Part 11

"Ah, yes; and she will probably sacrifice herself," says Lensky, with a grim laugh. "But none of that. I will not leave my poor little dove any longer to strange oversight. If the child must go to St. Maurice, I will go with her. If only these stupid, insolent women would not follow me everywhere! I am so weary of that, so heartily weary. You are astonished! Yes, it has suddenly dawned upon me that it is all over--all--I am old. Ah! how pleasant it is to be old, no longer perpetually to have a storm in one's veins, to be able to calmly rejoice in those whom one loves." He laughs, and takes Nikolai good-naturedly by the arm. "Well, now, about your great affair. When shall I learn to know my daughter-in-law? You are not the only one who raves about her. Lady Banbury swears by no one more than by her. I wrote you it. I knew it would please you. I was very foolish with my mistrust. Why do you say nothing? How do matters stand between you?"

"How do they stand?" murmurs Nikolai, dully, half confused, as one who has suddenly been awakened from a peaceful dream. "How do they stand?"

"Well?" says Lensky, becoming impatient, harshly.

Nikolai passes his hand slowly here and there over the table-cloth, coughs, says nothing. Lensky takes the shade from the lamp, bends down, squints, looks in a pale face with a stiff, unexpressive smile on the lips.

He strikes his fist on the table so that everything rattles. "That is not to be borne!" cries he, springs up, and walks up and down the room. He hums some musical motive to himself, does not finish it, then turns again to Nikolai. "You are not a whit better than Mascha," grumbles he. "So, have I looked forward to that!" He sits down again opposite Nikolai, and vexedly pushes his plate away. "Nothing but unpleasantness! Scarcely had I reached Paris when an acquaintance met me at the station. 'Do you know that your _protege_, Bulatow, has hanged himself?' cries he, naturally to please me; and then a relation of particulars: the most absolute need; he had eaten nothing for three days; his wife half mad with grief; they were too proud to beg--yes, yes, proud--they were not too proud with me, if I had not shown him the door! I would like to cudgel Braun; as if I were happier for the few hundred rubles which he saved me! Then I hurry to Mascha to enliven me, find a hysteric, leaden-footed, melancholy being, and now--it is enough to make one beside himself! Out with it! Why do you make a face as if chickens had eaten your bread? What about your love affair?"

His tone is rough, quite harsh. He belongs to the men who at times ill-treat their kin from rage at not being able to make them happy.

"She has refused me, to-day, that is all," murmured Nikolai, turning away his head, as if in shame.

"Refused--you!" bursts out Lensky; then uneasy, confused, he draws his chair nearer to Nikolai's. "Refused you! I do not understand it!" Suddenly he takes his son's head between his hands, and looking at him with quite childish pride in his beautiful eyes, he cries out: "But that is absurd, boundlessly absurd! What will she, then, the princess, if my splendid boy is not good enough for her? No; do not think anything of it, my boy. Hold up your head, it was a misunderstanding!"

"Really--certainly! It is only the first time," murmurs Nikolai, with the same stiff smile. Then suddenly, with a gasping sob, which shakes his whole frame, he buries his face in his crossed arms on the table.

"Colia! Nikolinka! Poor boy, poor fellow!" murmurs Lensky, stroking his head very gently. "So it cuts so deep. See, I do not understand it. At first I was only vexed, reviled her because she wounded my paternal pride. But if you really love her so, we will consider the affair more closely. You poor fellow, you are quite beside yourself, and all on account of a woman! I never suffered so. I really cannot feel for you. Truly, if your mother had not wished me at that time in Rome! But she was the only one; except her, they were all alike to me. I always said one woman was only like the others. You shake your head, you are right; it is nonsense; but one always speaks so when one is vexed. Heavens! if any one permitted himself to tell me that my Mascha is no better than--but that does not belong here; we wish to speak of your affairs. I cannot believe that a girl could refuse you unless there was some one else whom she loved."

"It still seems to be the case," said Nikolai, who now, having mastered his unmanly weakness, calmly listened to his father.

"There must be some misunderstanding," says Lensky, thoughtfully. "Especially as, if your letters told the truth, she did not seem to repel you, but rather encouraged you to repeat your visits to the studio. Tell me--there were always three of you, Sonia was there--what kind of a _role_ did the little prude play between you?"

"What _role_?" Nikolai blushed. "None at all. We were always very pleasant to each other; we love each other quite like brother and sister."

"So! And the other one loves her?"

"She cares for her as the tenderest mother."

"H-m! And she refused you to-day?"

"Yes; how often do you wish to hear it from me? My God, if she had said a kind word to me, but she fairly drove me away!" Nikolai's eyes sparkle quite angrily; then he adds, slowly, heavily, but speaking plainly: "I let myself be so carried away as to kiss her hand, and she shook me off as if she had a horror of me."

"So; did she? The simpleton! Do you really believe that a girl would so rudely refuse a boy like you if she were quite sure of her heart? Torment yourself no more, Colia."

"Father!"

"The thing is plain; she sacrifices herself from friendship for Sonia. You have done a fine thing, you shy lover, you." Lensky laughs. "Never mind, we will set it all right. To-morrow, in the course of the day, I will speak with her, and, if she pleases me--you must grant me that condition, my dear--if she pleases me, then," stretching out both hands to the young man, "what reward shall I obtain if I win your plaything for you?"

Colia did not answer, only buried his long, slender hands in his father's.

"The first kiss of your betrothed, do you hear, the first," jests Lensky. "I will not do it for less. You shall only receive the second."

"Yes, father."

"Fine!" Lensky has risen. "It is almost midnight; go to bed. When do you set out?"

"To-morrow evening at nine, to Calais."

"If I bring you a happy message, will you not concede another twenty-four hours?"

Nikolai only smiles thoughtfully.

"Now be of good courage, you childish fellow; dream the most beautiful dreams, consoled. I will manage my affair well; and I will not tell her that I have seen you weep like a little girl on her account." This he whispers in his ear, while he once more embraces him before retiring.

This evening no one might have dared remind Nikolai of any of the excesses which he had formerly, not without bitterness, reproached his father with. All that had ever offended him in the great artist he had forgotten. To-day he understood the boundless love which his mother, despite all the injuries he had done her, had felt for this man. "What a wonderful man," he murmurs, "what a golden heart!"

He was really a wonderful man in his way, and generously good. Few knew how good he was. Like most prominent men, in the course of his life he had been much calumniated, by no one with more convincing cleverness than by himself. Roused by the flattery which he met everywhere to angry opposition, he ascribed his noblest actions to the lowest motives, and flatly denied every lofty emotion; and, as the Russian national peculiarity of self-depreciation is quite unknown in Western Europe, his listeners took all that he said about himself as plain truth.

But, indeed, he was a thoroughly large-hearted man, and unusually conscientious to his colleagues. One could not charge him with smallness, or any trace of pitiful envy. He had injured few men but himself. He had never crushed a weaker than he in order to take his place, but, on the contrary, was always ready to raise all strugglers and cordially give them his hand.

Bulatow's suicide had deeply concerned him. While Nikolai slept peacefully, Lensky did not close his eyes. Incessantly the thought of the unfortunate whom he had driven from his door the last time he had applied to him for a loan pursued him--the thought of the dead, and of his widow, half mad with grief.

When he joined Nikolai at breakfast the next morning he looked miserably, and the first that he said to his son was: "I have thought over your affair; everything confirms my suspicion. You need have no fear, my poor boy, but you must have a little patience. With the best will I cannot visit her this morning. I must go to this poor Bulatow and see how things are with her, what she will let me do for her; I cannot bear the thought of her misery."

XXIII.

Monday in Whitsun-week. Blue heavens, with slowly piling up storm-clouds, and in all Paris a close, oppressive heat. Toward two o'clock a cab rolls up the Rue Blanche. In the cab sits Mascha, a large bouquet of white roses on her knees. Her blue eyes are strangely staring.

"Is Fraeulein von Sankjewitch in her studio?" asks Mascha, of the _concierge_, as she leaves the cab.

"Yes, mademoiselle."

Mascha hesitates a moment, as if she were not prepared for that; then she says: "Give her the roses from--" Just then Nita crosses the sill.

"Ah!" cries she, gayly, "you have come again at last. Please come in."

"No, no," replies Mascha, in great haste and excitement. "I cannot stay; I only wished to bring you the roses--for good-by."

"For good-by. How so?"

"Papa came yesterday, and----"

"You are going away with him." Nita completed the sentence. "Well, they are very beautiful, your roses, but still I will not accept them if you do not come in. You owe me a great many visits, little dove; come in," she urges, energetically.

One moment Mascha hesitates, then she accepts the invitation. "Only a moment," she murmurs. "I should like to see your studio once more, a last time, and your new picture. Colia said it is so beautiful."

"See! There it stands on the easel," says Nita, while she arranges the roses in a vase.

Mascha went up to the painting. It represented the corpse of a drowned girl, resting on a bier. Her garments drip with water, and so do the outstretched thin limbs, which make the impression of having been recently taken from the water. All this is painted with wonderfully bold truthfulness, but the charm of the face, the touchingly contented smile of the dead, reconciles the spectator with the painfulness of the subject.

"How did you think of it?" says Mascha, shuddering.

"I saw it in the morgue," explains Nita. "On a Sunday, shortly after the opening of the Salon, we were very gay, Nikolai, Sonia, and I. We went in the morgue, as if in defiance, but when I came out my heart was so full that I felt at once that I would make a picture of it. That is my way of ridding myself of an unpleasant impression."

Mascha stares with wide eyes at the picture. "Who stood model for it?" murmurs she.

"A little seamstress."

"How content she looks. Do you believe that a dead person can look so satisfied?" Mascha speaks as softly and solemnly as if a true corpse were before her.

"The drowned girl in the morgue had this expression. Besides, I have often noticed it in dead people. Have you never seen a corpse?"

"Never!" says Mascha, shaking her head--"never!"

"Not even your mother?"

"Not even she--I would not. I was afraid." And seizing Nita convulsively by the wrist, she asked breathlessly: "Nita, do you believe that there is a second life after this one?"

If anyone else had asked this question of Nita, she would probably have answered all kinds of things. To the child, evidently tormented by anxiety, she only answered earnestly and simply: "Yes," whereupon she added: "And now come away from the horrid picture. I would not have asked you to look at it if I had not forgotten what a nervous little person you are. Now make yourself comfortable. You will spend the afternoon with me." And Nita wished to take her hat.

Mascha pushed her off. "I must go, I must go," she repeated, with the same hasty uneasiness. Suddenly she herself took off her hat. "Only a little while--a little while," she whispered. "Sit down in the arm-chair, Nita, so, and I here." She crouched down on a cushion at her friend's feet; then laying her head down on Nita's knees, she begs: "And now love me a little; be good to me, very good; you can be so well!"

It is very close even here in the large, airy studio. Already Nita believes that Mascha has fallen asleep, when she murmurs: "What do you call it?"

"What?"

"Your picture."

"Martyr."

"Ah! martyr--martyr--and--do you not believe that she killed herself? It is wrong to kill one's self."

Nita says nothing.

"And--do you not think--that she killed herself--because"--Mascha murmurs this softly to the folds of Nita's dress--"because she had done something wrong?"

"But, Maschenka, how do you come by such thoughts?" Nita says it quite reproachfully.

Maschenka is silent, and Nita continues to stroke her hair gently, like a tender mother who lulls her sick child to sleep. After a while Maschenka begins anew. "Nita," whispers she, and her voice sounds so weary and choked that Nita only with difficulty understands her, "could you ever love any one if you knew that he had done something wrong?"

"What do you mean?" asks Nita, and feels that the young being leaning against her trembles as with a violent chill.

"Can you understand that one can do something really wrong, something wholly wrong, without being bad himself?"

For an instant Nita hesitates, then she says: "Yes, I believe so. Yes--but what wrong can you have done?"

"I--oh, nothing; naturally, it is no question of me," assures Mascha, hastily. "Only when one lives so alone, and has no one to whom one can speak, all sorts of thoughts come to one. It is foolish----"

"No!" cries out Nita, hastily. "It is not foolish, it is sad. How could one leave you with those uncongenial people this long, long time?"

Mascha only silently shrugs her shoulders.

"But now it is over. You will be happy. You will again be healthy and happy."

"Yes," murmurs Mascha, scarcely audibly--"happy--healthy!"

"If I only knew you far away from this dusty sultriness," says Nita, "somewhere where it is shady, cool, where fresh roses bloom each day, where the air is almost as fresh in the evening as it is in the morning. You long to be away?"

"Yes," murmured Mascha, "I long to be away--away from the houses, from people, from the heat, far away, anywhere where it is cool, very cool!"

"Poor heart, my poor little darling!"

After a while Mascha whispers: "Do you remember how, the first time I came here, I was afraid of the skull? You were so dear and good to me. I loved you from that moment."

"And I you, my angel. You must not forget me. You must write to me sometimes. Promise me?"

But Mascha says nothing, only kisses repeatedly the young Austrian's slender hands. Suddenly she springs up. "Now the time is past. Adieu!" she cries. "Adieu!" She embraces her friend violently, and then pushes her quickly from her. Quite before Nita perceives it, she has slipped out of the studio and into the cab. From the window she kisses her hand to her. Will Nita ever forget the staring look which the child gave her?

It has grown quite dark. It is pouring. Further painting is not to be thought of. Nita would really like to go home, but her art dealer has appointed four o'clock to call. He will not come in this storm--there! Is not that a carriage rolling into the yard? There is a ring at her door, she opens. Who is that? She has to hold to a chair not to sink down. Lensky!

In spite of the gloom she sees him plainly--the large frame, with its now slightly stooping broad shoulders, the face surrounded by long, half-curled hair.

She stands with her back to the light. He sees nothing but the dark outline, but this outline pleases him; her carriage, the shape of her little, proudly carried head, has something sympathetic, and the perfume of iris and violets which is about her is pleasant to him. Colia seems to have shown good taste.

If only the ice were broken. It is hard to find the first word!

Slowly, and moving backward, she has reached the middle of the room. She speaks no word of welcome, offers him no chair, does not once ask him what brings him.

"An unbidden guest," he begins constrainedly, but with a smile of heart-winning graciousness. "I do not know if you know me--by sight, I mean?"

She shudders without answering.

"Well, yes, you know me. I am so-and-so, but to you I am now only the father of a poor young man whom you have greatly pained." He pauses as if he expects that she will say something, but she is silent, only retreats a step. It is as if he should speak to a picture or statue. What is the matter with her? Well, he has promised the boy to speak with her. Now she turns her head a little, he perceives her profile; she is charming, it cannot be denied, and what pride and defiance! It will be hard to win her, but it is worth the trouble to try it.

"You evidently find me very impertinent," he begins anew, half-laughingly, "but it cannot be helped; you will not succeed in shaking me off until I have made you speak. I was initiated in Colia's affair, and was rejoiced at the happiness on which I had already begun to count for him, when yesterday he confessed to me his despair, and looked so miserable, and yet bore up so bravely, that I promised him to more accurately fathom your obstinate heart. I really cannot understand that a warm-hearted, fine-feeling being such as you must be, from Nikolai's description, should refuse my son. But what is the matter? Why do you not answer a word? You are evidently defiant, of strong character, will not betray the friend for whom you sacrificed yourself. Have I guessed it, my child? I should like to see your face once." He stretches his head forward and looks at her attentively. "And you are very, very charming; it is worth the pains to conquer you, and I will conquer you." He wishes to take her hand, but she draws it away hastily.

It has grown somewhat lighter. With an angry gesture Nita has turned her face fully to the old artist. Her eyes are full of a repellent pride, which is mixed with horror. He looks at her closely. A horrible misgiving takes possession of him. "Have I not already seen you?" His and her eyes meet. "Great God!" He stamps his foot. A moment he stands as if petrified with horror. "Forgive!" he murmurs, scarce audibly; then, holding his hand over his eyes, he leaves the room.

XXIV.

"Well?" Nikolai cries out to his father.

For an hour he has been sitting in the virtuoso's parlor, impatiently awaiting his return; sits there with a newspaper in his hand, with a high-beating heart, which he tries to persuade that hope is a frivolous deceiver on which one should not rely. One glance at Lensky's face suffices to convince the formerly so obstinate heart.

"It is nothing," murmured Lensky, quite confusedly; "nothing. It cannot be; you must submit; it is never otherwise!" And, as if to cut off all further explanation, he asks: "Was no one here in my absence? No visitor?"

"No one came up here," replies Nikolai. "I thought it would be in vain," stammered he, with difficulty preserving his composure. "But you were so convinced. So, then, nothing--no reason?" And, with a pitiable smile, he adds: "It must be borne! A very good article in the _Times_, on Hector Berlioz; you should read it. How stupid I am, I have torn the sheet. Pardon!" He still rests his eyes supplicatingly on his father, as if he hoped he would tell him more explicitly how it had all been. But the virtuoso is silent. He only murmurs something to himself, then sits down, with his back to Nikolai, near the chimney, and stares into the dull fire-place.

"Did--did she displease you?" asks Nikolai.

Lensky does not reply.

Meanwhile, there is a loud knock at the door. Every one comes to see Lensky without being announced; that is an acknowledged custom.

"Come in!" calls he, harshly.

A tall, slender man, dressed in the latest fashion, enters. Valerian Kyrillowitch Kasin, Sonia's father.

"What joy to meet you here in Paris!" he says to the virtuoso. "We two have enjoyed life together here in our time, you and I!"

"Yes, very much," murmurs Lensky.

"What an atmosphere!" raves Kasin. "It goes to one's head like champagne. I am intoxicated, fairly intoxicated. Guess whom I found again in Paris--our Senta, from Vienna."

"I have no idea whom you mean," says Lensky, with poorly concealed uneasiness.

"The charming girl whose acquaintance we made at the Njikitjin's in Vienna. We named her Senta, because she fell in love with your picture, Boris, quite like the Wagnerian enthusiast with the picture of the Flying Dutchman. I scarcely knew that she had another name."

"It is unbearably close here," murmurs Lensky, and pulls at his collar. "Please open the window, Nikolai."

Nikolai does so, and remains standing near the window.

"I do not remember," says Lensky.

"Really, you do not remember? But, _a propos_, if it does not inconvenience you, could you lend me one or two thousand francs? I have already telegraphed to St. Petersburg."

"I beg you, Nikolai, take two thousand-franc notes from the desk in my bed room. Here is the key."

Nikolai takes the key and goes in the adjoining room, the door of which, as his father notices not without vexation, he leaves open.

"So you no longer remember her!" goes on Kasin. "That is incomprehensible to me; you were quite wild about her, enthusiastic. I had never seen you thus before about a girl. I met her one evening at Njikitjin's, only one evening, but I remember her very well. She had, indeed, no incense for me; she saw and heard at that time nothing but Lensky. You must remember her. They called her Senta in the Njikitjin set."

"Have you found the money, Colia?" calls Lensky, irritably, to his son.

"At once, father. The lock is rusty. I--I made a mistake in the key."

"Now her name is Fraeulein von Sankjewitch, and she is the most intimate friend of my daughter," explains Kasin. "The strangest of all is that she has never said a word about you to Sonia. Young girls usually tell each other everything. And, as she fainted last winter at one of your concerts, she has evidently not forgotten you. And you, ungrateful one, is it really worth while to please you--to please you thus? All the music-mad ladies were beside themselves with jealousy. Besides--who knows?--if you see her again she will turn your head once more. She is more charming than ever, greatly changed, but grown prettier."

Then Nikolai enters and brings the money. Soon after, Kasin leaves. Nikolai politely accompanies him to the door, which he locks behind him. In what he now has to discuss with his father he does not wish to be disturbed.

"So that was it--that," he says, slowly, as he goes up to Lensky.

"I do not understand what you mean," stammers Lensky, uneasily, but his eyes fall before the accusing glance of his son.

For a short moment deep silence rules. The blood has rushed to the virtuoso's face. He breathes heavily; wishes to say something, but does not bring it out.

"You have guessed!" cries out Nikolai. "But it was only a trifle! It was six years ago--she was a child at that time, a child intoxicated with music, irresponsible from enthusiasm. One must not be too severe! Ah!" with a hoarse groan. "Still, it is all the same, and you were right, and I was a fool!" He hurries out. Then a heavy hand seizes him by the shoulder.

"Colia, stay!" cries Lensky.

"Father!"

"It is not as you think," says Lensky, slowly, raising his bowed head. He is now deathly pale.