Part 18

This time, after the conclusion of the performance, he had to wait particularly long at the foot of the stairs; one after another the closely wrapped little figures came down the stairs and went off with the men who were awaiting them, just as the scene-painter was awaiting Julia. But “she” was not to be seen.

Sad and troubled, Kostovsky stood at his place, looking about him indifferently and continually throwing expectant glances at the door of the dressing-room. And the door opened less and less often, as almost all the women had already departed.

At last Rosa, a vivacious Jewish chorus girl, came out. “What are you standing here for?” she drawled, lifting her brows in surprise and making a sly grimace. “I am the very last one, there is no one else, and Julia left long ago. It seems you did not notice when she went out.”

“What, is she gone?” asked Kostovsky, and on his face appeared a pained expression.

“Ha-ha-ha!” Rosa’s silvery laugh rang out; “very simple, she left before the end of the performance in the company of her new admirer, and you, my sweet one, have tired her long ago!”

The scene-painter stepped back and caught himself by the head. “It is not true!” he said in a dull voice.

“Well, I like that!” Rosa said excitedly, “and it is your own doing, too! She only wished to be pushed ahead. You always light her up so that the whole front row is after her! She has made a career for herself, and does not need you any longer.” And Rosa ran laughingly down the stairs.

Kostovsky stood long motionless on the same place, and, enveloped in the quiet and darkness of the empty theatre, he felt that, little by little, then stronger and stronger, his breast was filled with acute pain.

When Kostovsky knocked at the door of Julia’s room she received him very coldly. Her moist eyes looked indifferently and tranquilly from under her thick, black eyelashes; her black hair, carelessly pinned, lay like a luxurious crown, and two thick curls fell over her full cheeks. She wore a wide kimono of some cheap sheer material, and light slippers.

“Julia,” whispered Kostovsky, breathless with excitement.

“Sit down!” she said carelessly, not noticing anything especial in his appearance, and added: “And try to occupy yourself with something. I really haven’t any time to entertain you.”

“Julia!”

She half-leaned upon the bed and became wholly absorbed in her book.

He was irritated by this woman’s unnecessary artfulness; why use these artifices, which offended him the more, because she could easily tell him outright and settle it?

“Julia, you speak to me as to a visitor who has to be entertained? Why this ceremony?”

“There is no ceremony about it!” she replied in a displeased tone. “It--simplifies our relations, that is all: every one occupies himself--with what he pleases. I am--reading. And you occupy yourself with something else, and if you feel ennui--go away.”

She was driving him out.

Kostovsky was beside himself with rage at this “simplifying of relations,” and at her sudden leaving off of the familiar “thou” and adopting the more conventional “you.”

“Listen to me,” he said, in a voice full of irritation, and likewise availing himself of the term “you.” “I wish to speak to you, and will not wait till you finish reading.”

She did not reply, and, half-reclining on the bed, she continued looking at the open book. A painful silence ensued.

Kostovsky sat at the table and quietly gazed at Julia. Leaning on her elbows on the pillow, she had thrown herself into a graceful, kittenish pose, her little feet encased in their tiny, light slippers, impishly hid under the folds of her kimono, and from their hiding-place teased Kostovsky. The lovely curves of her body showed through the thin dress, the wide sleeves left visible her chubby arms to the elbow; and she was, as a whole, so sweet and graceful that Kostovsky, hating her at this moment, longed to take her in his arms.

He turned his eyes away from her. The room was poorly furnished--a cheap hotel room, lighted by electricity. Near the door stood the wardrobe with her costumes, in the centre the table, and near the window the dresser and a mirror. On a rack close to the entrance into the room hung her plush jacket, trimmed with tiny cats’ paws. He looked long and with hatred at this jacket with its cats’ paws, and recalled how amiably she used to meet him before, forcing him into a chair and smoothing his bristly locks tenderly, and how pleasant it was to feel the tender touch of the little hand.

She quickly flung away her book, and angrily rose from the bed. “You have nothing to speak to me about!” she exclaimed, reddening. “Everything has been said already! It is time to end this spoony love affair, this sentimental driveling!”

“Spooniness--sentimental driveling,” he bitterly repeated. “Julia! What has come between us?”

“There is nothing between us, nothing could be!” she energetically declared. “We have nothing in common--nothing whatsoever--and--we must put an end to our acquaintanceship!”

She gave the table a push and sat down in the darkest corner of the room, looking at him from there with her large, black eyes. Her eyes had always the same expression; no matter at whom they looked, they seemed to be inviting and promising something without the knowledge of their possessor. Spurning him, she at the same time lured him on.

“I understand!” he spoke sadly, and pushed his chair close to her. “You wish to part with me; they say you have another--some one from the first row of the orchestra. Well, let us part. But why all this subterfuge and why quarrel? I do not wish that all this should end so badly--with a quarrel. I wish at least to keep the memory. But, Julia, know that all those--from the first row--despise you--humiliate you--love in you only the flesh. And I--Why I--l-o-v-e you, the devil take you, accursed one!”

He grasped her arm above the elbow and shook her with his large paws.

“Phui! How rude! He abuses me! Let me go! Let me go, I say; you will dislocate my arm! Ruffian!”

She longed to quarrel with him. And he, on his part, felt an influx of ferocious wrath, a passionate longing to tear, lacerate, beat, and throw her out.

He grasped her arms still tighter. His eyes turned a greenish color, his teeth gave out a grating sound.

“Ai!” she cried. But he fell on his knees before her.

“Sweetest, dearest, my golden one, my sun, my joy! You are my--all; all my thoughts, all my feelings, everything is for you, from you, and--about you! Oh, I am rude; I am--a brute, but I love you! Without you there is no life for me; I will again sink to the bottom from which you raised me! Well, darling, well, my happiness, forgive me. You see I kiss your hands, your dress. Forgive!”

And on his bent knees this big, powerful man caught the tiny hands of the tiny woman and kissed them, kissed her dress, and wept.

When he lifted his head he suddenly caught her glance directed toward him, a strange, attentive glance. In this glance of her moist, black eyes there was no love, nor pity for him; nor even contempt, but something offensive, resembling curiosity, but more heartless than curiosity. It was the curiosity of a vivisectionist, the curiosity he exhibits when dissecting a live rabbit, or that of a naturalist when he sticks his pin through a rare beetle, and looks on at its contortions. He even now interested her--but only as something primitive, original: his sharp transitions from rudeness to tenderness, the strangeness of the declaration, the sudden fits of ferocious rage only to humble himself before her and to weep a moment later--all this was very interesting.

But Kostovsky’s mind was suddenly illuminated, as if by lightning: he understood all at once the real relation of Julia toward him, and felt that he had received a deadly wound at her hands, that she was only interested in him, but she had never loved him, could not love him; that she was a being from a world other than his--that he was a total stranger to her. The words died away in his heart. He grew silent, caught his hat, and without another glance at Julia rushed out of the room and the hotel.

Kostovsky found himself suddenly in a dirty dramshop, where his steps had almost unconsciously led him. He had not drunk for a long time, but now he felt a terrible necessity for the dramshop, the noise, the clinking of the glasses, and the smell of bad vodka.

He sat in a corner of the dramshop, alone, at a small table. Before him stood a large bottle of vodka and the noxious side-dishes peculiar to such resorts. The dirty table-cloth was stained with vodka and beer, and the kerosene hanging-lamp dimly lighted the room, filled with tipsy people. They were all bawling, drinking, and clinking their glasses; the pale-faced waiters ran around, serving the drinks, and in the adjoining room cracked the billiard-balls, and some one of the players, whenever he hit the ball, sang out in a merry tenor voice a popular song: “Wherever I go, or stroll, I see only Ju-li-a, only Ju-li-a.”

“Oh, the devil!” muttered Kostovsky, pouring out the tenth glass, and gloomily draining it. He was irritated because even here in the dramshop “she” was persecuting him. He had decided to “forget” her for evermore: he hated and despised her, and did not wish to remember her at all.

The dramshop enveloped him in its sounds and smells, and eased his suffering with its well-known coloring of something intimate, free, something he had lived through in the past.

But, little by little, his thoughts withdrew from the dramshop, and “she” appeared once more, and would no longer leave him.

She was now in the costume of a “mermaid,” with the body of a fish covered with silver scales, radiant under the many colored rays of the reflector, seductively beautiful. She lured him after her with her enticing smile, and swam away far, far into the boundless sea. And the man in love with a mermaid felt that he was perishing, that he would never more return to his former carelessness, power, and strength of soul. And he recollected his former life before he knew the mermaid and her kisses. True, he had caroused then, but that was not drunkenness, it was dare-deviltry, his power was seeking a free outlet. His heart was athirst for dash and merriment. So, like the legendary fisherman, he had found in his net a mermaid. He lifted her in his arms, kissed and caressed her, and--good-by to carefree life! The man was ruined by the mermaid!

“Oh, devil!” Kostovsky roared, draining his glass, and thinking thereby to drive off the troublesome thoughts; but “she” continued to torture him pitilessly, appearing before him every moment in another costume, now as a fairy, a shepherdess, and again as a mermaid, or she swam close to him in a wide house-gown, and her thick, black curls fell over her forehead and upon her full, pink cheeks. And her whole figure was as if flooded by radiant, poetic rays.

“And when with friends I drain the heady cup, I see before me all the while Julia, Julia,” came from the billiard-room the merry, tenor voice. Gradually the dramshop filled with a mist, through which the lights burned very low, and the noise of the revelers reached but indistinctly and seemed far off, resembling far-away sea-breakers. The dramshop filled with sea-waves, which rose and fell. And from the waves swam out a mermaid who was laughingly luring Kostovsky to her.

For a moment he lifted his head, and again saw before him the bottle, poured out another glass, and drained it; the mist became denser, rolled before his eyes. But he still saw, rising amidst the wine-vapors high over the bottle, her poetic, sweet image.

* * * * *

When Kostovsky was at last found again after a search of several days in the different dramshops of the city, and brought to his senses, the opera, with its “sea-bottom” and mermaids, was again produced.

Now Kostovsky once more looked his old self: the unkempt, carelessly dressed scene-painter was even more gloomy than before; his locks bristled and his mustaches stood on end worse than ever.

He stood gloomily on his elevation behind the scenes, lighting up the mermaids with the rays from his reflector. His soul was filled with cold and gloom and obduracy. Now he himself kept aloof from everybody, hated the whole troupe, and lived alone.

And the “mermaids” swam over the “sea-bottom.”

But it was no longer the former radiant, poetic light which shone upon them; the light which the decorator threw upon them now was a sad, pale light, and under its rays they seemed inanimate, sickly, and half-dead.

But when Julia appeared--swimming as formerly lower than the rest--sinister, dark-blue rays came pouring upon her, and she looked more like a fury than a mermaid. Her face was blue, horrible, with black lips and black cavities instead of eyes, and the slippery fish-body was as if covered with a loathsome slime.

A mutter of disgust ran through the theatre.

And the decorator also lit up with the same light the “sea-bottom” with all its monsters; and like a symbol of nightmare and sadness the green-eyed devil-fish came out of the darkness, and the noxious medusas began to move around.

The blue body of Julia seemed to swim in this loathsome mass, and at last blended with it into one living, monstrous, deformed creature.

The scene-painter slowly turned the glasses of the reflector, gazed upon the work of the light he had created, and it seemed to him that he had destroyed forever the former charm of the woman--that she whom he had loved had never been beautiful; and it seemed to him that now only he saw her in her real light, and that she only became divinely beautiful when lighted by the bright rays of his love.

VALIA

BY LEONID ANDREIEV

_Leonid Andreiev is a talented member of the youngest school of Russian literature. He was born at Oriol in 1871. He studied law at the universities of St. Petersburg and Moscow and graduated in 1897. He wrote some stories while still a student, but did not meet with recognition until 1898, when he wholly abandoned his unsuccessful career as a lawyer and devoted himself to literature._

_Andreiev, like some of the other young Russian writers, Gorki included, is groping his way--his talent has not yet adopted a permanent manner. He has two distinctly different styles, one symbolic and elusive, the other clear and sane, though melancholy. It may interest some readers to compare his “Valia” with Frapié’s story in the volume of French short stories in this series._

VALIA BY LEONID ANDREIEV

Translated by Lizzie B. Gorin. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.

Valia was reading a huge, very huge book, almost half as large as himself, with very black letters and pictures occupying the entire page. To see the top line Valia had to stretch out his neck, lean far over the table, kneeling in his chair, and putting his short chubby finger on the letters for fear they would be lost among the other ones like it, in which case it was a difficult task to find them again. Owing to these circumstances, unforeseen by the publishers, the reading advanced very slowly, notwithstanding the breath-catching interest of the book.

It was a story about a very strong boy whose name was Prince Bova, and who could, by merely grasping the legs or arms of other boys, wrench them away from the body.

But Valia was suddenly interrupted in his reading; his mother entered with some other woman.

“Here he is,” said his mother, her eyes red with weeping. The tears had evidently been shed very recently as she was still crushing a white lace handkerchief in her hand.

“Valichka, darling!” exclaimed the other woman, and putting her arms about his head, she began to kiss his face and eyes, pressing her thin, hard lips to them. She did not fondle him as did his mother, whose kisses were soft and melting; this one seemed loath to let go of him. Valia accepted her pricking caresses with a frown and silence; he was very much displeased at being interrupted, and he did not at all like this strange woman, tall, with bony, long fingers upon which there was not even one ring. And she smelled so bad: a damp, moldy smell, while his mother always exhaled a fresh, exquisite perfume.

At last the woman left him in peace, and while he was wiping his lips she looked him over with that quick sort of glance which seemed to photograph one. His short nose with its indication of a future little hump, his thick, unchildish brows over dark eyes, and the general appearance of stern seriousness, recalled some one to her, and she began to cry. Even her weeping was unlike mama’s: the face remained immovable while the tears quickly rolled down one after the other--before one had time to fall another was already chasing after it. Her tears ceased as suddenly as they had commenced, and she asked: “Valichka, do you know me?”--“No.”

“I called to see you. Twice I called to see you.”

Perhaps she had called upon him, perhaps she had called twice, but how should Valia know of it? With her questions she only hindered him from reading.

“I am your mama, Valia!” said the woman.

Valia looked around in astonishment to find his mama, but she was no longer in the room.

“Why, can there be two mamas?” he asked. “What nonsense you are telling me.”

The woman laughed, but this laugh did not please Valia; it was evident that the woman did not wish to laugh at all, and did it purposely to fool him. For some moments they were both silent.

“And what book is it you are reading?”

“About Prince Bova,” Valia informed her with serious self-esteem and an evident respect for the big book.

“Ach, it must be very interesting! Tell me, please!” the woman asked with an ingratiating smile.

And once more something unnatural and false sounded in this voice, which tried to be soft and round like the voice of his mother, but remained sharp and prickly. The same insincerity appeared also in all the movements of the woman; she turned on her chair and even stretched out her neck with a manner as if preparing for a long and attentive listening; and when Valia reluctantly began the story, she immediately retired within herself, like a dark-lantern on which the cover is suddenly thrown. Valia felt the offense toward himself and Prince Bova, but, wishing to be polite, he quickly finished the story and added: “That is all.”

“Well, good-by, my dear, my dove!” said the strange woman, and once more pressed her lips to Valia’s face. “I shall soon call again. Will you be glad?”

“Yes, come please,” politely replied Valia, and to get rid of her more quickly he added: “I will be very glad.”

The visitor left him, but hardly had Valia found in the book again the word at which he had been interrupted, when mama entered, looked at him, and she also began to weep. He could easily understand why the other woman should have wept; she must have been sorry that she was so unpleasant and tiresome--but why should his mama weep?

“Listen, mama,” he said musingly, “how that woman bored me! She says that she is my mama. Why, could there be two mamas to one boy?”

“No, baby, there could not; but she speaks the truth; she is your mother.”

“And what are you, then?”

“I am your auntie.”

This was a very unexpected discovery, but Valia received it with unshakable indifference; auntie, well, let it be auntie--was it not just the same? A word did not, as yet, have the same meaning for him as it would for a grown person. But his former mother did not understand it, and began to explain why it had so happened that she had been a mother and had become an aunt. Once, very long ago, when Valia was very, very little--

“How little? So?” Valia raised his hand about a quarter of a yard from the table. “Like Kiska?” Valia exclaimed, joyfully surprised, with mouth half opened and brow lifted. He spoke of his white kitten that had been presented to him.

“Yes.”

Valia broke into a happy laugh, but immediately resumed his usual earnestness, and with the condescension of a grown person recalling the mistakes of his youth, he remarked: “How funny I must have been!”

When he was so very little and funny, like Kiska, he had been brought by that woman and given away forever, also like Kiska. And now, when he had become so big and clever, the woman wanted him.

“Do you wish to go to her?” asked his former mother and reddened with joy when Valia resolutely and sternly said: “No, she does not please me!” and once more took up his book.

Valia considered the affair closed, but he was mistaken. This strange woman, with a face as devoid of life as if all the blood had been drained out of it, who had appeared from no one knew where, and vanished without leaving a trace, seemed to have set the whole house in turmoil and filled it with a dull alarm. Mama-auntie often cried and repeatedly asked Valia if he wished to leave her; uncle-papa grumbled, patted his bald pate so that the sparse, gray hair on it stood up, and when auntie-mama was absent from the room he also asked Valia if he would like to go to that woman. Once, in the evening, when Valia was already in his little bed but was not yet sleeping, he heard his uncle and auntie speaking of him and the woman. The uncle spoke in an angry basso at which the crystal pendants of the chandelier gently trembled and sparkled with bluish and reddish lights.

“You speak nonsense, Nastasia Philippovna. We have no right to give the child away.”

“She loves him, Grisha.”

“And we! Do we not love him? You are arguing very strangely, Nastasia Philippovna. It seems as if you would be glad to get rid of the child--”

“Are you not ashamed of yourself?”

“Well, well, how quick you are to take offense. Just consider this matter cold-bloodedly and reasonably. Some frivolous thing or other gives birth to children, light-heartedly disposes of them by placing them on your threshold, and afterward says: ‘Kindly give me my child, because, on account of my lover having abandoned me, I feel lonesome. For theatres and concerts I have no money, so give me the child to serve as a toy to play with.’ No, madam, be easy, we shall see who wins in this case!”

“You are unjust to her, Grisha. You know well how ill and lonely she is--”

“You, Nastasia Philippovna, can make even a saint lose patience, by God! And the child you seem to have forgotten? For you is it wholly immaterial whether he is brought up an honest man or a scoundrel? And I could bet my head that he would be brought up by her a scoundrel, rascal, and--scoundrel.”

“Grisha!”

“I ask you, for God’s sake, not to irritate me! And where did you get this devilish habit of contradicting? ‘She is so lonely.’ And are _we_ not lonely? The heartless woman that you are, Nastasia Philippovna! And why the devil did I marry you!”

The heartless woman broke into tears, and her husband immediately begged her pardon, declaring that only a born fool could pay any attention to the words of such an old ass as he was. Gradually she became calmer and asked: “What does Talonsky say?”

“And what makes you think that he is such a clever fellow?” Gregory Aristarchovich again flew into a passion. “He says that everything depends on how the court will look at it.... Something new, is it not, as if we did not know without his telling that everything depends on how the court will look at it! Of course it matters little to him--what does he care?--he will have his bark and then safely go his way. If I had _my_ way, it would go ill with all these empty talkers--”

But here Nastasia Philippovna shut the dining-room door and Valia did not hear the end of the conversation. But he lay for a long time with open eyes, trying to understand what sort of woman it was who wished to take him away from his home and ruin him.