AT the appointed hour I crossed the Rhine, and the first person I met on the opposite bank was the very boy who had come to me in the morning. He was obviously waiting for me.
"From Fraülein Annette," he said in a whisper, and he handed me another note.
Acia informed me she had changed the place of our meeting. I was to go in an hour and a half, not to the chapel, but to Frau Luise's house, to knock below, and go up to the third storey.
"Is it, yes, again?" asked the boy.
"Yes," I repeated, and I walked along the bank of the Rhine. There was not time to go home, I didn't want to wander about the streets. Beyond the town wall there was a little garden, with a skittle ground and tables for beer drinkers. I went in there. A few middle-aged Germans were playing skittles; the wooden balls rolled along with a sound of knocking, now and then cries of approval reached me. A pretty waitress, with her eyes swollen with weeping, brought me a tankard of beer; I glanced at her face. She turned quickly and walked away.
"Yes, yes," observed a fat, red-cheeked citizen sitting by, "our Hannchen is dreadfully upset to-day; her sweetheart's gone for a soldier." I looked at her; she was sitting huddled up in a corner, her face propped on her hand; tears were rolling one by one between her fingers. Some one called for beer; she took him a pot, and went back to her place. Her grief affected me; I began musing on the interview awaiting me, but my dreams were anxious, cheerless dreams. It was with no light heart I was going to this interview; I had no prospect before me of giving myself up to the bliss of love returned; what lay before me was to keep my word, to do a difficult duty. "One can't play with her." These words of Gagin's had gone through my heart like arrows. And three days ago, in that boat borne along by the current, had I not been pining with the thirst for happiness? It had become possible, and I was hesitating, I was pushing it away, I was bound to push it from me--its suddenness bewildered me. Acia herself, with her fiery temperament, her past, her bringing-up, this fascinating, strange creature, I confess she frightened me. My feelings were long struggling within me. The appointed hour was drawing near. "I can't marry her," I decided at last; "she shall not know I love her."
I got up, and putting a thaler in the hand of poor Hannchen (she did not even thank me), I directed my steps towards Frau Luise's. The air was already overcast with the shadows of evening, and the narrow strip of sky, above the dark street, was red with the glow of sunset. I knocked faintly at the door; it was opened at once. I stepped through the doorway, and found myself in complete darkness.
"This way." I heard an old woman's voice. "You're expected."
I took two steps, groping my way, a long hand took mine.
"Is that you, Frau Luise?" I asked.
"Yes," answered the same voice, "'Tis I, my fine young man." The old woman led me up a steep staircase, and stopped on the third floor. In the feeble light from a tiny window, I saw the wrinkled visage of the burgomaster's widow. A crafty smile of mawkish sweetness contorted her sunken lips, and pursed up her dim-sighted eyes. She pointed me to a little door; with an abrupt movement I opened it and slammed it behind me. XVI
IN the little room into which I stepped, it was rather dark, and I did not at once see Acia. Wrapped in a big shawl, she was sitting on a chair by the window, turning away from me and almost hiding her head like a frightened bird. She was breathing quickly, and trembling all over. I felt unutterably sorry for her. I went up to her. She averted her head still more. . . .
"Anna Nikolaevna," I said.
She suddenly drew herself up, tried to look at me. and could not. I took her hand, it was cold, and lay like a dead thing in mine.
"I wished"--Acia began, trying to smile, but unable to control her pale lips; "I wanted--No, I can't," she said, and ceased. Her voice broke at every word.
I sat down beside her.
"Anna Nikolaevna," I repeated, and I too could say nothing more.
A silence followed. I still held her hand and looked at her. She sat as before, shrinking together, breathing with difficulty, and stealthily biting her lower lip to keep back the rising tears. . . . I looked at her; there was something touchingly helpless in her timid passivity; it seemed as though she had been so exhausted she had hardly reached the chair, and had simply fallen on it. My heart began to melt. . .
"Acia," I said hardly audibly . . .
She slowly lifted her eyes to me. . . . Oh, the eyes of a woman who loves--who can describe them? They were supplicating, those eyes, they were confiding, questioning, surrendering. . . I could not resist their fascination. A subtle flame passed all through me with tingling shocks; I bent down and pressed my lips to her hand. . . .
I heard a quivering sound, like a broken sigh and I felt on my hair the touch of a feeble hand shaking like a leaf. I raised my head and looked at her face. How transformed it was all of a sudden. The expression of terror had vanished from it, her eyes looked far away and drew me after them, her lips were slightly parted, her forehead was white as marble, and her curls floated back as though the wind had stirred them. I forgot everything, I drew her to me, her hand yielded unresistingly, her whole body followed her hand, the shawl fell from her shoulders, and her head lay softly on my breast, lay under my burning lips. . . .
"Yours". . . she murmured, hardly above a breath.
My arms were slipping round her waist. But suddenly the thought of Gagin flashed like lightning before me. "What are we doing," I cried, abruptly moving back . . . "Your brother . . . why, he knows everything. . . . He knows I am with you."
Acia sank back on her chair.
"Yes," I went on, getting up and walking to the other end of the room. "Your brother knows all about it . . . I had to tell him." . . .
"You had to?" she articulated thickly. She could not, it seemed, recover herself, and hardly understood me.
"Yes, yes," I repeated with a sort of exasperation, "and it's all your fault, your fault. What did you betray your secret for? Who forced you to tell your brother? He has been with me to-day, and told me what you said to him." I tried not to look at Acia, and kept walking with long strides up and down the room. "Now everything is over, everything."
Acia tried to get up from her chair.
"Stay," I cried, "stay, I implore you. You have to do with an honourable man--yes, an honourable man. But, in Heaven's name, what upset you? Did you notice any change in me? But I could not hide my feelings from your brother when he came to me to-day."
"Why am I talking like this?" I was thinking inwardly, and the idea that I was an immoral liar, that Gagin knew of our interview, that everything was spoilt, exposed--seemed buzzing persistently in my head.
"I didn't call my brother"--I heard a frightened whisper from Acia: "he came of himself."
"See what you have done," I persisted. "Now you want to go away. . . ."
"Yes, I must go away," she murmured in the same soft voice. "I only asked you to come here to say good-bye."
"And do you suppose," I retorted, "it will be easy for me to part with you?"
"But what did you tell my brother for?" Acia said, in perplexity.
"I tell you--I could not do otherwise. If you had not yourself betrayed yourself. . . ."
"I locked myself in my room," she answered simply. "I did not know the landlady had another key. . . ."
This innocent apology on her lips at such a moment almost infuriated me at the time . . . and now I cannot think of it without emotion. Poor, honest, truthful child!
"And now everything's at an end!" I began again, "everything. Now we shall have to part." I stole a look at Acia. . . . Her face had quickly flushed crimson. She was, I felt it, both ashamed and afraid. I went on walking and talking as though in delirium. "You did not let the feeling develop which had begun to grow; you have broken off our relations yourself; you had no confidence in me; you doubted me. . . ."
While I was talking, Acia bent more and more forward, and suddenly slid on her knees, dropped her head on her arms, and began sobbing. I ran up to her an
d tried to lift her up, but she would not let me. I can't bear women's tears; at the sight of them I am at my wits' end at once.
"Anna Nikolaevna, Acia," I kept repeating, "please, I implore you, for God's sake, stop." . . . I took her hand again. . . .
But, to my immense astonishment, she suddenly jumped up, rushed with lightning swiftness to the door, and vanished. . . .
When, a few minutes later, Frau Luise came into the room I was still standing in the very middle of it, as it were, thunderstruck. I could not believe this interview could possibly have come to such a quick, such a stupid end, when I had not said a hundredth part of what I wanted to say, and what I ought to have said, when I did not know myself in what way it would be concluded. . . .
"Is Fraülein gone?" Frau Luise asked me, raising her yellow eyebrows right up to her false front.
I stared at her like a fool, and went away. XVII
I MADE my way out of the town and struck out straight into the open country. I was devoured by anger, frenzied anger. I hurled reproaches at myself. How was it I had not seen the reason that had forced Acia to change the place of our meeting; how was it I did not appreciate what it must have cost her to go to that old woman; how was it I had not kept her? Alone with her, in that dim half-dark room I had had the force, I had had the heart to repulse her, even to reproach her. . . . Now her image simply pursued me. I begged her forgiveness. The thought of that pale face, those wet and timid eyes, of her loose hair falling on the drooping neck, the light touch of her head against my breast maddened me. "Yours"--I heard her whisper. "I acted from conscientious motives," I assured myself. . . . Not true! Did I really desire such a termination? Was I capable of parting from her? Could I really do without her?
"Madman! madman!" I repeated with exasperation. . . .
Meanwhile night was coming on. I walked with long strides towards the house where Acia lived. XVIII
GAGIN came out to meet me.
"Have you seen my sister?" he shouted to me while I was still some distance off.
"Why, isn't she at home?" I asked.
"No."
"She hasn't come back?"
"No. I was in fault," Gagin went on. "I couldn't restrain myself. Contrary to our agreement, I went to the chapel; she was not there; didn't she come, then?"
"She hasn't been at the chapel?"
"And you haven't seen her?"
I was obliged to admit I had seen her.
"Where?"
"At Frau Luise's. I parted from her an hour ago," I added. "I felt sure she had come home."
"We will wait a little," said Gagin.
We went into the house and sat down near each other. We were silent. We both felt very uncomfortable. We were continually looking round, staring at the door, listening. At last Gagin got up.
"Oh, this is beyond anything!" he cried. "My heart's in my mouth. She'll be the death of me, by God! . . . Let's go and look for her."
We went out. It was quite dark by now, outside.
"What did you talk about to her?" Gagin asked me, as he pulled his hat over his eyes.
"I only saw her for five minutes," I answered. "I talked to her as we agreed."
"Do you know what?" he replied, "it's better for us to separate. In that way we are more likely to come across her before long. In any case come back here within an hour." XIX
I WENT hurriedly down from the vineyard and rushed into the town. I walked rapidly through all the streets, looked in all directions, even at Frau Luise's windows, went back to the Rhine, and ran along the bank. . . . From time to time I was met by women's figures, but Acia was nowhere to be seen. There was no anger gnawing at my heart now. I was tortured by a secret terror, and it was not only terror that I felt . . . no, I felt remorse, the most intense regret, and love,--yes! the tenderest love. I wrung my hands. I called "Acia" through the falling darkness of the night, first in a low voice, then louder and louder; I repeated a hundred times over that I loved her. I vowed I would never part from her. I would have given everything in the world to hold her cold hand again, to hear again her soft voice, to see her again before me. . . . She had been so near, she had come to me, her mind perfectly. made up, in perfect innocence of heart and feelings, she had offered me her unsullied youth . . . and I had not folded her to my breast, I had robbed myself of the bliss of watching her sweet face blossom with delight and the peace of rapture. . . This thought drove me out of my mind.
"Where can she have gone? What can she have done with herself?" I cried in an agony of helpless despair. . . . I caught a glimpse of something white on the very edge of the river. I knew the place; there stood there, over the tomb of a man who had been drowned seventy years ago, a stone cross half-buried in the ground, bearing an old inscription. My heart sank . . . I ran up to the cross; the white figure vanished. I shouted "Acia!" I felt frightened myself by my uncanny voice, but no one called back.
I resolved to go and see whether Gagin had found her. XX
As I climbed swiftly up the vineyard path I caught sight of a light in Acia's room. . . . This reassured me a little.
I went up to the house. Th e door below was fastened. I knocked. A window on the ground floor was cautiously opened, and Gagin's head appeared.
"Have you found her?" I asked.
"She has come back," he answered in a whisper. "She is in her own room undressing. Everything is all right."
"Thank God!" I cried, in an indescribable rush of joy. "Thank God! now everything is right. But you know we must have another talk."
"Another time," he replied, softly drawing the casement towards him. "Another time; but now good-bye."
"Till to-morrow," I said. "To-morrow everything shall be arranged."
"Good-bye," repeated Gagin. The window was closed. I was on the point of knocking at the window. I was on the point of telling Gagin there and then that I wanted to ask him for his sister's hand. But such a proposal at such a time. . . . "To-morrow," I reflected, "to-morrow I shall be happy. . . ."
To-morrow I shall be happy! Happiness has no to-morrow, no yesterday; it thinks not on the past, and dreams not of the future; it has the present--not a day even--a moment.
I don't remember how I got to Z. It was not my legs that carried me, nor a boat that ferried me across; I felt that I was borne along by great, mighty wings. I passed a bush where a nightingale was singing. I stopped and listened long; I fancied it sang my love and happiness. XXI
WHEN next morning I began to approach the little house I knew so well, I was struck with one circumstance; all the windows in it were open, and the door too stood open; some bits of paper were lying about in front of the doorway; a maidservant appeared with a broom at the door.
I went up to her. . . .
"They are gone!" she bawled, before I had time to inquire whether Gagin was at home.
"Gone?" . . . I repeated. "What do you mean by gone? Where?"
"They went away this morning at six o'clock, and didn't say where. Wait a minute, I believe you're Mr. N----, aren't you?"
"I'm Mr. N----, yes."
"The mistress has a letter for you." The maid went up-stairs and returned with a letter. "Here it is, if you please, sir."
"But it's impossible. . . . how can it be?". . . I was beginning. The servant stared blankly at me, and began sweeping.
I opened the letter. Gagin had written it; there was not one word from Acia. He began with begging me not to be angry at his sudden departure; he felt sure that, on mature consideration, I should approve of his decision. He could find no other way out of a position which might become difficult and dangerous. "Yesterday evening," he wrote, "while we were both waiting in silence for Acia, I realised conclusively the necessity of separation. There are prejudices I respect; I can understand that it's impossible for you to marry Acia. She has told me everything; for the sake of her peace of mind, I was bound to yield to her reiterated urgent entreaties." At the end of the letter he expressed his regret that our acquaintance had come to such a speedy termina
tion, wished me every happiness, shook my hand in friendship, and besought me not to try to seek them out.
"What prejudices?" I cried aloud, as though he could hear me; "what rubbish! What right has he to snatch her from me? . . ." I clutched at my head.
The servant began loudly calling for her mistress; her alarm forced me to control myself. One idea was aflame within me; to find them, to find them wherever they might be. To accept this blow, to resign myself to such a calamity was impossible. I learnt from the landlady that they had got on to a steamer at six o'clock in the morning, and were going down the Rhine. I went to the ticket-office; there I was told they had taken tickets for Cologne. I was going home to pack up at once and follow them. I happened to pass the house of Frau Luise. . . . Suddenly I heard some one calling me. I raised my head, and at the window of the very room where I had met Acia the day before, I saw the burgomaster's widow. She smiled her loathsome smile, and called me. I turned away, and was going on; but she called after me that she had something for me. These words brought me to a halt, and I went into her house. How can I describe my feelings when I saw that room again? . . .
"By rights," began the old woman, showing me a little note; "I oughtn't to have given you this unless you'd come to me of your own accord, but you are such a fine young man. Take it."
I took the note.
On a tiny scrap of paper stood the following words, hurriedly scribbled in pencil:
"Good-bye, we shall not see each other again. It is not through pride that I'm going away--no, I can't help it. Yesterday when I was crying before you, if you had said one word to me, only one word--I should have stayed. You did not say it. It seems it is better so . . . Good-bye for ever!"
One word . . . Oh, madman that I was! That word . . . I had repeated it the night before with tears, I had flung it to the wind, I had said it over and over again among the empty fields . . . but I did not say it to her, I did not tell her I loved her . . . Indeed, I could not have uttered that word then. When I met her in that fatal room, I had as yet no clear consciousness of my love; it had not fully awakened even when I was sitting with her brother in senseless and burdensome silence . . . it flamed up with irrepressible force only a few instants later, when, terrified by the possibility of misfortune, I began to seek and call her . . . but then it was already too late. "But that's impossible!" I shall be told; I don't know whether it's possible, I know that it's the truth. Acia would not have gone away if there had been the faintest shade of coquetry in her, and if her position had not been a false one. She could not put up with what any other girl would have endured; I did not realise that. My evil genius had arrested an avowal on my lips at my last interview with Gagin at the darkened window, and the last thread I might have caught at, had slipped out of my fingers.
A Lear of the Steppes and Other Stories Page 14
