Part 8

The late autumn of that year in Constantine was cold and rainy. Then, as is always the case in Algeria, a ravishing spring came on. And an animation,--that beatific, exquisite headiness which is experienced at the time of the blossoming of spring by people who have already left their youth behind them,--again began to return to Mme. Marot. She again began to go out; rode out a great deal with her children, went with them to the garden of the deserted Villa Hassim; she contemplated an excursion to Algiers,--to show her children Blidah, near which, in the mountains, there is a wooded ravine, a spot beloved of monkeys.... And so things went right up to the seventeenth of January in the year of 1890. On the seventeenth of January, she awoke from some unusually joyous and tender emotion, which, so it had seemed to her, had stirred her all night long. In the large room where she slept alone during the absence of her husband, who had gone away for a long time on matters connected with his post, it was almost dark because of the Venetian blinds and the window curtains. Still, by that blueish pallor which penetrated from behind them, one could gather that it was still early. And, in confirmation, the little clock on the night-table pointed to six. With an enjoyable sense of the morning freshness entering from the garden, she rolled up in a light blanket and turned to the wall.... “Why do I feel so fine?” she thought, dozing off. And, like dim, beautiful visions, pictures of Italy, of Sicily, began to appear before her, pictures of that distant spring when she was sailing in a cabin whose windows looked out on deck, upon the chill silvery shimmer of the sea; a cabin with portieres of red silk, shrivelled and faded by time, and with a high threshold glittering with brass that had been worn down by many years of cleaning.... Then she saw the limitless bays of the sea; lagoons; lowlands; a great Arabian town, all white, with flat roofs, and with undulating mistily blue knolls and foot-hills beyond it. This was Tunis, in which she had been but once, on that very same spring when she had been in Naples, and in Palermo.... But here a wave of cold seemed to go through her,--and, with a shiver, she opened her eyes. It was already going on nine o’clock; one could hear the voices of the children, the voice of their _bonne_. She arose, threw on a _peignoir_, and, stepping out on the balcony, descended into the garden and sat down on a rocker, standing in the sand near a round table underneath a mimosa in blossom, spreading its golden canopy overhead, its fragrance heavy in the sun. The maid brought her coffee. She again began to think of Tunis, and recalled that strange experience she had gone through, that sweet fear and that beatific abnegation of her will which was like that of pre-mortal moments,--an experience she had undergone in that pale blue city in the warm, rosy dusk, half-reclining in a rocker on the roof of a house, vaguely seeing the dark face of the Arab hypnotist and magician who was squatting on his heels before her, lulling her to sleep with his barely audible, monotonous sing-song, and the slow movements of his thin hands. And suddenly, even as she was thinking thus and mechanically gazing with eyes wide-open upon a bright silvery spark with which a teaspoon in a glass of water was aflame, she suddenly lost conscience. And when she came to with a start, Emile was standing over her. All that took place subsequent to this unexpected meeting is known from the words of Emile himself,--from his story, from his answers to interrogations. “Yes, I dropped into Constantine as though from heaven!” he had said. “I had come because I had comprehended that the powers of heaven itself could not stop me. On the morning of the seventeenth of January, straight from the station, without any word of warning, I appeared at the house of Monsieur Marot and ran into the garden. I was dumbfounded by that which met my eyes; but I had scarce made a step when she came to. She, it seemed, was also amazed, both by the unexpectedness of my appearance, and that which she had just been through; but she did not even emit an exclamation. Having looked at me, like a person just awakened from a deep sleep, she got up from her seat, putting her hair in order.

“‘That’s the very presentiment I had,’ she said, somehow without any expression. ‘You did not obey me!’

“And with an accustomed gesture, having buttoned the _peignoir_ at her breast, she took my head in both her hands and kissed me twice on the forehead.

“I lost my head from rapture and passion, but she gently put me aside and said:

“‘Let us go; I am not dressed,--I shall return at once, go to the children....’

“‘But, for God’s sake, what was the matter with you?’ I asked, ascending after her to the balcony.

“‘Oh, a mere nothing--a slight trance. I had gazed too long at a glittering tea-spoon,’ she was answering, getting control of herself, and beginning to speak with more animation. ‘But what have you done, what have you done!’

“I did not find the children anywhere; the house was empty and quiet; I sat down in the parlour. Suddenly I heard her begin singing in a distant room in a strong, sonorous voice, but I did not then comprehend all the horror of that sound, because I was all atremble with a nervous ague. I had not slept all night; I had counted the minutes as the train had sped me toward Constantine; I jumped into the first _fiacre_ I had met upon running out of the depot; I did not expect to reach the height of the city.... I knew, I, too, had a premonition, that my arrival would be fatal for us; but still I could not expect that which I had seen in the garden, this mystical meeting, and such a sharp change in her attitude toward me! After ten minutes, she came out with her hair dressed, in a light-gray dress of an iris tint.

“‘Ah,’ said she, as I was kissing her hand, ‘but I had forgotten that to-day is Sunday, and that the children are in church; but then, I have over-slept.... The children will go to the pine grove after church,--were you ever there?’

“And, without waiting for my answer, she rang, ordered some coffee to be served to me, and, sitting down, began to look at me intently, and, without listening, began to question me as to how I had lived, what I had been doing. She started to speak about herself, of the fact that after two or three months, which had been very bad for her, during which she had aged dreadfully,--these words were uttered with sort of incomprehensible smile,--she was feeling well, as young as never before.... I replied, I listened, but did not understand a great deal; both of us said anything but that which we wanted to say; my hands grew chill from the nearness of that other fearful, inevitable hour. I do not deny that I was struck as if by lightning when she had said ‘I have aged....’ I suddenly saw that she was right: in the thinness of her hands, and of the faded, even though really rejuvenated face, in the slenderness of certain outlines of the body, I caught certain signs of that which compels our hearts to contract so painfully, and even somehow awkwardly,--yet all the more passionately,--at the sight of an aging woman. ‘Ah, yes, how rapidly and sharply she had changed!’ I reflected. But she was beautiful, never the less. I was growing intoxicated as I gazed upon her. I had grown accustomed to dreaming of her without end; I had not forgotten that moment, when on the evening of the eleventh of July, I had first embraced her knees. Her hands, too, were slightly trembling, when she was putting her _coiffure_ in order, smiling, and gazing at me; and suddenly--you will understand all the catastrophic force of this moment!--suddenly, this smile was distorted, somehow; and, with difficulty, but firmly, she uttered:

“‘Still, you ought to go home, to rest up from the journey; your appearance is dreadful; you have such suffering, fearful eyes and such burning lips, that I no longer have the strength to see them.... Do you wish me to?--I shall go there in your company....’

“And, without letting me answer, she got up and went away to get her hat and cloak....

“We arrived quickly at the Villa Hassim. I lingered near the entrance, in order to pluck some flowers. She did not wait for me, opening the door herself. I had no servants; there was only the caretaker,--he did not see us. When I stepped into the ante-room, hot and half dark because of the closed Venetian blinds, and offered her the flowers, she kissed them, then embracing me with one hand, she kissed me. From emotion her lips were hot, but her voice was clear.

“‘But listen ... how shall we ... have you anything with you?’ she asked.

“I did not at first understand her,--so had this first kiss, this first familiar ‘you’ overwhelmed me,--and I mumbled:

“‘What do you want to say?’

“She took a step back.

“‘What!’ she said in astonishment, almost sternly. ‘Can you possibly have thought that I ... that we can live after this? Have you anything with you that we may die?’

“I recovered my wits and hastened to show her a revolver loaded with five bullets, with which I never parted.

“She rapidly went on, from room to room. The semi-darkness was everywhere. Hearing only the rustle of her silken skirts, I followed after her, with that confusion of all the senses with which a naked man goes on a sultry day into the sea. Finally we arrived at the end of our journey; she threw off her cloak and began to untie the ribbons of her hat. Her hands were still trembling, and once more I remarked through the dusk something pitiful and tired in her face....

“But she died without wavering. During the last moments she became transformed. Kissing me, and leaning back in order to see my face, she told me, in a whisper, a few words so tender and touching that I have not the strength to repeat them.

“I wanted to go to pluck some more flowers, in order to strew our funeral couch with them. She did not let me, she was hurried, she was saying: ‘No, no, it is not necessary ... there are plenty of flowers ... here are your flowers’--and she kept on repeating:

“‘And so, I charge you, by all that you hold sacred, that you kill me!’

“‘Yes, and then myself,’ said I, not for a second doubting my resolution.

“‘Oh, I believe you, I believe you!’ she answered, by now as if in a trance....

“A minute before her death she said, very quietly, but simply: ‘My God, this is a deed without a name!’

“And again:

“‘Where are the flowers you gave me? Kiss me--for the last time.’

“She herself put the muzzle of the revolver up to her temple. I wanted to shoot, but she stopped me:

“‘No, that isn’t right,--let me show you the right way. Here, so, my child.... And _afterward_ make the sign of the cross over me, and lay the flowers upon my breast....’

“When I fired, she moved her lips slightly. I fired once more....

“She lay there, calm; in her extinguished gaze there was some bitter beatitude. Her hair was spread out; a tortoise shell comb was thrown upon the floor. Swaying, I got up, to put an end to myself. But, despite the Venetian blinds, it was light in the room; and in this light, and amid this quiet which had suddenly arisen all about me, I distinctly saw her face, already grown pallid.... And here a sudden madness possessed me,--I dashed to the window, throwing apart, flinging open the shutters, and began to shout, and to shoot into the air.... The rest you know....”

* * * * *

In the spring, five years ago, travelling over Algeria, the writer of these lines visited Constantine. He often recalls now those evenings, rainy and chill, but spring evenings never the less, which he passed by the fireplace in the reading room of a certain old and homelike French hotel. Upon the heavy, elaborate _étagères_ there lay tattered illustrated journals--in them one could find some faded portraits of Mme. Marot, at different ages,--among them, one taken in Lausanne, when she was a girl.... Her story is told here again, through a strong desire of telling it in my own way.

_1916._

LIGHT BREATHING

In the graveyard, over the fresh clayey mound, stands a new cross of oak,--strong, heavy, smooth,--of the sort that is pleasant to contemplate.

It is April, but the days are raw; the monuments of the graveyard--a spacious, truly provincial one,--can be seen through the bare trees even from afar, and the chill wind makes the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross tinkle again and again.

As for the cross itself,--a rather large bronze medallion has been set into it; while in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a well dressed and alluring high-school girl, with eyes joyous, strikingly alive.

This is Olliya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl she did not in any way stand out among that noisy crowd of short brown dresses which so discordantly and youthfully hums in the corridors and class-rooms; what could be said of her save that she was one of a number of rather pretty, wealthy, and happy girls, that she was bright, but mischievous and very much unconcerned about whatever admonitions were made to her by an instructress? Then she began to blossom out, to develop, not by the day but by the hour. At fourteen, while her waist was slender and her little feet graceful, she already had well-defined breasts and all those contours, the enchantment of which human speech has never yet expressed; at fifteen she was famed as a beauty. How painstakingly did certain of her mates dress their hair, how meticulous about their persons they were, how carefully watchful of their restrained motions! But she feared nothing,--neither ink spots on her fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair, nor a knee bared in a running fall. Without any cares or efforts on her part, and somehow imperceptibly, to her came all that which distinguished her from all the rest of the high-school during her last two years there,--elegance, good taste in dress, cleverness, a radiant, yet an understanding sparkle in her eyes. No one danced like Olliya Meshcherskaya; no one raced on skates as well as she did; no one was sought after at balls as much as she; and, for some reason, no one was so liked by the lower grades as she was. Imperceptibly, she became a young lady, and imperceptibly her fame in school became secure; and there were already rumours that she was inconstant, that she could not live without admirers; that Shenshin, a student in the boys’ high-school, was madly in love with her; that apparently she was also in love with him, but so changeable in her treatment of him that he had made attempts at suicide....

During her last winter, Olliya Meshcherskaya lost her head entirely from her pursuit of pleasure,--so they said in the high-school. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty; the sun sank early behind the tall fir grove of the snow-covered school garden, but it was invariably serene, many-rayed, holding forth a promise of both frost and sunlight for the morrow as well; to say nothing of strolling through Cathedral Street, of skating at the rink in the city park on a rose-tinged evening, to music, and amid this throng gliding in all directions, among which Olliya Meshcherskaya seemed the best dressed, the freest from care, the happiest. And then one day, during the main interval, as she was careering like a whirlwind through the assembly hall escaping from the little girls of the first grade who were pursuing her and squealing for joy, she was unexpectedly summoned to the directress. She stopped in full career; giving a single deep sigh, with a rapid and by now accustomed movement she put her hair in order, hitched up the little corners of her apron at the shoulders, and, her eyes radiant, ran upstairs. The directress, a small woman, young looking but gray haired, was calmly sitting with some knitting in her hands, at a writing table underneath a portrait of the Tsar.

“How do you do, Mlle. Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from the knitting. “It is to be regretted that this is not the first time I am compelled to summon you here, in order to speak to you about your conduct.”

“I am listening, Madame,” answered Meshcherskaya, approaching the table, looking at her radiantly and in animation, but without any expression on her face, and she sat down with that lightness and grace of which only she was mistress.

“You will listen but badly to me,--I have, it is to be regretted, become convinced of that,” said the directress, and drawing a thread and making the ball of wool roll over the polished floor, upon which Meshcherskaya had cast a glance of curiosity, she raised her eyes: “I shall not repeat myself; I shall not speak at length,” she said.

Meshcherskaya liked very much this unusually tidy and large study; on frosty days its atmosphere was so cozy from the warmth of the glistening Dutch stove, and the freshness of the lilies-of-the-valley upon the writing table. She glanced at the young Tsar, drawn at full length in the midst of some resplendently glittering hall; at the straight parting of the milky, neatly waved hair of the directress, and kept an expectant silence.

“You are no longer a little girl,” said the directress with much significance, secretly beginning to grow irritated.

“Yes, Madame,” answered Meshcherskaya simply, almost gaily.

“But not yet a woman,” said the directress with still greater significance, and her dull-coloured face began to glow slightly. “First of all,--what sort of a coiffure is that? That is a woman’s coiffure!”

“Madame, I am not to blame if I have nice hair,” answered Meshcherskaya, giving the slightest of pats with both hands to her attractively dressed head.

“Ah, so that is it,--you are not to blame!” said the directress. “You are not to blame for your coiffure, nor to blame for these expensive combs, nor to blame for ruining your parents with buying little slippers at twenty roubles![1] But, I repeat to you, you lose sight of the fact that as yet you are only a high-school girl....”

[1] A rouble, before the revolution, was equal to about half an American dollar. _Trans._

And at this point, Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly interrupted her with politeness:

“Pardon me, Madame, you are making a mistake: I am a woman. And--do you know who is responsible for this? Papa’s friend and neighbour, and also your brother, Alexei Mikhailovich Maliutin. This happened last summer in the country....”

* * * * *

And a month after this conversation an officer of the Cossacks, homely and of plebeian appearance, having absolutely nothing in common with that circle to which Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the platform of a railroad station, among a large crowd which had just arrived with the train. And the incredible confession of Olliya Meshcherskaya, which had dumbfounded the directress, was fully confirmed; the officer had declared to the examining magistrate that Meshcherskaya had enticed him, had had a _liaison_ with him, had sworn to be his wife; but at the depot, on the day of the murder, when she was seeing him off to Novocherkassk, she had suddenly told him that she had never even as much as thought of loving him, that their talks about marriage were all merely a mockery of him, and she let him read that page in her diary which dealt with Maliutin.

“I ran over these lines, went out on the platform where she was promenading, waiting till I should finish reading, and shot her,” said the officer. “The diary remained in the pocket of my uniform coat; just glance at what was written on it on the tenth of July of last year.”

And the examining magistrate read something approximately as follows:

“It is now two o’clock at night. I had fallen fast asleep, but had immediately awakened.... This day I have become a woman! Papa, mamma, and Tolliya had all gone to the city, and I was left alone. I cannot express how happy I was over being alone! In the morning I strolled by myself in the garden, in the fields; I was in the forest,--it seemed to me that I was all alone in the entire universe, and my thoughts were more pleasant than they have ever before been in my life. I even dined alone, then I played for a whole hour; to the sounds of the music I felt as if I would live without end and would be as happy as never before! Then I fell asleep in papa’s study. And at four Katiya woke me up, saying that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very glad he had come; it was so pleasant for me to receive and entertain him. He had driven up on his pair of very handsome horses, of a special small breed, and they stood all the time near the steps; but he remained, because it had been raining, and he wanted the ground to be dry toward evening. He was very sorry that he had not caught father in, was very animated, and bore himself like a gallant toward me; he joked a lot about having been in love with me for a long time. When we were strolling before tea in the garden, the weather was splendid again, the sun glistened through the entire wet garden, although it had become really downright chilly, and he walked about with my arm through his, and said that he was Faust with Marguerite. He is fifty-six, but he is still very handsome, and always very well dressed,--the only thing I did not like was that he had come in a kind of cape; he is all scented with English eau-de-cologne, and his eyes are altogether young,--and black; and his beard is attractively divided in two long parts and is perfectly silvery. At tea we sat in the glass enclosed veranda; I felt somehow unwell and laid down upon a low couch, while he smoked; then he changed his seat to where I was, and again began telling me some nice things; then to examine and kiss my hand. I covered my face with a silk handkerchief, and he kissed me several times on the lips through the handkerchief.... I cannot understand how it could have, happened; I lost my mind, I never thought that I was that kind! Now there is only one way out for me.... I feel such loathing for him, that I cannot live through this!...”