Part 11

Something rustled lightly at the door, it flew quickly open, and into the room ran Elena.

Insarov, all in a tremor, rushed to her, fell on his knees before her, clasped her waist and pressed it close against his head.

‘You didn’t expect me?’ she said, hardly able to draw her breath, she had run quickly up the stairs. ‘Dear one! dear one!--so this is where you live? I’ve quickly found you. The daughter of your landlord conducted me. We arrived the day before yesterday. I meant to write to you, but I thought I had better come myself. I have come for a quarter of an hour. Get up, shut the door.’

He got up, quickly shut the door, returned to her and took her by the hands. He could not speak; he was choking with delight. She looked with a smile into his eyes... there was such rapture in them... she felt shy.

‘Stay,’ she said, fondly taking her hand away from him, ‘let me take off my hat.’

She untied the strings of her hat, flung it down, slipped the cape off her shoulders, tidied her hair, and sat down on the little old sofa. Insarov gazed at her, without stirring, like one enchanted.

‘Sit down,’ she said, not lifting her eyes to him and motioning him to a place beside her.

Insarov sat down, not on the sofa, but on the floor at her feet.

‘Come, take off my gloves,’ she said in an uncertain voice. She felt afraid.

He began first to unbutton and then to draw off one glove; he drew it half off and greedily pressed his lips to the slender, soft wrist, which was white under it.

Elena shuddered, and would have pushed him back with the other hand; he began kissing the other hand too. Elena drew it away, he threw back his head, she looked into his face, bent above him, and their lips touched.

An instant passed... she broke away, got up, whispered ‘No, no,’ and went quickly up to the writing-table.

‘I am mistress here, you know, so you ought not to have any secrets from me,’ she said, trying to seem at ease, and standing with her back to him. ‘What a lot of papers! what are these letters?’

Insarov knitted his brows. ‘Those letters?’ he said, getting up, ‘you can read them.’

Elena turned them over in her hand. ‘There are so many of them, and the writing is so fine, and I have to go directly... let them be. They’re not from a rival, eh?... and they’re not in Russian,’ she added, turning over the thin sheets.

Insarov came close to her and fondly touched her waist. She turned suddenly to him, smiled brightly at him and leant against his shoulder.

‘Those letters are from Bulgaria, Elena; my friends write to me, they want me to come.’

‘Now? To them?’

‘Yes... now, while there is still time, while it is still possible to come.’

All at once she flung both arms round his neck, ‘You will take me with you, yes?’

He pressed her to his heart. ‘O my sweet girl, O my heroine, how you said that! But isn’t it wicked, isn’t it mad for me, a homeless, solitary man, to drag you with me... and out there too!’

She shut his mouth.... ‘Sh--or I shall be angry, and never come to see you again. Why isn’t it all decided, all settled between us? Am I not your wife? Can a wife be parted from her husband?’

‘Wives don’t go into war,’ he said with a half-mournful smile.

‘Oh yes, when they can’t stay behind, and I cannot stay here?’

‘Elena, my angel!.. but think, I have, perhaps, to leave Moscow in a fortnight. I can’t think of university lectures, or finishing my work.’

‘What!’ interrupted Elena, ‘you have to go soon? If you like, I will stop at once this minute with you for ever, and not go home, shall I? Shall we go at once?’

Insarov clasped her in his arms with redoubled warmth. ‘May God so reward me then,’ he cried, ‘if I am doing wrong! From to-day, we are one for ever!’

‘Am I to stay?’ asked Elena.

‘No, my pure girl; no, my treasure. You shall go back home to-day, only keep yourself in readiness. This is a matter we can’t manage straight off; we must plan it out well. We want money, a passport----’

‘I have money,’ put in Elena. ‘Eighty roubles.’

‘Well, that’s not much,’ observed Insarov; ‘but everything’s a help.’

‘But I can get more. I will borrow. I will ask mamma.... No, I won’t ask mamma for any.... But I can sell my watch.... I have earrings, too, and two bracelets... and lace.’

‘Money’s not the chief difficulty, Elena; the passport; your passport, how about that?’

‘Yes, how about it? Is a passport absolutely necessary?’

‘Absolutely.’

Elena laughed. ‘What a queer idea! I remember when I was little... a maid of ours ran away. She was caught, and forgiven, and lived with us a long while... but still every one used to call her Tatyana, the runaway. I never thought then that I too might perhaps be a runaway like her.’

‘Elena, aren’t you ashamed?’

‘Why? Of course it’s better to go with a passport. But if we can’t----’

‘We will settle all that later, later, wait a little,’ said Insarov. ‘Let me look about; let me think a little. We will talk over everything together thoroughly. I too have money.’

Elena pushed back the hair that fell over on his forehead.

‘O Dmitri! how glorious it will be for us two to set off together!’

‘Yes,’ said Insarov, ‘but there, when we get there----’

‘Well?’ put in Elena, ‘and won’t it be glorious to die together too? but no, why should we die? We will live, we are young. How old are you? Twenty-six?’

‘Yes, twenty-six.’

‘And I am twenty. There is plenty of time before us. Ah, you tried to run away from me? You did not want a Russian’s love, you Bulgarian! Let me see you trying to escape from me now! What would have become of us, if I hadn’t come to you then!’

‘Elena, you know what forced me to go away.’

‘I know; you were in love, and you were afraid. But surely you must have suspected that you were loved?’

‘I swear on my honour, Elena, I didn’t.’

She gave him a quick unexpected kiss. ‘There, I love you for that too. And goodbye.’

‘You can’t stop longer?’ asked Insarov.

‘No, dearest. Do you think it’s easy for me to get out alone? The quarter of an hour was over long ago.’ She put on her cape and hat. ‘And you come to us to-morrow evening. No, the day after to-morrow. We shall be constrained and dreary, but we can’t help that; at least we shall see each other. Good-bye. Let me go.’

He embraced her for the last time. ‘Ah, take care, you have broken my watch-chain. Oh, what a clumsy boy! There, never mind. It’s all the better. I will go to Kuznetsky bridge, and leave it to be mended. If I am asked, I can say I have been to Kuznetsky bridge.’ She held the door-handle. ‘By-the-way, I forgot to tell you, Monsieur Kurnatovsky will certainly make me an offer in a day or two. But the answer I shall make him--will be this----’ She put the thumb of her left hand to the tip of her nose and flourished the other fingers in the air. ‘Good-bye till we see each other again. Now, I know the way... And don’t lose any time.’

Elena opened the door a little, listened, turned round to Insarov, nodded her head, and glided out of the room.

For a minute Insarov stood before the closed door, and he too listened. The door downstairs into the court slammed. He went up to the sofa, sat down, and covered his eyes with his hands. Never before had anything like this happened to him. ‘What have I done to deserve such love?’ he thought. ‘Is it a dream?’

But the delicate scent of mignonette left by Elena in his poor dark little room told of her visit. And with it, it seemed that the air was still full of the notes of a young voice, and the sound of a light young tread, and the warmth and freshness of a young girlish body.

XXIV

Insarov decided to await more positive news, and began to make preparations for departure. The difficulty was a serious one. For him personally there were no obstacles. He had only to ask for a passport--but how would it be with Elena? To get her a passport in the legal way was impossible. Should he marry her secretly, and should they then go and present themselves to the parents?... ‘They would let us go then,’ he thought ‘But if they did not? We would go all the same. But suppose they were to make a complaint... if... No, better try to get a passport somehow.’

He decided to consult (of course mentioning no names) one of his acquaintances, an attorney, retired from practice, or perhaps struck off the rolls, an old and experienced hand at all sorts of clandestine business. This worthy person did not live near; Insarov was a whole hour in getting to him in a very sorry droshky, and, to make matters worse, he did not find him at home; and on his way back got soaked to the skin by a sudden downpour of rain. The next morning, in spite of a rather severe headache, Insarov set off a second time to call on the retired attorney. The retired attorney listened to him attentively, taking snuff from a snuff-box decorated with a picture of a full-bosomed nymph, and glancing stealthily at his visitor with his sly, and also snuff-coloured little eyes; he heard him to the end, and then demanded ‘greater definiteness in the statement of the facts of the case’; and observing that Insarov was unwilling to launch into particulars (it was against the grain that he had come to him at all) he confined himself to the advice to provide himself above all things with ‘the needful,’ and asked him to come to him again, ‘when you have,’ he added, sniffing at the snuff in the open snuff-box, ‘augmented your confidence and decreased your diffidence’ (he talked with a broad accent). ‘A passport,’ he added, as though to himself, ‘is a thing that can be arranged; you go a journey, for instance; who’s to tell whether you’re Marya Bredihin or Karolina Vogel-meier?’ A feeling of nausea came over Insarov, but he thanked the attorney, and promised to come to him again in a day or two.

The same evening he went to the Stahovs. Anna Vassilyevna met him cordially, reproached him a little for having quite forgotten them, and, finding him pale, inquired especially after his health. Nikolai Artemyevitch did not say a single word to him; he only stared at him with elaborately careless curiosity; Shubin treated him coldly; but Elena astounded him. She was expecting him; she had put on for him the very dress she wore on the day of their first interview in the chapel; but she welcomed him so calmly, and was so polite and carelessly gay, that no one looking at her could have believed that this girl’s fate was already decided, and that it was only the secret consciousness of happy love that gave fire to her features, lightness and charm to all her gestures. She poured out tea in Zoya’s place, jested, chattered; she knew Shubin would be watching her, that Insarov was incapable of wearing a mask, and incapable of appearing indifferent, and she had prepared herself beforehand. She was not mistaken; Shubin never took his eyes off her, and Insarov was very silent and gloomy the whole evening. Elena was so happy that she even felt an inclination to tease him.

‘Oh, by the way,’ she said to him suddenly, ‘is your plan getting on at all?’

Insarov was taken aback.

‘What plan?’ he said.

‘Why, have you forgotten?’ she rejoined, laughing in his face; he alone could tell the meaning of that happy laugh: ‘Your Bulgarian selections for Russian readers?’

‘_Quelle bourde_!’ muttered Nikolai Artemyevitch between his teeth.

Zoya sat down to the piano. Elena gave a just perceptible shrug of the shoulders, and with her eyes motioned Insarov to the door. Then she twice slowly touched the table with her finger, and looked at him. He understood that she was promising to see him in two days, and she gave him a quick smile when she saw he understood her. Insarov got up and began to take leave; he felt unwell. Kurnatovsky arrived. Nikolai Artemyevitch jumped up, raised his right hand higher than his head, and softly dropped it into the palm of the chief secretary. Insarov would have remained a few minutes longer, to have a look at his rival. Elena shook her head unseen; the host did not think it necessary to introduce them to one another, and Insarov departed, exchanging one last look with Elena. Shubin pondered and pondered, and threw himself into a fierce argument with Kurnatovsky on a legislative question, about which he had not a single idea.

Insarov did not sleep all night, and in the morning he felt very ill; he set to work, however, putting his papers into order and writing letters, but his head was heavy and confused. At dinner time he began to be in a fever; he could eat nothing. The fever grew rapidly worse towards evening; he had aching pains in all his limbs, and a terrible headache. Insarov lay down on the very little sofa on which Elena had lately sat; he thought: ‘It serves me right for going to that old rascal,’ and he tried to sleep.... But the illness had by now complete mastery of him. His veins were throbbing violently, his blood was on fire, his thoughts were flying round like birds. He sank into forgetfulness. He lay like a man felled by a blow on his face, and suddenly, it seemed to him, some one was softly laughing and whispering over him: he opened his eyes with an effort, the light of the flaring candle smote him like a knife.... What was it? the old attorney was before him in an Oriental silk gown belted with a silk handkerchief, as he had seen him the evening before.... ‘Karolina Vogelmeier,’ muttered his toothless mouth. Insarov stared, and the old man grew wide and thick and tall, he was no longer a man, he was a tree.... Insarov had to climb along its gnarled branches. He clung, and fell with his breast on a sharp stone, and Karolina Vogelmeier was sitting on her heels, looking like a pedlar-woman, and lisping: ‘Pies, pies, pies for sale’; and there were streams of blood and swords flashing incessantly.... Elena! And everything vanished in a crimson chaos.

XXV

‘There’s some one here looks like a locksmith or something of the sort,’ Bersenyev was informed the following evening by his servant, who was distinguished by a severe deportment and sceptical turn of mind towards his master; ‘he wants to see you.’

‘Ask him in,’ said Bersenyev.

The ‘locksmith’ entered. Bersenyev recognised in him the tailor, the landlord of Insarov’s lodgings.

‘What do you want?’ he asked him.

‘I came to your honour,’ began the tailor, shifting from one foot to the other, and at times waving his right hand with his cuff clutched in his three last fingers. ‘Our lodger, seemingly, is very ill.’

‘Insarov?’

‘Yes, our lodger, to be sure; yesterday morning he was still on his legs, in the evening he asked for nothing but drink; the missis took him some water, and at night he began talking away; we could hear him through the partition-wall; and this morning he lies without a word like a log, and the fever he’s in, Lord have mercy on us! I thought, upon my word, he’ll die for sure; I ought to send word to the police station, I thought. For he’s so alone; but the missis said: “Go to that gentleman,” she says, “at whose country place our lodger stayed; maybe he’ll tell you what to do, or come himself.” So I’ve come to your honour, for we can’t, so to say----’

Bersenyev snatched up his cap, thrust a rouble into the tailor’s hand, and at once set off with him post haste to Insarov’s lodgings.

He found him lying on the sofa, unconscious and not undressed. His face was terribly changed. Bersenyev at once ordered the people of the house to undress him and put him to bed, while he rushed off himself and returned with a doctor. The doctor prescribed leeches, mustard-poultices, and calomel, and ordered him to be bled.

‘Is he dangerously ill?’ asked Bersenyev.

‘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.