Part 7

He lays his heavy, warm hand on the young man's shoulder; his voice sounds hoarse and broken, while he continues: "Yes, yes, we will agree that I am mistaken, that something beautiful is before you. See, of the three things which were dearest to me, I have crushed two--your mother and my genius. My children are left to me; I wish to see them happy!"

XIII.

The sunbeam which wakes Mascha every morning lies broad and full on the carpet in her bedroom, creeps caressingly on her pillow, strokes her round white cheeks, but she sleeps soundly and sweetly, like a very young child who sleeps heavily after a great grief.

There is a knock at her door, first gentle, then louder. "Maschenka, my little dove, it is I," calls a dear, well-known voice. She does not hear. Softly Lensky turns the knob, hesitates a moment on the sill. He approaches the little white bed; there she lies sleeping so innocently, so peacefully. A touchingly sad expression is on her slightly swollen eyelids, her red lips. How long and thick are the black lashes resting on her cheeks!

"Maschenka--sluggard--lazy-bones!" calls he, teasingly, and strokes her cheeks.

"Ah!" with the short, soft cry of a bird frightened out of its sleep, she starts up. "You, papa!"

"Yes, I--who else? I have knocked twice at your door without any answer. If one sleeps as soundly as you, my little witch, one should certainly bolt one's door."

"Ah! I am not afraid of thieves, only of ghosts, and they creep through key-holes," says Maschenka, laughing, and he laughs and strokes her cheeks.

"Childish one!" murmurs he.

"How dear, how beautiful that you came!" says she, tenderly, and presses her lips to his hand.

"And did you think that I would go away without taking leave of you?" asked he.

She turns her head slightly away from him. "Ah! I did not know," murmured she. "How should I? Yesterday I no longer knew whether you really loved me. You were so busy with all those insolent women who swarmed around you. Ah! papa, how can you associate with that rabble?"

"That does not concern you at all," says he, looking at her quite harshly, while he this time, as his old custom was, conceals his embarrassment behind defiant obstinacy. Then he notices the significant traces of the difficultly vanquished sadness of the past night in the little childish face, and when Maschenka, frightened at her father's roughness, starts anxiously and shyly, the greatest anxiety overcomes him. "How pale you are, my angel; is anything the matter?"

"No, papa--no--only--I was ragingly unhappy yesterday, and then I dreamed so horribly."

"What then?"

"It was oppressive; and I was followed by a horrible monster, and when I called to you, you were busy with--with other strange men, and did not look round--and in my mortal fear I called to mother--in my dream I had forgotten that she is dead--and then I awoke."

"My poor little dove, my poor, orphaned little dove!" murmurs he. "Who can replace your mother to you? That was a fearful loss. There is no second mother like her."

For a while both are silent, then Mascha asks:

"How long shall you be away?"

"I shall come back to Paris in June."

"Then--then you will be unendingly loving to me again for two days; and after that leave me alone again?"

"No, no; then I give up the wandering life, Mascha. It is the last time. It is only to win a princely dowry for you that I go about the world."

"Father, if you knew how willingly I would resign your wealth!" said she, very softly.

He laughs somewhat constrainedly. "No, no; you must be wealthy. For this time all must remain so; do not make my heart heavy; for believe me that I long greatly for a calm, comfortable home, that it pains me to part with you. You have grown fearfully into my heart, you defiant, tender little curly-head, you! But how long will you stay with me, my little white lamb? Who knows? When I return I will find a dreamy, sentimental Mascha, a quite different----"

"Papa, you will be late!" now calls Nikolai from below.

"Is it time?"

"High time. You will miss the train."

"Adieu, papa!"

He bends over her. She throws both arms round his neck, kisses him, sobbing violently. "Farewell!"

"My heart, my soul," murmurs he. "Write to me very, very often."

He has kissed her again and again; at last he has left her. At the door he turns round to her once more, sees her in the snow-white bed, with her tender, tearful face, with her sun-kissed hair, breathes once more the atmosphere of the room slightly perfumed with violets. Carrying away with him an impression of childish purity and innocence, he goes out.

XIV.

Two or three days after the elder Lensky's departure, Mascha, who is busy dressing for dinner, is told that a large package has been left for her. Immediately suspecting what it is, she summons the maid to bring it to her.

"It is a huge package," the maid sighs while she drags it in and lays it down before the chimney in Mascha's room.

"Where are the scissors, Lis, please?" Mascha dances with excitement while she cuts the string in all directions. Her suspicion has not deceived her: the skin of a remarkable bear, with immense head and mighty paws, comes to view. In his horrible open jaws the monster holds a bouquet of white roses and a note as follows:

"A disarmed enemy, Fraeulein Marie Lensky, for friendly remembrance of an adventure in Katerinowskoe, and

"Your humble servant,

"K. Baerenburg."

Beside herself with delight, Mascha immediately hurries into Anna's room, and with sparkling eyes calls out:

"Anna, Anna, please come--see--Count Baerenburg--he has----"

"Well, what about him?" asks Anna, indifferently.

"He has sent me the bear-skin, you know, the skin of the bear which almost strangled Colia. It must have been a splendid bear. It has a head--a head----"

"Ah! that is very nice," replies Anna, without moving. "But I beg you, hurry a little with your dressing, and another time do not run into the hall with floating hair and in your dressing-sack, like a prima donna in the fifth act."

"H-m, she is jealous!" thinks Mascha. And shrugging her shoulders, with a triumphant smile on her fresh lips, she returns to her room, where she first completes her interrupted toilet, then crouches on the floor and sinks herself in contemplation of the bear.

Then Anna comes in to her--Anna, with quite a changed, sweet face. "Vinegar with sugar, we know that," thinks Mascha to herself, without rising from her strange position.

"Ah! that is the skin," says Anna, with condescending interest.

"Yes," says Mascha, slowly rising, with a humorous, quite childish impertinence, which would have forced a laugh from every unprejudiced spectator. "That is the skin, those are the flowers, there is the note."

"And you, indeed, take that for a proof of great admiration?" lisps Anna.

Mascha nods defiantly.

"You are very inexperienced, my little Mascha," says Anna. "You always have such a hostile manner to me that it is unusually hard for me to--h-m! how shall I express myself?--give you the enlightenment which in a certain manner, as your relative, I owe you. You do not know men as I do, dear child."

"Have you had very sad experience in this direction, poor Anna?" sighs Mascha, compassionately.

"I have had no experience, but I have observed," says Anna. "Baerenburg is a man from whom one must guard one's self. He has a new flame every moment, whom he overwhelms with the most poetic attentions until--one day he no longer greets her on the street. I am very sorry to diminish your pleasure, but I must warn you."

"H-m!" says Mascha, in the same tone of humorous impertinence; and copying Anna's glance with photographic exactness, she says: "My dear Anna, would you like very much to marry Count Baerenburg yourself? _Seniores, priores_--I withdraw."

"One cannot speak to you," says Anna, and rises, blushing with anger. But Maschenka holds her back; her impertinence suddenly truly pains her. How indelicate it was to reproach Anna with her age! As if she could help it! "Anna," says she, cordially, "I did not mean badly; I only wanted to laugh. But tell me, I will not repeat it, do you like Count Baerenburg? I will certainly not stand in your way."

Instead of being touched by this childish sacrifice, Anna stares arrogantly at her cousin from head to foot. "I can, perhaps, put up with your rivalry," says she. "Calm yourself, _moutarde apres diner, ma chere_! If I had wished to marry Baerenburg, I could have had him this autumn in Spaa. He is as indifferent to me as that"--with a snap of her fingers. "But show me your hands; _comme vous avez les ongles canailles_. I always tell you you should not practise so much; you already have nails like a professional pianist--_c'est tres mal porte_."

* * * * *

The Jeliagins have paid Mascha a little attention. To-day, at lunch, she found on her plate a box-ticket for the Porte St. Martin. It has long been her most ardent wish to go to the theatre.

"You can invite Sonia and Fraeulein von Sankjewitch. Nikolai will accompany you. It would be better that you dine with Fraeulein von Sankjewitch," proposes her aunt, "if that suits you."

"Oh, it suits, naturally it suits!" cries Mascha, and springs up to embrace her aunt.

"Do not make so much of this trifle," says Madame Jeliagin, a trifle ashamed. "It is not worth the trouble. I rack my brains often enough to think how one can amuse you. But with girls like you, who are too old to play with dolls, too young to go into society, it is hard."

"Am I, then, really too young, auntie? I was seventeen the fifth of last December," says Mascha, looking longingly and coaxingly at Barbara.

Barbara Jeliagin is silent with embarrassment, but Anna speaks. "Your age alone is not the thing. You have no _tenue_, are not sufficiently lady-like. You must accustom yourself to more repose and self-command before one can think of taking you into society without fearing to be embarrassed by you."

This kind remark Mascha receives silently, but with burning cheeks.

Madame Jeliagin, who has learned quite against her will to love Mascha, perhaps because Mascha's obliging lovability is the only bit of sunshine which has warmed her for years, pats her kindly on the shoulder, and says: "It is not so dreadful. To be old and sedate is no art; that comes of itself."

And Mascha wipes the tears from her eyes, and again is happy over her ticket, inquires what she shall wear in honor of this festive occasion, and is only sorry that one visits the Porte St. Martin in street costume.

The box ticket is for the next evening. All arranges itself splendidly.

Nita and Sonia dine with the brother and sister in the Avenue Murillo. The little dinner is excellent and Colia happy. But after the meal, when they are about to break up, Mascha notices that she has left her opera-glass at home. Great despair! Sonia has none, and Nita's is really not enough for three shortsighted persons. They decide to take the roundabout way through the Avenue Wagram and get the glass.

"I will come immediately; I will not keep you waiting a moment," says Mascha, gayly. But scarcely has she entered the hall when she perceives that something unusual is going on. The vestibule is brilliantly lighted, several ladies' wraps and men's overcoats are there. Mascha's large eyes become gloomy. "And I thought they wished to give me a pleasure," thinks she, angrily. "They only got me out of the way because they were ashamed of me." Then, turning to the servant who appears, she asks ruthlessly, directly:

"Who is dining here?"

"The Ladies Anthropos, Count Baerenburg, Monsieur d'Eblis, Prince Trubetzkoy----"

But Maschenka hears no more. "Baerenburg!" her passionate heart beats loudly. "_Moutarde apres diner_ it may be; but, in any case, Anna seems not to so lowly estimate my insignificant youthfulness as rival, as she acts thus," thinks she to herself. "But we will see, Anna, we will see!" And Maschenka sets her teeth and clenches her tiny fist.

XV.

The next morning she makes a great scene for her aunt and cousin, reproaches them violently and with bitter tears for that she is unlovingly pushed about and repressed, that she plays the _role_ of a Cinderella in their house; that she cannot endure living with people who do not love her, etc.

Barbara Alexandrovna bows her head with shame at these reproofs. Anna, on the contrary, opposes the anger of her passionate, excited cousin with icy calm.

"Before all," she begins, "I would beg to remark to you that we are not at all obliged to put up with your rudeness. I do not condescend to answer your ill-bred accusations, for I think without that you will be ashamed of them in a calmer frame of mind. But for the rest, I tell you very plainly, if life with us does not suit you, you can take refuge in a boarding-school."

If Mascha had possessed shrewdness enough to declare herself agreed with the plan of boarding-school, it would have placed the Jeliagins in great embarrassment, on account of the pecuniary aid which they received from Mascha's stay with them. But she did not think of that. A boarding-school is for her something horrible--a prison, where she must give up all possibility of seeing Baerenburg again. And so she submits, shyly, shame-facedly.

When they tell her that, for the third time this week, she is to dine alone, she takes it with such sad, helpless submission that it pains her aunt, and she proposes to ask Nikolai to share her solitary meal; perhaps he may be disengaged.

"Yes, that would be nice," says Mascha. And completely reconciled with her fate, she sends a message to her brother, forms the most delightful plans--then comes her brother's answer.

"Dear Heart:--Just received a despatch from Aunt Katherine. Uncle Sergei is ill, desires me urgently. I must leave by the 3.25 train. Have not even time to take leave of you. Unfortunate for our cosey evening. God keep you, my little dove; be brave and prudent for love of me, and also for your own sake. Write me all that is on your heart, every little annoyance which weighs upon you. If you ever need immediate advice, go to Sonia and Fraeulein von Sankjewitch, who both love you. I kiss and embrace you.

"Your faithful brother,

"Colia."

"Is there nothing but unpleasantness in the world?" sighs Mascha, upon receiving this note. "But still, what use to torment one's self?"

After she has devoted perhaps fifteen minutes to the deepest sorrow, she runs singing about the house, and makes gay little jokes.

Now it is evening, and they stand in the vestibule and await the carriage--Anna and aunt; Anna with her regal bearing and carelessly trailing draperies; Barbara with her nervous anxiety and scant, short dress.

"What lace is that around your neck?" calls out Anna, angrily, looking at her mother through her _lorgnon_. "Did you buy that fichu on the Campo dei Fiori? It is grotesque! You look like a stage mother."

Barbara pulls uneasily at her fichu and drops her purse.

"Wait, auntie, I have such wonderful lace of mamma's up-stairs," says Mascha, who until now has been sunk in childish admiration of Anna's ice-cold blond beauty and white _crepe de Chine_ splendor. "Only a moment, auntie, I will bring it immediately." And she rushes up-stairs and returns in a minute with sewing utensils and a box smelling of _Peau d'Espagne_. "See, you must put on this scarf, auntie."

"We will call the maid," proposes Madame Jeliagin.

"Ah, no! I will do it myself. You will be beautiful at once, now, auntie," says Mascha, while she removes the shabby ornament condemned by Anna and replaces it with splendid old point lace.

"See, so; mamma wore it so. No, not the old mosaic brooch; here, take my pin." And Mascha drags it from her neck. "Oh, how that becomes you! Look in the glass, and see how pretty you are. Only a few stitches to make it firm. Is it not nice so, Anna?"

"_Mais oui, tres bien_," Anna lets fall from her thin lips.

The servant announces the carriage. Madame Jeliagin becomes uneasy. "Now we are ready." And Mascha springs up from the floor, where she has knelt to fasten one end of the lace to her aunt's girdle. Then the servant gives them their wraps, Anna's red embroidered one, another of the unpaid-for articles which her mother has begged from the dressmaker with tears, and Barbara's old-fashioned shabby mantle, and they go.

But at the door Barbara turns round. Her flabby, wrinkled, painted face twitches a little, and taking Maschenka's head between both hands she kisses the girl on the forehead.

"My good child!" murmurs she, "my dear good child, I am very sorry that you must pass your evening alone. We will try to come home soon."

"How you smell of benzine, mamma!" Maschenka hears Anna say, as they get into the carriage.

Maschenka had taken no further notice that the hands which had caressed her were incased in cleaned gloves. It was so lovely to be a little bit caressed.

Mascha has eaten her solitary dinner. Afterward she played a little, improvised all sorts of droll, charming nonsense. About ten o'clock--they have just brought the tea to her--she hears the house-door open. Have they returned already? No; that is a visitor, a well-known voice--he. How unpleasant, just to-day, when no one is at home! Then the maid--a new one who has been engaged for Mascha and works for Anna--opens the door. "Count Baerenburg," she announces, with her insinuating, theatrical smile. "Does mademoiselle receive?"

Before she really knows what she does, Mascha says, "Yes."

Scarcely has she spoken the word when she would like to recall it. She knows that it is not permissible from a social standpoint for her to receive him, but for eight days she has longed so unspeakably to see him again, to thank him for the bear-skin, and then, why was Anna so hateful to her?

He enters, very handsome, very distinguished, very respectful. She forgets all the _traits d'esprit_ prepared for him, and as if paralyzed with shyness, she stammers:

"My aunt is not at home; had you perhaps a message for her which I can deliver?" And with a charmingly diffident gesture she stretches out her hand to him. He takes it in his, holds it a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.

"Do you find it absolutely necessary to send me away again?" asks he.

Ah! she feels so happy in his presence. "At least not before I have expressed my thanks for your gift," she stammers.

Braeenburg, to whom it would be indescribably vexatious to be forced to break off his conversation with this strange, interesting little being, seeks some pretext to prolong his visit. His glance falls on the tea apparatus.

"Would your thankfulness go so far as to give me a cup of tea?" he remarks, and adds with genial inspiration: "Perhaps your aunt will return meanwhile."

"Yes; aunt said she would soon return," assured Mascha, gayly. The situation is justified; how happy she is to dare keep him there, were it only for a quarter of an hour.

She gives him his tea, he sits down in an arm-chair near the chimney opposite her. A deep silence follows. In vain does she try to find something suitable to the occasion in her carefully collected hoard of intellectual anecdotes. At length she says simply: "It must have been a splendid bear."

"Yes," replied the count. "It also was Russian boldness to creep into the thicket after the beast. Poor Nikolai, how the brute had cornered him! Really, I owed him the skin; but as I know him, he is always ready to share the best of everything with his little sister."

"Yes; he spoils me very much," says Mascha, moved. "I shall miss him fearfully--fearfully. You know, perhaps, that he has left the city to-day. You cannot think how unpleasant it is for me to be so quite alone."

"Alone?" repeated he.

"That is--well, yes, I am with relatives," Mascha hastens to explain. "Aunt is very good to me, but I cannot warm to my cousin; I do not like her. She is very beautiful, but intolerable. And you, Count Baerenburg, how do you find Anna?"

"She has a very decorative effect," says he, dryly. "She reminds me of an aloe, she is so stiff and pointed. She would do very well on a terrace."

"I am only surprised that she has not yet married," remarks Mascha, very pleased at Baerenburg's cool description of Anna's charms.

"I am not at all surprised," replies he. "I have often noticed that these acknowledged beauties usually marry very late. They are like the too beautiful apples on the dessert dishes, which remain because no one has the courage to reach for them. And then, finally, to kindle a flame one must have somewhere a spark about one; and your cousin is of ice."

"Yes, that is true," laughs Mascha; then, restraining herself, she adds: "But I really should not speak so of my nearest relatives to a stranger. I--I always forget that you are a stranger; you seem to me like--a friend."

He smiles at her, and says softly: "When I so soon feel such warm sympathy for any one as for you, it seems to me as if we had long been good friends in heaven, and had found each other again on the earth."

"Really?"

"Certainly," says he, earnestly. "I can distinctly remember our acquaintance up there. You were a lovely, gay, half-grown little angel, with short, unformed wings, with which you could not yet majestically sail about in the air, but only helplessly flutter a little. But every one loved you, and all the other angels were jealous of you. Then--now the affair becomes considerable; shall I go on?" he smilingly interrupts his improvisation.

"Oh, yes, yes, please," begs she. She looks charming, leaning back in the immense chair, with curious, friendly gay expression in the eyes fixed on him. "Yes, yes, please!" And unconsciously she makes a movement as if she would push the chair nearer the young man.

"Well," Baerenburg continues, "one day the devil presented himself in Paradise and demanded you for himself. He said you were his property, and had only by chance got into Paradise. We did not want to give you up, but as it could not be agreed upon, it was decided to send you back to earth so that you might make a second decisive trial of life and show whose being you were. I was so frightfully bored without you that I hurried down to earth to seek you."

"How droll you are!" says Maschenka, laughing loudly and childishly, and again she makes a movement as if she would draw nearer to him. "And do you think that I will go back to heaven?"

"I hope so." Meanwhile the clock strikes--eleven.

Maschenka suddenly grows red. "How long aunt stays!" murmurs she, and rises.

Baerenburg also rises. "I really cannot longer wait for the ladies," says he in an undertone, and gives her his hand. She sinks her head.

"I--I really should not have received you," stammers she with confusion.

"Why not?" says he, impatiently.

"No, I know it--but--" and suddenly raising her head, she looks at him from a pair of such wonderful, tearfully bright eyes that his senses swam--"but, I so longed to speak to some one who sympathizes with me a little," whispers she.

The whole pitiful neglect of the poor child dawns upon him, and a great compassion overcomes him. "You really need not fear being misunderstood by me," says he. "Oh! if you only had a suspicion of how lovely you are-- Good-night. And if you ever need a man who would go through fire for you, you know where to seek him."

He kisses her hand tenderly, passionately, and goes.

Long after he has gone Maschenka stands on the same spot, frightened, paralyzed, and looks at her hand.

A little later she goes up to her room.

"Has mademoiselle amused herself well?" asks the maid, while she helps her undress. "I was so sorry that, mademoiselle must pass the evening alone. Naturally, I will say nothing of it to madame."

"And why not?" burst out Mascha, violently.

"Oh! as mademoiselle wishes. I only thought----"

"I shall tell aunt myself that Count Baerenburg was here," says Mascha, defiantly. "And now go!"