Part 19

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

[Illustration]

_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._

[Illustration]

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.

On the next day he waited from early morning expecting his auntie to ask him if he wished to go to his mother; but auntie did not ask. Neither did his uncle. Instead of this, they both gazed at Valia as if he were dangerously ill and would soon die; they caressed him and brought him large books with colored pictures. The woman did not call any more, but it seemed to Valia that she must be lurking outside the door watching for him, and that as soon as he would pass the threshold she would seize him and carry him out into a black and dismal distance where cruel monsters were wriggling and breathing fire.

In the evenings while his uncle Gregory Aristarchovich was occupied in his study and Nastasia Philippovna was knitting something, or playing a game of solitaire, Valia read his books, in which the lines would grow gradually thicker and the letters smaller. Everything in the room was quiet, so quiet that the only thing to be heard was the rustling of the pages he turned, and occasionally the uncle’s loud cough from the study, or the striking of the abacus counters. The lamp, with its blue shade, threw a bright light on the blue plush table-cover, but the corners of the room were full of a quiet, mysterious gloom. There stood large plants with curious leaves and roots crawling out upon the surface and looking very much like fighting serpents, and it seemed as if something large and dark was moving amidst them. Valia read, and before his wide-open eyes passed terrible, beautiful and sad images which awakened in him pity and love, but more often fear. Valia was sorry for the poor water-nymph who so dearly loved the handsome prince that for him she had given up her sisters and the deep, peaceful ocean; and the prince knew nothing of this love, because the poor water-nymph was dumb, and so he married a gay princess; and while great festivities in honor of the wedding were in full swing on board the ship, and music was playing and all were enjoying themselves, the poor water-nymph threw herself into the dark waves to die. Poor, sweet little water-nymph, so quiet and sad, and modest! But often terrible, cruel, human monsters appeared before Valia. In the dark nights they flew somewhere on their prickly wings, and the air whistled over their heads, and their eyes burned like red-hot coals. And afterward, they were surrounded by other monsters like themselves while a mysterious and terrible something was happening there. Laughter as sharp as a knife, long and pitiful wailing; strange weird dances in the purplish light of torches, their slanty, fiery tongues wrapped in the red clouds of smoke; and dead men with long, black beards.--All this was the manifestation of a single enigmatic and cruel power, wishing to destroy man. Angry and mysterious spectres filled the air, hid among the plants, whispered something, and pointed their bony fingers at Valia; they gazed at him from behind the door of the adjoining unlit room, giggled and waited till he would go to bed, when they would silently dart around over his head; they peeped at him from out of the garden through the large, dark windows, and wailed sorrowfully with the wind.

In and out among all this vicious and terrible throng appeared the image of that woman who had come for Valia. Many people came and went in the house of Gregory Aristarchovich, and Valia did not remember their faces, but this face lived in his memory. It was such an elongated, thin, yellow face, and smiled with a sly, dissembling smile, from which two deep lines appeared at the two corners of the mouth. If this woman took Valia he would die.