Part 13

Gzhatski stopped for a moment, and his face assumed a hard expression that Irene had never seen there before.

“She died suddenly,” he continued, lowering his voice. “Three hours before her death, I came to show myself to her in a new riding-suit that had just arrived from Petrograd. She asked to be raised on her cushions that she might see me better, and she looked at me delightedly. I thought myself magnificent, posed, glanced at myself in the glass, and played with my elegant riding-whip. What a child I was at seventeen! I smile to think of it. The new suit was the reason of my taking a longer ride than usual that day, and the groom who was sent to find me could not catch me up. I returned gaily, trotted up to the entrance, jumped from my horse, and then suddenly saw the tear-stained face of our old butler.

“‘Her Excellency is dying,’ he whispered.

“As though in a fog, I passed into my mother’s room, and started back in fright, seeing her lying on the floor. There is a superstition prevalent in our province to the effect that it is bad to die in bed, and that, at the approach of the agony, the dying must be laid on the floor—_i.e._, as near as possible to the ground. I have no idea whether my mother really knew of this superstition, but her old and trusted maid afterwards told me that she had suddenly expressed a wish to be laid on the floor. The wish had been complied with, the maids hurriedly arranging rugs and cushions for the purpose.

“The agony had already begun when I fell on my knees beside my mother. Twice she spoke my name, but she no longer recognized me. She muttered something, stirring restlessly on her pillow. I bent over her, and caught the words:

“‘Life—life—how cruel it is! Nothing but tears and sorrow and despair! Not a moment of happiness! Not a moment of joy.…’

“I shuddered at these words. So these were my mother’s hidden thoughts! The whisper grew still lower, and then ceased.… We all waited and listened, and suddenly we knew that she had ceased to be. Someone burst into tears. They lifted her from the floor, and her thin, wasted body took a strange attitude, as it lay heavily and awkwardly in the arms of the maids. At that moment I realized that she was no longer a being, but a _thing_; and, with a cry of horror, I fled. I shut myself up in my room, and sobbed all the evening, as much with grief at having lost her as with the sharp pain her last words had caused me.

“‘She had assured me that I was her life and her joy,’ I thought, ‘and yet for how little had I counted in her existence.’

“During all our life together, during all those years that had been so dear to me, she had only suffered and hidden her pain from me! ‘Never a moment of happiness!’ Those last words rang in my ears with cruel and horrible insistence.

“It was already night when I ventured out of my room. The whole household was sleeping; only the deacon was reading the psalms for the dead, in a melancholy voice, beside my mother’s body. She lay there, all in white, surrounded with flowers. I approached on tiptoe, and stood still, gazing at her; she looked so small, so thin, so frail, like an old child. A feeling of boundless pity took possession of my soul. ‘How, oh how had she deserved so sad a destiny?’ I asked myself hopelessly. ‘What had she done? How had she offended God?’

“And I pressed close to her and kissed her, and felt that I had never understood how much she loved me. Only a love that knew no limits could have given her the strength to hide her pain so completely. She had not wanted to sadden my childhood; she had realized that a child could only grow up and develop well and normally when surrounded by love and happiness. How many mothers have I met since who have failed to realize this, and who have ruined the futures of their children by letting them share, at a tender age, tears and sorrows beyond their years!

“I remained beside my mother till dawn; and during that night, it was as if some voice had told me that I should never again have a true friend. The prophecy has indeed been fulfilled; I know the entire province, but I have not a friend. Sometimes, too, I have flattered myself with the hope that I had found a true woman with whom I would like to share my life; but always, as I came within reach of the prize, it melted away, having been but a dream. Fate always seemed to say to me: ‘You have had your fair share of woman’s love, and have no right for more.’

“This very winter again, it at one time seemed to me, Irene Pavlovna, that I had found in you a true friend; but I am afraid you are too much occupied with your own salvation to sacrifice any time or thought to friendship. And yet if anything in the world can save you, it is not a convent and not Catholicism, but simply an active interest in your fellow-creatures. When experience and observation have taught us love and charity, we are saved, and life is no longer terrible. Fate may be as cruel as she pleases; but if we have warmth and love in our hearts, we shall never be alone, never in despair, and shall never think of self-destruction, if only out of pity for all our suffering brothers, whom, as long as we live, we have always the chance of helping.

“If only you could rid yourself of the idea that you are too old for marriage! For what precisely is it that you think yourself too old? For kisses? It is extraordinary that women never seem to see anything beyond the mere physical side of marriage! Look at it from a higher, purer, more Christian standpoint! Believe me, what men need most is sympathy, friendship, understanding, and the generous, noble love that can forgive us our faults and our shortcomings. I have contemplated your state of mind from every standpoint, and sometimes I wonder whether the sickness of my own soul is not even more dangerous and incurable than yours. I only cannot myself see it so plainly, or rather I do not attach to it the importance it deserves.…”

Irene became engaged to Gzhatski, and he persuaded her to leave Rome as quickly as possible, and go to the Riviera, whither his doctors were sending him, in fear of Roman springtime malaria. To tell the truth, Gzhatski was far less afraid of malaria than of Père Etienne, the strength of whose influence over Irene he greatly exaggerated. Natures like Irene’s never remain long under the same influence. They are swayed by sudden enthusiasms and equally sudden disappointments. Blown to right and to left by every passing breeze, they fling themselves into one friendship and then another, searching for happiness everywhere, and finding it nowhere. The hour of Catholicism in the person of Père Etienne had struck and passed, and there had dawned the new dream of salvation through love.

Irene agreed to go with Gzhatski to Monte Carlo. The day and hour of departure were already fixed; but she still had not the courage to inform Père Etienne of her new plans. She tried several times to write to him, but always ended by tearing her lengthy explanations in despair. At last, on the very morning of the great day, an hour before her departure, she sent him a note, informing him of her unexpected decision to leave immediately for the Riviera, and promising to write at greater length from there.

Irene had proposed to meet Gzhatski at the station; but he had obstinately insisted on coming to fetch her, and she had been obliged to give in. Her acquaintances at the _pension_ said good-bye to her very coldly; they could not forgive her for her treachery to the cause of their beloved Catholicism. Some of them regarded her with contempt, others with envy.

Gzhatski’s cab stood at the door, and Irene was already seated in it, impatiently longing to start. The servants were tying on the luggage, Gzhatski was standing on the pavement, smoking and giving occasional directions, and at the windows of the _pension_ interested faces could be seen peeping through the curtains. At this moment Père Etienne, puffing and panting in hot haste, appeared round the corner. The kind old man had just received Irene’s note, and had come to say good-bye, and to bless her before her departure. Catching sight of Gzhatski he stopped still for a moment, completely dumbfounded, while Gzhatski smiled in undisguised triumph. The old man was angry. His face assumed a cold and proud expression, and taking no notice whatever of Irene he turned to the entrance of the _pension_. Having, however, already reached the door, he suddenly, in spite of himself, looked round. Irene was gazing at him with such a confused, guilty air, that Père Etienne’s severity involuntarily relaxed, and he bowed sadly. “Poor girl!” his kind, sympathetic old face seemed to say—“you have thrown away your last chance of happiness!”

XIX

A brilliant spring was reigning in Monte Carlo. Not the pale, cold, Russian spring, when in May the first shy snowdrops barely manage to force their white heads through the ground; nor yet the Roman spring, that Gzhatski called “modest,” but the real, passionate, southern precursor of summer. April was not yet over, but the weather was hot as at midsummer. The blue sea sparkled dazzlingly under the unbearably strong rays of the sun, flowers hung like thick carpets over walls and terraces, gorgeous roses climbed over the trellises and fences of the gardens. And no one was there to admire all this splendour—for the season was over, the hotels and shops were closed, the shutters of the villas were up, and Monte Carlo resembled the kingdom of the “Sleeping Beauty.” All the life that was still there was concentrated in the neighbourhood of the gaming rooms, and it was here that Irene and Gzhatski spent their days, walking in the lovely Casino gardens, or sitting on the fairy-like terrace overlooking the sea.

They had intended to be married immediately on their arrival in Monte Carlo, but, as is always the case with Russians, it had turned out that the ceremony could only take place on the production of countless official papers that had to be sent for to Russia. In the meantime, they had settled in a large hotel close to the Casino—the only hotel open all the year round—and happy in each other’s society, they revelled in the glories of the golden springtime that fashionable Riviera visitors had so foolishly abandoned.

Monte Carlo produced a very curious impression on Irene. In Rome she had seen, side by side with palaces, splendid carriages, and dazzling luxury, the most heart-rending poverty and beggary—a contrast to be met with in all large cities. Here, on the contrary, there was nothing of the kind. It seemed as if every inhabitant of this sunlit fairyland lived and existed merely for his own pleasure. The very waiters at the Café de Paris hummed and danced to the sound of the Hungarian orchestra as they served visitors with refreshments. The Arab pedlars, selling Eastern shawls, wandered through the gardens in their white _burnous_ and their smart red boots, apparently more intent upon boasting of the beauty of their wares than upon selling them. The only busy people in the whole place seemed to be the croupiers, and when, at given hours, groups of them came out of the Casino to be replaced by new relays, they reminded one of workmen leaving a factory after an exhausting day’s work.

The remaining inhabitants did nothing from morning till night but walk about in elegant summer clothes, feed pigeons, drink tea to the accompaniment of music, play with their absurd little dogs, or gamble in the Casino.

Irene was much interested in this, to her, novel type of public, and was particularly astonished at the sight of so many middle-aged, even old, women, with dyed hair, made-up faces, girlish dresses and hats, tripping gracefully along, and smiling coquettishly at their funny little old-men admirers. The latter, even if somewhat shaky on their legs, also wore light, fashionable clothes, and flowers in their buttonholes. At first they made Irene laugh, but soon, with the inconsistency of nearly all weak characters, she began to wonder whether it was not much wiser to cling to one’s youth than to be old at thirty, as was her own case. The conviction that this was indeed so came upon her suddenly, and she immediately rushed off to Nice, and ordered a whole mountain of elegant dresses, hats, false curls, etc. Having previously considered it a sin to spend an extra penny on clothes, Irene now went from shop to shop, never even attempting to bargain, and throwing money about with almost feverish prodigality in her desire to possess herself without delay of all that was most elegant and luxurious in the way of frocks and frills.

Gzhatski observed her in amazed silence, and smilingly watched the transformation of yesterday’s nun, with her flat hair and her eternal black dress, into a coloured fashion-plate. Being, in his heart, far more pleased than otherwise that his future wife should be well dressed and elegant, he did not protest. What disquieted him much more, indeed, was a passion that Irene suddenly developed for gambling. Gzhatski, having himself once advised her to cultivate some passion, if only artificially, just that it might attach her more firmly to earth, very ruefully contemplated the development of this passion now that it had shown itself without any effort on Irene’s part! Sergei Grigorievitch, indeed, was one of those men who, in the woman they have chosen, admit only one possible passion: that of love for themselves!

It was anything but easy to dissuade Irene from gambling. She revelled in the sensations of those feverish minutes passed at the tables, falling into the depths of despair at the loss of fifty francs, and soaring into an absolute frenzy of delight at the gain of forty! On leaving the gambling rooms, Irene took deep breaths of the fresh sea air, her eyes shone, and it seemed to her that the sea and the hills and the flowers had never been so beautiful before. It was this that displeased Gzhatski. He might have reconciled himself to the idea of her gambling had she regretted her losses, but he could not forgive her that feverish delight, that moral ecstacy and satisfaction that she gleaned from this new craze.

Sometimes he succeeded in luring her away from the temptations of the tables by arranging excursions in the neighbourhood. Like most Slavs, indeed like most sons of a young race, Gzhatski could not grow old, and at forty, he often laughed and played pranks like a schoolboy. He had the capacity, indeed, of infecting everyone around him with his gaiety, even cab-drivers, boatmen, and waiters! To each and all of them he knew how to say the right word, or make the right joke, at the right moment. He was descended indeed from a noble old race of landowners, who had always been ready to till their own soil, side by side with their peasants, seeing in the latter, not machines, but interesting and deserving human beings.

To Irene, such simple relations with the lower classes seemed strangely new and original. In the usual Petrograd fashion, she had hardly ever exchanged a word with her servants, and barely knew them by sight. At hotels at which she had stayed for two months she had nearly always, on leaving, been obliged, before giving a tip, to ask the manager which waiter had served her all the time, she herself being quite unable to distinguish him from the others.

In every way, indeed, Gzhatski proved a most interesting travelling companion. Men always bring gaiety and animation into the lives of lonely women, even when they are neither lovers nor husbands, but simply distant relations. This is so, because women who have no social activities to distract their thoughts are inclined to look upon life as something tragic and fatal, against which it is useless to struggle. Men, on the other hand, who, if only indirectly, make our laws and govern our countries, do not attach much importance to life, often indeed regarding it from the humorous standpoint. It is popularly supposed that men are more conservative than women, and that they care more about traditions and old customs. Actually, however, the laws and customs they passionately defend are invariably useful at the moment, and when the need for them passes, men are the first to abandon them. Women, on the contrary, cling desperately to traditions, especially inconvenient and troublesome ones, and if ever they decide to defy even some unimportant social law, they do it tragically, as though flinging themselves into an abyss.

“There! I have cut off my hair, and I smoke,” thinks a newly-converted Nihilist. “The thing is done—there is no turning back. Whatever I may do now, nothing can win me back my old position, and the respect of my fellows. And so—vogue le galère!”

How many perfectly modest women having once let their hairdressers persuade them to dye their hair auburn, immediately assume the manners and conversational style of “cocottes!”

The southern spring, the music, the excitement of gambling, the constant society of a charming man, all this did not fail to make its due impression on Irene, with the result that she fell, day by day, more and more deeply in love with Gzhatski. In her past dreams of love she had always seen herself hotly disputing with her lover, proclaiming her views and theories like a prophetess, and bringing him round unreservedly to her opinions on all matters. To her own astonishment, however, she now no longer cared in the least about any of her old theories and ideas, and was ready to give them all up without a sigh, to please Gzhatski. She had long ago left off being particular about _what_ he said to her, her attention being entirely riveted on the way he said it, on his every movement, smile, or change of expression. Alone in her room in the evening she sat up late, and could not sleep at night, for thinking of his elegant figure, the gleam of his even white teeth, the picturesque manner in which he smoked his cigarette, etc. The blood rushed to her head, her heart beat loudly, she breathed quickly. Père Etienne had been right in suspecting that an ardent temperament lay concealed under her cold exterior. It is probable, indeed, that Irene was one of the many “chaste sensualists” who abound in society. It is strange that these unconsciously voluptuous natures, suffering as they do very extremely through the virtuous life imposed on them by circumstances, always attribute their sufferings to some lofty ethical reason, such as loss of faith in God, disappointment in their friends, misunderstood ideals, etc., and would in every case be deeply offended should anyone dare to suggest to them a very simple and prosaic cure for their “noble sorrow.” They usually guard their virtue very jealously, vaguely feeling that if once passion gains the upper hand over them, they will be her slaves for life.

XX

It was a close, misty day. The hills and the sea were shrouded in a silvery veil, the air was sultry, not a leaf stirred in the trees.

Directly after lunch Gzhatski had accompanied Irene to Nice, where she was to try on her “forty-third dress, and her seventy-fourth hat,” as he gaily remarked. At five o’clock, tired after a busy afternoon’s shopping, they went to the Jetée-Promenade, for tea.

The season being at its very last ebb, the orchestra was playing in the large hall for the sole benefit of two old women, who slept peacefully in the stalls, and the luxurious empty rooms reminded one of the Sahara Desert on a sultry summer day. The solitary waiter, overjoyed to see two visitors, hastened to offer them the best table beside the window, where they could enjoy an uninterrupted view over the magnificent Quai des Anglais, with its gorgeous hotels, its palm-trees, and its gay public that seemed suddenly to have dropped from the clouds. The waves were splashing lazily on the shore, numerous half-nude children were paddling in the clear blue water, and a faint, fresh sea-breeze came in at the open window, surrounding Gzhatski and Irene with its caresses.

The sudden sound of noisy footsteps reverberating through the empty rooms caused them both to turn round. The intruder was a tall, handsome “brunette,” in a white costume and an enormous hat, elegantly poised on a luxurious mass of hair. A Southern beauty, this, in the full bloom of her charms, the paint on her face serving more as a signpost than an ornament, for she would undoubtedly have been more attractive without it. Carrying herself with the imperious ease of a woman accustomed to attract universal attention, she sank carelessly into a wicker armchair, crossed her legs, and without so much as glancing at the waiter, ordered a whisky and soda.

“So that is the kind of divinity that grows on the trees here,” said Gzhatski, scrutinizing the newcomer attentively. “And I had already decided that Nice was as empty as an Arabian desert.”

“She does not live in Nice,” answered Irene. “She is staying at our hotel in Monte Carlo.”

“How do you know?” said Gzhatski in surprise.

“I happened to be on the balcony last night when the hotel omnibus brought her from the station. I remember noticing the size of her hat-box—now it does not surprise me any more!”

Gzhatski frowned. “I should never have thought a respectable hotel like ours would admit such ‘ladies,’” he muttered crossly.

“Well, well—it does not concern us,” said Irene, amused at his annoyance.

“Indeed it does,” exclaimed Gzhatski. “Nobody could like the idea of such a creature as that living under the same roof and coming constantly under the eyes of his bride—of the woman who is dearer to him and whom he places higher than all else on earth.”

“Dear, dear! What old-fashioned prejudices!” smiled Irene. “I assure you the lady will not demoralize me. On the contrary, I pity her profoundly for having to lead such a frightful life. How do I know? Perhaps if my parents had not left me a fortune I might have been reduced to adopting the same profession!”

“Irene!” cried Gzhatski excitedly, “never dare to say such a thing again! The insult of the suggestion is insufferable. You would have starved rather than lead a life of shame. As if I did not know you! All the pity that is wasted on fallen women is a foolish and unjustifiable pity. There is so much work to be done in the world that everyone who really tries can earn an honest living. These worthless creatures never want to work at all—they care for nothing but a lazy, comfortable, luxurious life.”

Gzhatski had become flushed and excited. The unknown beauty turned round and listened with interest to this “quarrel” in a strange language. The waiter put before her a bottle of soda-water and a small glass of whisky, and went away. She swallowed the whisky in one draught, and took out an elegant gold cigarette case. Holding a cigarette between her teeth she scanned the table for matches. Finding none, she rose, and, as calmly as if approaching an acquaintance, crossed over to Gzhatski and asked him for a light.

Gzhatski looked as black as thunder.

Most ungraciously, he handed the matches to the unknown one, and paying no attention whatever to her “merci monsieur”—pronounced with the sweetest of smiles—he hastened to take Irene away from the Casino.

“The devil!” ejaculated Gzhatski furiously, as they emerged on to the promenade. “It is positively incredible, what they have been allowed to come to, here on the Riviera. The impudence of the hussy! The shamelessness! She sees that I am with a respectable lady, and she dares!” His indignation almost suffocated him.

“Well, well!” said Irene quietly, “why should you expect knowledge of the world and its ways from these unfortunates? Perhaps only yesterday she was washing linen in a laundry; where should she have learnt manners?”