XV
For the next five or six days I hardly saw Zinaïda; she said she was ill, which did not, however, prevent the usual visitors from calling at the lodge to pay—as they expressed it, their duty—all, that is, except Meidanov, who promptly grew dejected and sulky when he had not an opportunity of being enthusiastic. Byelovzorov sat sullen and red-faced in a corner, buttoned up to the throat; on the refined face of Malevsky there flickered continually an evil smile; he had really fallen into disfavour with Zinaïda, and waited with special assiduity on the old princess, and even went with her in a hired coach to call on the Governor-General. This expedition turned out unsuccessful, however, and even led to an unpleasant experience for Malevsky; he was reminded of some scandal to do with certain officers of the engineers, and was forced in his explanations to plead his youth and inexperience at the time. Lushin came twice a day, but did not stay long; I was rather afraid of him after our last unreserved conversation, and at the same time felt a genuine attraction to him. He went a walk with me one day in the Neskutchny gardens, was very good-natured and nice, told me the names and properties of various plants and flowers, and suddenly, à propos of nothing at all, cried, hitting himself on his forehead, “And I, poor fool, thought her a flirt! it’s clear self-sacrifice is sweet for some people!”
“What do you mean by that?” I inquired.
“I don’t mean to tell you anything,” Lushin replied abruptly.
Zinaïda avoided me; my presence—I could not help noticing it—affected her disagreeably. She involuntarily turned away from me … involuntarily; that was what was so bitter, that was what crushed me! But there was no help for it, and I tried not to cross her path, and only to watch her from a distance, in which I was not always successful. As before, something incomprehensible was happening to her; her face was different, she was different altogether. I was specially struck by the change that had taken place in her one warm still evening. I was sitting on a low garden bench under a spreading elderbush; I was fond of that nook; I could see from there the window of Zinaïda’s room. I sat there; over my head a little bird was busily hopping about in the darkness of the leaves; a grey cat, stretching herself at full length, crept warily about the garden, and the first beetles were heavily droning in the air, which was still clear, though it was not light. I sat and gazed at the window, and waited to see if it would open; it did open, and Zinaïda appeared at it. She had on a white dress, and she herself, her face, shoulders, and arms, were pale to whiteness. She stayed a long while without moving, and looked out straight before her from under her knitted brows. I had never known such a look on her. Then she clasped her hands tightly, raised them to her lips, to her forehead, and suddenly pulling her fingers apart, she pushed back her hair behind her ears, tossed it, and with a sort of determination nodded her head, and slammed-to the window.
Three days later she met me in the garden. I was turning away, but she stopped me of herself.
“Give me your arm,” she said to me with her old affectionateness, “it’s a long while since we have had a talk together.”
I stole a look at her; her eyes were full of a soft light, and her face seemed as it were smiling through a mist.
“Are you still not well?” I asked her.
“No, that’s all over now,” she answered, and she picked a small red rose. “I am a little tired, but that too will pass off.”
“And will you be as you used to be again?” I asked.
Zinaïda put the rose up to her face, and I fancied the reflection of its bright petals had fallen on her cheeks. “Why, am I changed?” she questioned me.
“Yes, you are changed,” I answered in a low voice.
“I have been cold to you, I know,” began Zinaïda, “but you mustn’t pay attention to that … I couldn’t help it…. Come, why talk about it!”
“You don’t want me to love you, that’s what it is!” I cried gloomily, in an involuntary outburst.
“No, love me, but not as you did.”
“How then?”
“Let us be friends—come now!” Zinaïda gave me the rose to smell. “Listen, you know I’m much older than you—I might be your aunt, really; well, not your aunt, but an older sister. And you …”
“You think me a child,” I interrupted.
“Well, yes, a child, but a dear, good clever one, whom I love very much. Do you know what? From this day forth I confer on you the rank of page to me; and don’t you forget that pages have to keep close to their ladies. Here is the token of your new dignity,” she added, sticking the rose in the buttonhole of my jacket, “the token of my favour.”
“I once received other favours from you,” I muttered.
“Ah!” commented Zinaïda, and she gave me a sidelong look, “What a memory he has! Well? I’m quite ready now …” And stooping to me, she imprinted on my forehead a pure, tranquil kiss.
I only looked at her, while she turned away, and saying, “Follow me, my page,” went into the lodge. I followed her—all in amazement. “Can this gentle, reasonable girl,” I thought, “be the Zinaïda I used to know?” I fancied her very walk was quieter, her whole figure statelier and more graceful …
And, mercy! with what fresh force love burned within me!
XVI
After dinner the usual party assembled again at the lodge, and the young princess came out to them. All were there in full force, just as on that first evening which I never forgot; even Nirmatsky had limped to see her; Meidanov came this time earliest of all, he brought some new verses. The games of forfeits began again, but without the strange pranks, the practical jokes and noise—the gipsy element had vanished. Zinaïda gave a different tone to the proceedings. I sat beside her by virtue of my office as page. Among other things, she proposed that any one who had to pay a forfeit should tell his dream; but this was not successful. The dreams were either uninteresting (Byelovzorov had dreamed that he fed his mare on carp, and that she had a wooden head), or unnatural and invented. Meidanov regaled us with a regular romance; there were sepulchres in it, and angels with lyres, and talking flowers and music wafted from afar. Zinaïda did not let him finish. “If we are to have compositions,” she said, “let every one tell something made up, and no pretence about it.” The first who had to speak was again Byelovzorov.
The young hussar was confused. “I can’t make up anything!” he cried.
“What nonsense!” said Zinaïda. “Well, imagine, for instance, you are married, and tell us how you would treat your wife. Would you lock her up?”
“Yes, I should lock her up.”
“And would you stay with her yourself?”
“Yes, I should certainly stay with her myself.”
“Very good. Well, but if she got sick of that, and she deceived you?”
“I should kill her.”
“And if she ran away?”
“I should catch her up and kill her all the same.”
“Oh. And suppose now I were your wife, what would you do then?”
Byelovzorov was silent a minute. “I should kill myself….”
Zinaïda laughed. “I see yours is not a long story.”
The next forfeit was Zinaïda’s. She looked at the ceiling and considered. “Well, listen, she began at last, “what I have thought of…. Picture to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer night, and a marvellous ball. This ball is given by a young queen. Everywhere gold and marble, crystal, silk, lights, diamonds, flowers, fragrant scents, every caprice of luxury.”
“You love luxury?” Lushin interposed.
“Luxury is beautiful,” she retorted; “I love everything beautiful.”
“More than what is noble?” he asked.
“That’s something clever, I don’t understand it. Don’t interrupt me. So the ball is magnificent. There are crowds of guests, all of them are young, handsome, and brave, all are frantically in love with the queen.”
“Are there no women among the guests?” queried Malevsky.
“No—or wait a minute—yes, there are some.”
“Are they all ugly?”
“No, charming. But the men are all in love with the queen. She is tall and graceful; she has a little gold diadem on her black hair.”
I looked at Zinaïda, and at that instant she seemed to me so much above all of us, there was such bright intelligence, and such power about her unruffled brows, that I thought: “You are that queen!”
“They all throng about her,” Zinaïda went on, “and all lavish the most flattering speeches upon her.”
“And she likes flattery?” Lushin queried.
“What an intolerable person! he keeps interrupting … who doesn’t like flattery?”
“One more last question,” observed Malevsky, “has the queen a husband?”
“I hadn’t thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?”
“To be sure,” assented Malevsky, “why should she have a husband?”
“Silence!” cried Meidanov in French, which he spoke very badly.
“Merci!” Zinaïda said to him. “And so the queen hears their speeches, and hears the music, but does not look at one of the guests. Six windows are open from top to bottom, from floor to ceiling, and beyond them is a dark sky with big stars, a dark garden with big trees. The queen gazes out into the garden. Out there among the trees is a fountain; it is white in the darkness, and rises up tall, tall as an apparition. The queen hears, through the talk and the music, the soft splash of its waters. She gazes and thinks: you are all, gentlemen, noble, clever, and rich, you crowd round me, you treasure every word I utter, you are all ready to die at my feet, I hold you in my power … but out there, by the fountain, by that splashing water, stands and waits he whom I love, who holds me in his power. He has neither rich raiment nor precious stones, no one knows him, but he awaits me, and is certain I shall come—and I shall come—and there is no power that could stop me when I want to go out to him, and to stay with him, and be lost with him out there in the darkness of the garden, under the whispering of the trees, and the splash of the fountain …” Zinaïda ceased.
“Is that a made-up story?” Malevsky inquired slyly. Zinaïda did not even look at him.
“And what should we have done, gentlemen?” Lushin began suddenly, “if we had been among the guests, and had known of the lucky fellow at the fountain?”
“Stop a minute, stop a minute,” interposed Zinaïda, “I will tell you myself what each of you would have done. You, Byelovzorov, would have challenged him to a duel; you, Meidanov, would have written an epigram on him … No, though, you can’t write epigrams, you would have made up a long poem on him in the style of Barbier, and would have inserted your production in the Telegraph. You, Nirmatsky, would have borrowed … no, you would have lent him money at high interest; you, doctor,…” she stopped. “There, I really don’t know what you would have done….”
“In the capacity of court physician,” answered Lushin, “I would have advised the queen not to give balls when she was not in the humour for entertaining her guests….”
“Perhaps you would have been right. And you, Count?…”
“And I?” repeated Malevsky with his evil smile….
“You would offer him a poisoned sweetmeat.” Malevsky’s face changed slightly, and assumed for an instant a Jewish expression, but he laughed directly.
“And as for you, Voldemar,…” Zinaïda went on, “but that’s enough, though; let us play another game.”
“M’sieu Voldemar, as the queen’s page, would have held up her train when she ran into the garden,” Malevsky remarked malignantly.
I was crimson with anger, but Zinaïda hurriedly laid a hand on my shoulder, and getting up, said in a rather shaky voice: “I have never given your excellency the right to be rude, and therefore I will ask you to leave us.” She pointed to the door.
“Upon my word, princess,” muttered Malevsky, and he turned quite pale.
“The princess is right,” cried Byelovzorov, and he too rose.
“Good God, I’d not the least idea,” Malevsky went on, “in my words there was nothing, I think, that could … I had no notion of offending you…. Forgive me.”
Zinaïda looked him up and down coldly, and coldly smiled. “Stay, then, certainly,” she pronounced with a careless gesture of her arm.
“M’sieu Voldemar and I were needlessly incensed. It is your pleasure to sting … may it do you good.”
“Forgive me,” Malevsky repeated once more; while I, my thoughts dwelling on Zinaïda’s gesture, said to myself again that no real queen could with greater dignity have shown a presumptuous subject to the door.
The game of forfeits went on for a short time after this little scene; every one felt rather ill at ease, not so much on account of this scene, as from another, not quite definite, but oppressive feeling. No one spoke of it, but every one was conscious of it in himself and in his neighbour. Meidanov read us his verses; and Malevsky praised them with exaggerated warmth. “He wants to show how good he is now,” Lushin whispered to me. We soon broke up. A mood of reverie seemed to have come upon Zinaïda; the old princess sent word that she had a headache; Nirmatsky began to complain of his rheumatism….
I could not for a long while get to sleep. I had been impressed by Zinaïda’s story. “Can there have been a hint in it?” I asked myself: “and at whom and at what was she hinting? And if there really is anything to hint at … how is one to make up one’s mind? No, no, it can’t be,” I whispered, turning over from one hot cheek on to the other…. But I remembered the expression of Zinaïda’s face during her story…. I remembered the exclamation that had broken from Lushin in the Neskutchny gardens, the sudden change in her behaviour to me, and I was lost in conjectures. “Who is he?” These three words seemed to stand before my eyes traced upon the darkness; a lowering malignant cloud seemed hanging over me, and I felt its oppressiveness, and waited for it to break. I had grown used to many things of late; I had learned much from what I had seen at the Zasyekins; their disorderly ways, tallow candle-ends, broken knives and forks, grumpy Vonifaty, and shabby maid-servants, the manners of the old princess—all their strange mode of life no longer struck me…. But what I was dimly discerning now in Zinaïda, I could never get used to…. “An adventuress!” my mother had said of her one day. An adventuress—she, my idol, my divinity? This word stabbed me, I tried to get away from it into my pillow, I was indignant—and at the same time what would I not have agreed to, what would I not have given only to be that lucky fellow at the fountain!… My blood was on fire and boiling within me. “The garden … the fountain,” I mused…. “I will go into the garden.” I dressed quickly and slipped out of the house. The night was dark, the trees scarcely whispered, a soft chill air breathed down from the sky, a smell of fennel trailed across from the kitchen garden. I went through all the walks; the light sound of my own footsteps at once confused and emboldened me; I stood still, waited and heard my heart beating fast and loudly. At last I went up to the fence and leaned against the thin bar. Suddenly, or was it my fancy, a woman’s figure flashed by, a few paces from me … I strained my eyes eagerly into the darkness, I held my breath. What was that? Did I hear steps, or was it my heart beating again? “Who is here?” I faltered, hardly audibly. What was that again, a smothered laugh … or a rustling in the leaves … or a sigh just at my ear? I felt afraid … “Who is here?” I repeated still more softly.
The air blew in a gust for an instant; a streak of fire flashed across the sky; it was a star falling. “Zinaïda?” I wanted to call, but the word died away on my lips. And all at once everything became profoundly still around, as is often the case in the middle of the night…. Even the grasshoppers ceased their churr in the trees—only a window rattled somewhere. I stood and stood, and then went back to my room, to my chilled bed. I felt a strange sensation; as though I had gone to a tryst, and had been left lonely, and had passed close by another’s happiness.
XVII
The following day I only had a passing glimpse of Zinaïda: she was driving somewhere with the old princess in a cab. But I saw Lushin, who, however, barely vouchsafed me a greeting, and Malevsky. The young count grinned, and began affably talking to me. Of all those who visited at the lodge, he alone had succeeded in forcing his way into our house, and had favourably impressed my mother. My father did not take to him, and treated him with a civility almost insulting.
“Ah, monsieur le page,” began Malevsky, “delighted to meet you. What is your lovely queen doing?”
His fresh handsome face was so detestable to me at that moment, and he looked at me with such contemptuous amusement that I did not answer him at all.
“Are you still angry?” he went on. “You’ve no reason to be. It wasn’t I who called you a page, you know, and pages attend queens especially. But allow me to remark that you perform your duties very badly.”
“How so?”
“Pages ought to be inseparable from their mistresses; pages ought to know everything they do, they ought, indeed, to watch over them,” he added, lowering his voice, “day and night.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I express myself pretty clearly, I fancy. Day and night. By day it’s not so much matter; it’s light, and people are about in the daytime; but by night, then look out for misfortune. I advise you not to sleep at nights and to watch, watch with all your energies. You remember, in the garden, by night, at the fountain, that’s where there’s need to look out. You will thank me.”
Malevsky laughed and turned his back on me. He, most likely, attached no great importance to what he had said to me, he had a reputation for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious falsity in which his whole nature was steeped…. He only wanted to tease me; but every word he uttered was a poison that ran through my veins. The blood rushed to my head. “Ah! so that’s it!” I said to myself; “good! So there was reason for me to feel drawn into the garden! That shan’t be so!” I cried aloud, and struck myself on the chest with my fist, though precisely what should not be so I could not have said. “Whether Malevsky himself goes into the garden,” I thought (he was bragging, perhaps; he has insolence enough for that), “or some one else (the fence of our garden was very low, and there was no difficulty in getting over it), anyway, if any one falls into my hands, it will be the worse for him! I don’t advise any one to meet me! I will prove to all the world and to her, the traitress (I actually used the word “traitress” ) that I can be revenged!”
I returned to my own room, took out of the writing-table an English knife I had recently bought, felt its sharp edge, and knitting my brows with an air of cold and concentrated determination, thrust it into my pocket, as though doing such deeds was nothing out of the way for me, and not the first time. My heart heaved angrily, and felt heavy as a stone. All day long I kept a scowling brow and lips tightly compressed, and was continually walking up and down, clutching, with my hand in my pocket, the knife, which was warm from my grasp, while I prepared myself beforehand for something terrible. These new unknown sensations so occupied and even delighted me, that I hardly thought of Zinaïda herself. I was continually haunted by Aleko, the young gipsy— “Where art thou going, young handsome man? Lie there,” and then, “thou art all besprent with blood…. Oh, what hast thou done?… Naught!” With what a cruel smile I repeated that “Naught!” My father was not at home; but my mother, who had for some time past been in an almost continual state of dumb exasperation, noticed my gloomy and heroic aspect, and said to me at supper, “Why are you sulking like a mouse in a meal-tub?” I merely smiled condescendingly in reply, and thought, “If only they knew!” It struck eleven; I went to my room, but did not undress; I waited for midnight; at last it struck. “The time has come!” I muttered between my teeth; and buttoning myself up to the throat, and even pulling my sleeves up, I went into the garden.
I had already fixed on the spot from which to keep watch. At the end of the garden, at the point where the fence, separating our domain from the Zasyekins,’ joined the common wall, grew a pine-tree, standing alone. Standing under its low thick branches, I could see well, as far as the darkness of the night permitted, what took place around. Close by, ran a winding path which had always seemed mysterious to me; it coiled like a snake under the fence, which at that point bore traces of having been climbed over, and led to a round arbour formed of thick acacias. I made my way to the pine-tree, leaned my back against its trunk, and began my watch.
The night was as still as the night before, but there were fewer clouds in the sky, and the outlines of bushes, even of tall flowers, could be more distinctly seen. The first moments of expectation were oppressive, almost terrible. I had made up my mind to everything. I only debated how to act; whether to thunder, “Where goest thou? Stand! show thyself—or death!” or simply to strike…. Every sound, every whisper and rustle, seemed to me portentous and extraordinary…. I prepared myself…. I bent forward…. But half-an-hour passed, an hour passed; my blood had grown quieter, colder; the consciousness that I was doing all this for nothing, that I was even a little absurd, that Malevsky had been making fun of me, began to steal over me. I left my ambush, and walked all about the garden. As if to taunt me, there was not the smallest sound to be heard anywhere; everything was at rest. Even our dog was asleep, curled up into a ball at the gate. I climbed up into the ruins of the greenhouse, saw the open country far away before me, recalled my meeting with Zinaïda, and fell to dreaming….
I started…. I fancied I heard the creak of a door opening, then the faint crack of a broken twig. In two bounds I got down from the ruin, and stood still, all aghast. Rapid, light, but cautious footsteps sounded distinctly in the garden. They were approaching me. “Here he is … here he is, at last!” flashed through my heart. With spasmodic haste, I pulled the knife out of my pocket; with spasmodic haste, I opened it. Flashes of red were whirling before my eyes; my hair stood up on my head in my fear and fury…. The steps were coming straight towards me; I bent—I craned forward to meet him…. A man came into view…. My God! it was my father! I recognised him at once, though he was all muffled up in a dark cloak, and his hat was pulled down over his face. On tip-toe he walked by. He did not notice me, though nothing concealed me; but I was so huddled up and shrunk together that I fancy I was almost on the level of the ground. The jealous Othello, ready for murder, was suddenly transformed into a school-boy…. I was so taken aback by my father’s unexpected appearance that for the first moment I did not notice where he had come from or in what direction he disappeared. I only drew myself up, and thought, “Why is it my father is walking about in the garden at night?” when everything was still again. In my horror I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not even attempt to look for it; I was very much ashamed of myself. I was completely sobered at once. On my way to the house, however, I went up to my seat under the elder-tree, and looked up at Zinaïda’s window. The small slightly-convex panes of the window shone dimly blue in the faint light thrown on them by the night sky. All at once—their colour began to change…. Behind them—I saw this, saw it distinctly—softly and cautiously a white blind was let down, let down right to the window-frame, and so stayed.
“What is that for?” I said aloud almost involuntarily when I found myself once more in my room. “A dream, a chance, or …” The suppositions which suddenly rushed into my head were so new and strange that I did not dare to entertain them.