Chapter 11

‘Yes, very dangerously,’ answered the doctor. ‘Severe inflammation of the lungs; peripneumonia fully developed, and the brain perhaps affected, but the patient is young. His very strength is something against him now. I was sent for too late; still we will do all that science dictates.’

The doctor was young himself, and still believed in science.

Bersenyev stayed the night. The people of the house seemed kind, and even prompt directly there was some one to tell them what was to be done. An assistant arrived, and began to carry out the medical measures.

Towards morning Insarov revived for a few minutes, recognised Bersenyev, asked: ‘Am I ill, then?’ looked about him with the vague, listless bewilderment of a man dangerously ill, and again relapsed into unconsciousness. Bersenyev went home, changed his clothes, and, taking a few books along with him, he returned to Insarov’s lodgings. He made up his mind to stay there, at least for a time. He shut in Insarov’s bed with screens, and arranged a little place for himself by the sofa. The day passed slowly and drearily. Bersenyev did not leave the room except to get his dinner. The evening came. He lighted a candle with a shade, and settled down to a book. Everything was still around. Through the partition wall could be heard suppressed whispering in the landlord’s room, then a yawn, and a sigh. Some one sneezed, and was scolded in a whisper; behind the screen was heard the patient’s heavy, uneven breathing, sometimes broken by a short groan, and the uneasy tossing of his head on the pillow.... Strange fancies came over Bersenyev. He found himself in the room of a man whose life was hanging on a thread, the man whom, as he knew, Elena loved.... He remembered that night when Shubin had overtaken him and declared that she loved him, him, Bersenyev! And now.... ‘What am I to do now?’ he asked himself. ‘Let Elena know of his illness? Wait a little? This would be worse news for her than what I told her once before; strange how fate makes me the go-between between them!’ He made up his mind that it was better to wait a little. His eyes fell on the table covered with heaps of papers... ‘Will he carry out his dreams?’ thought Bersenyev. ‘Can it be that all will come to nothing?’ And he was filled with pity for the young life struck down, and he vowed to himself to save it.

The night was an uneasy one. The sick man was very delirious. Several times Bersenyev got up from his little sofa, approached the bed on tip-toe, and listened with a heavy heart to his disconnected muttering. Only once Insarov spoke with sudden distinctness: ‘I won’t, I won’t, she mustn’t....’ Bersenyev started and looked at Insarov; his face, suffering and death-like at the same time, was immovable, and his hands lay powerless. ‘I won’t,’ he repeated, scarcely audibly.

The doctor came in the morning, shook his head and wrote fresh prescriptions. ‘The crisis is a long way off still,’ he said, putting on his hat.

‘And after the crisis?’ asked Bersenyev.

‘The crisis may end in two ways, _aut Caesar aut nihil_.

The doctor went away. Bersenyev walked a few times up and down the street; he felt in need of fresh air. He went back and took up a book again. Raumer he had finished long ago; he was now making a study of Grote.

Suddenly the door softly creaked, and the head of the landlord’s daughter, covered as usual with a heavy kerchief, was cautiously thrust into the room.

‘Here is the lady,’ she whispered, ‘who gave me a silver piece.’

The child’s head vanished quickly, and in its place appeared Elena.

Bersenyev jumped up as if he had been stung; but Elena did not stir, nor cry out. It seemed as if she understood everything in a single instant. A terrible pallor overspread her face, she went up to the screen, looked behind it, threw up her arms, and seemed turned to stone.

A moment more and she would have flung herself on Insarov, but Bersenyev stopped her. ‘What are you doing?’ he said in a trembling whisper, ‘you might be the death of him!’

She was reeling. He led her to the sofa, and made her sit down.

She looked into his face, then her eyes ran over him from head to foot, then stared at the floor.

‘Will he die?’ she asked so coldly and quietly that Bersenyev was frightened.

‘For God’s sake, Elena Nikolaevna,’ he began, ‘what are you saying? He is ill certainly--and rather seriously--but we will save him; I promise you that.’

‘He is unconscious?’ she asked in the same tone of voice as before.

‘Yes, he is unconscious at present. That’s always the case at the early stage of these illnesses, but it means nothing, nothing--I assure you. Drink some water.’

She raised her eyes to his, and he saw she had not heard his answer.

‘If he dies,’ she said in the same voice, ‘I will die too.’

At that instant Insarov uttered a slight moan; she trembled all over, clutched at her head, then began untying the strings of her hat.

‘What are you doing?’ Bersenyev asked her.

‘I will stay here.’

‘You will stay--for long?’

‘I don’t know, perhaps all day, the night, always--I don’t know.’

‘For God’s sake, Elena Nikolaevna, control yourself. I could not of course have any expectation of seeing you here; but still I--assume you have come for a short time. Remember they may miss you at home.’

‘What then?’

‘They will look for you--find you----’

‘What then?’

‘Elena Nikolaevna! You see. He cannot now protect you.’

She dropped her head, seemed lost in thought, raised a handkerchief to her lips, and convulsive sobs, tearing her by their violence, were suddenly wrung from her breast. She threw herself, face downwards, on the sofa, trying to stifle them, but still her body heaved and throbbed like a captured bird.

‘Elena Nikolaevna--for God’s sake,’ Bersenyev was repeating over her.

‘Ah! What is it?’ suddenly sounded the voice of Insarov.

Elena started up, and Bersenyev felt rooted to the spot. After waiting a little, he went up to the bed. Insarov’s head lay on the pillow helpless as before; his eyes were closed.

‘Is he delirious?’ whispered Elena.

‘It seems so,’ answered Bersenyev, ‘but that’s nothing; it’s always so, especially if----’

‘When was he taken ill?’ Elena broke in.

‘The day before yesterday; I have been here since yesterday. Rely on me, Elena Nikolaevna. I will not leave him; everything shall be done. If necessary, we will have a consultation.’

‘He will die without me,’ she cried, wringing her hands.

‘I give you my word I will let you hear every day how his illness goes on, and if there should be immediate danger----’

‘Swear you will send for me at once whenever it may be, day or night, write a note straight to me--I care for nothing now. Do you hear? you promise you will do that?’

‘I promise before God’

‘Swear it.’

‘I swear.’

She suddenly snatched his hand, and before he had time to pull it away, she had bent and pressed her lips to it.

‘Elena Nikolaevna, what are you----’ he stammered.

‘No--no--I won’t have it----’ Insarov muttered indistinctly, and sighed painfully.

Elena went up to the screen, her handkerchief pressed between her teeth, and bent a long, long look on the sick man. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘Elena Nikolaevna,’ Bersenyev said to her, ‘he might come to himself and recognise you; there’s no knowing if that wouldn’t do harm. Besides, from hour to hour I expect the doctor.’

Elena took her hat from the sofa, put it on and stood still. Her eyes strayed mournfully over the room. She seemed to be remembering....

‘I cannot go away,’ she whispered at last.

Bersenyev pressed her hand: ‘Try to pull yourself together,’ he said, ‘calm yourself; you are leaving him in my care. I will come to you this very evening.’

Elena looked at him, said: ‘Oh, my good, kind friend!’ broke into sobs and rushed away.

Bersenyev leaned against the door. A feeling of sorrow and bitterness, not without a kind of strange consolation, overcame him. ‘My good, kind friend!’ he thought and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Who is here?’ he heard Insarov’s voice.

Bersenyev went up to him. ‘I am here, Dmitri Nikanorovitch. How are you? How do you feel?’

‘Are you alone?’ asked the sick man.

‘Yes.’

‘And she?’

‘Whom do you mean?’ Bersenyev asked almost in dismay.

Insarov was silent. ‘Mignonette,’ he murmured, and his eyes closed again.

XXVI

For eight whole days Insarov lay between life and death. The doctor was incessantly visiting him, interested as a young man in a difficult case. Shubin heard of Insarov’s critical position, and made inquiries after him. His compatriots--Bulgarians--came; among them Bersenyev recognised the two strange figures, who had puzzled him by their unexpected visit to the cottage; they all showed genuine sympathy, some offered to take Bersenyev’s place by the patient’s bed-side; but he would not consent to that, remembering his promise to Elena. He saw her every day and secretly reported to her--sometimes by word of mouth, sometimes in a brief note--every detail of the illness. With what sinkings of the heart she awaited him, how she listened and questioned him! She was always on the point of hastening to Insarov herself; but Bersenyev begged her not to do this: Insarov was seldom alone. On the first day she knew of his illness she herself had almost fallen ill; directly she got home, she shut herself up in her room; but she was summoned to dinner, and appeared in the dining-room with such a face that Anna Vassilyevna was alarmed, and was anxious to put her to bed. Elena succeeded, however, in controlling herself. ‘If he dies,’ she repeated, ‘it will be the end of me too.’ This thought tranquillised her, and enabled her to seem indifferent. Besides no one troubled her much; Anna Vassilyevna was taken up with her swollen face; Shubin was working furiously; Zoya was given up to pensiveness, and disposed to read _Werther_; Nikolai Artemyevitch was much displeased at the frequent visits of ‘the scholar,’ especially as his ‘cherished projects’ in regard to Kurnatovsky were making no way; the practical chief secretary was puzzled and biding his time. Elena did not even thank Bersenyev; there are services for which thanks are cruel and shameful. Only once at her fourth interview with him--Insarov had passed a very bad night, the doctor had hinted at a consultation--only then she reminded him of his promise. ‘Very well, then let us go,’ he said to her. She got up and was going to get ready. ‘No,’ he decided, ‘let us wait till to-morrow.’ Towards evening Insarov was rather better.

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 cheeks 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 loathsome 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 brought 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.