I thought: isn't this he? And with you there was nothing of that sort; but afterwards—afterwards—you took my heart by storm!'
'Have pity on me,' began Insarov. He tried to get up, but dropped down on to the sofa again at once.
'What's the matter with you?' inquired Elena anxiously.
'Nothing.... I am still rather weak. I am not strong enough yet for such happiness.'
'Then sit quietly. Don't dare to move, don't get excited,' she added, threatening him with her finger. 'And why have you left off your dressing-gown? It's too soon to begin to be a dandy! Sit down and I will tell you stories. Listen and be quiet. To talk much is bad for you after your illness.'
She began to talk to him about Shubin, about Kurnatovsky, and what she had been doing for the last fortnight, of how war seemed, judging from the newspapers, inevitable, and so directly he was perfectly well again, he must, without losing a minute, make arrangements for them to start. All this she told him sitting beside him, leaning on his shoulder....
He listened to her, listened, turning pale and red. Sometimes he tried to stop her; suddenly he drew himself up.
'Elena,' he said to her in a strange, hard voice 'leave me, go away.'
'What?' she replied in bewilderment 'You feel ill?' she added quickly.
'No... I'm all right... but, please, leave me now.'
'I don't understand you. You drive me away?.. What are you doing?' she said suddenly; he had bent over from the sofa almost to the ground, and was pressing her feet to his lips. 'Don't do that, Dmitri.... Dmitri——'
He got up.
'Then leave me! You see, Elena, when I was taken ill, I did not lose consciousness at first; I knew I was on the edge of the abyss; even in the fever, in delirium I knew, I felt vaguely that it was death coming to me, I took leave of life, of you, of everything; I gave up hope.... And this return to life so suddenly; this light after the darkness, you—you—near me, with me—your voice, your breath.... It's more than I can stand! I feel I love you passionately, I hear you call yourself mine, I cannot answer for myself... You must go!'
'Dmitri,' whispered Elena, and she nestled her head on his shoulder. Only now she understood him.
'Elena,' he went on, 'I love you, you know that; I am ready to give my life for you.... Why have you come to me now, when I am weak, when I can't control myself, when all my blood's on fire... you are mine, you say... you love me———'
'Dmitri,' she repeated; she flushed all over, and pressed still closer to him.
'Elena, have pity on me; go away, I feel as if I should die.... I can't stand these violent emotions... my whole soul yearns for you ... think, death was almost parting us.. and now you are here, you are in my arms... Elena——'
She was trembling all over. 'Take me, then,' she whispered scarcely above her breath.
XXIX
Nikolai Artemyevitch was walking up and down in his study with a scowl on his face. Shubin was sitting at the window with his legs crossed, tranquilly smoking a cigar.
'Leave off tramping from corner to corner, please,' he observed, knocking the ash off his cigar. 'I keep expecting you to speak; there's a rick in my neck from watching you. Besides, there's something artificial, melodramatic in your striding.'
'You can never do anything but joke,' responded Nikolai Artemyevitch. 'You won't enter into my position, you refuse to realise that I am used to that woman, that I am attached to her in fact, that her absence is bound to distress me. Here it's October, winter is upon us. ... What can she be doing in Revel?'
'She must be knitting stockings—for herself; for herself—not for you.'
'You may laugh, you may laugh; but I tell you I know no woman like her. Such honesty; such disinterestedness.'
'Has she cashed that bill yet?' inquired Shubin.
'Such disinterestedness,' repeated Nikolai Artemyevitch; 'it's astonishing. They tell me there are a million other women in the world, but I say, show me the million; show me the million, I say; ces femmes, qu'on me les montre! And she doesn't write—that's what's killing me!'
'You're eloquent as Pythagoras,' remarked Shubin; 'but do you know what I would advise you?'
'What?'
'When Augustina Christianovna comes back—you take my meaning?'
'Yes, yes; well, what?'
'When you see her again—you follow the line of my thought?'
'Yes, yes, to be sure.'
'Try beating her; see what that would do.'
Nikolai Artemyevitch turned away exasperated.
'I thought he was really going to give me some practical advice. But what can one expect from him! An artist, a man of no principles——'
'No principles! By the way, I'm told your favourite Mr. Kurnatovsky, the man of principle, cleaned you out of a hundred roubles last night. That was hardly delicate, you must own now.'
'What of it? We were playing high. Of course, I might expect—but they understand so little how to appreciate him in this house——'
'That he thought: get what I can!' put in Shubin: 'whether he's to be my father-in-law or not, is still on the knees of the gods, but a hundred roubles is worth something to a man who doesn't take bribes.'
'Father-in-law! How the devil am I his father-in-law? Vous revez, mon cher. Of course, any other girl would be delighted with such a suitor. Only consider: a man of spirit and intellect, who has gained a position in the world, served in two provinces——'
'Led the governor in one of them by the nose,' remarked Shubin.
'Very likely. To be sure, that's how it should be. Practical, a business man——'
'And a capital hand at cards,' Shubin remarked again.
'To be sure, and a capital hand at cards. But Elena Nikolaevna.... Is there any understanding her? I should be glad to know if there is any one who wou
ld undertake to make out what it is she wants. One day she's cheerful, another she's dull; all of a sudden she's so thin there's no looking at her, and then suddenly she's well again, and all without any apparent reason——'
A disagreeable-looking man-servant came in with a cup of coffee, cream and sugar on a tray.
'The father is pleased with a suitor,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch, breaking off a lump of sugar; 'but what is that to the daughter! That was all very well in the old patriarchal days, but now we have changed all that. Nous avons change tout ca. Nowadays a young girl talks to any one she thinks fit, reads what she thinks fit; she goes about Moscow alone without a groom or a maid, just as in Paris; and all that is permitted. The other day I asked, "Where is Elena Nikolaevna?" I'm told she has gone out. Where? No one knows. Is that—the proper thing?'
On the Eve Page 14
