Part 6

“Ah! so that’s it!”--I said to myself:--“good! So it was not for nothing that I felt drawn to the garden! That shall not be!” I exclaimed, smiting myself on the breast with my fist; although I really did not know what it was that I was determined not to permit.--“Whether Malévsky himself comes into the garden,”--I thought (perhaps he had blurted out a secret; he was insolent enough for that),--“or some one else,”--(the fence of our vegetable-garden was very low and it cost no effort to climb over it)--“at any rate, it will be all the worse for the person whom I catch! I would not advise any one to encounter me! I’ll show the whole world and her, the traitress,”--(I actually called her a traitress)--“that I know how to avenge myself!”

I returned to my own room, took out of my writing-table a recently purchased English knife, felt of the sharp blade, and, knitting my brows, thrust it into my pocket with a cold and concentrated decision, exactly as though it was nothing remarkable for me to do such deeds, and this was not the first occasion. My heart swelled angrily within me and grew stony; I did not unbend my brows until nightfall and did not relax my lips, and kept striding back and forth, clutching the knife which had grown warm in my pocket, and preparing myself in advance for something terrible. These new, unprecedented emotions so engrossed and even cheered me, that I thought very little about Zinaída herself. There kept constantly flitting through my head Aleko, the young gipsy:[6]--“Where art thou going, handsome youth?--Lie down....” and then: “Thou’rt all with blood bespattered!... Oh, what is’t that thou hast done?... Nothing!” With what a harsh smile I repeated that: that “Nothing!”

My father was not at home; but my mother, who for some time past had been in a state of almost constant, dull irritation, noticed my baleful aspect at supper, and said to me:--“What art thou sulking at, like a mouse at groats?”--I merely smiled patronisingly at her by way of reply and thought to myself: “If they only knew!”--The clock struck eleven; I went to my own room but did not undress; I was waiting for midnight; at last it struck.--“’Tis time!”--I hissed between my teeth, and buttoning my coat to the throat and even turning up my sleeves I betook myself to the garden.

I had selected a place beforehand where I meant to stand on guard. At the end of the garden, at the spot where the fence, which separated our property from the Zasyékins’, abutted on the party-wall, grew a solitary spruce-tree. Standing beneath its low, thick branches, I could see well, as far as the nocturnal gloom permitted, all that went on around; there also meandered a path which always seemed to me mysterious; like a serpent it wound under the fence, which at that point bore traces of clambering feet, and led to an arbour of dense acacias. I reached the spruce-tree, leaned against its trunk and began my watch.

The night was as tranquil as the preceding one had been; but there were fewer storm-clouds in the sky, and the outlines of the bushes, even of the tall flowers, were more plainly discernible. The first moments of waiting were wearisome, almost terrible. I had made up my mind to everything; I was merely considering how I ought to act. Ought I to thunder out: “Who goes there? Halt! Confess--or die!”--or simply smite.... Every sound, every noise and rustling seemed to me significant, unusual.... I made ready.... I bent forward.... But half an hour, an hour, elapsed; my blood quieted down and turned cold; the consciousness that I was doing all this in vain, that I was even somewhat ridiculous, that Malévsky had been making fun of me, began to steal into my soul. I abandoned my ambush and made the round of the entire garden. As though expressly, not the slightest sound was to be heard anywhere; everything was at rest; even our dog was asleep, curled up in a ball at the gate. I climbed up on the ruin of the hothouse, beheld before me the distant plain, recalled my meeting with Zinaída, and became immersed in meditation....

I started.... I thought I heard the creak of an opening door, then the light crackling of a broken twig. In two bounds I had descended from the ruin--and stood petrified on the spot. Swift, light but cautious footsteps were plainly audible in the garden. They were coming toward me. “Here he is.... Here he is, at last!”--darted through my heart. I convulsively jerked the knife out of my pocket, convulsively opened it--red sparks whirled before my eyes, the hair stood up on my head with fright and wrath.... The steps were coming straight toward me--I bent over, and went to meet them.... A man made his appearance.... My God! It was my father!

I recognised him instantly, although he was all enveloped in a dark cloak,--and had pulled his hat down over his face. He went past me on tiptoe. He did not notice me although nothing concealed me; but I had so contracted myself and shrunk together that I think I must have been on a level with the ground. The jealous Othello, prepared to murder, had suddenly been converted into the school-boy.... I was so frightened by the unexpected apparition of my father that I did not even take note, at first, in what direction he was going and where he had disappeared. I merely straightened up at the moment and thought: “Why is my father walking in the garden by night?”--when everything around had relapsed into silence. In my alarm I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not even try to find it; I felt very much ashamed. I became sobered on the instant. But as I wended my way home, I stepped up to my little bench under the elder-bush and cast a glance at the little window of Zinaída’s chamber. The small, somewhat curved panes of the little window gleamed dully blue in the faint light which fell from the night sky. Suddenly their colour began to undergo a change.... Behind them--I saw it, saw it clearly,--a whitish shade was lowered, descended to the sill,--and there remained motionless.

“What is the meaning of that?”--I said aloud, almost involuntarily, when I again found myself in my own room.--“Was it a dream, an accident, or....” The surmises which suddenly came into my head were so new and strange that I dared not even yield to them.

XVIII

I rose in the morning with a headache. My agitation of the night before had vanished. It had been replaced by an oppressive perplexity and a certain, hitherto unknown sadness,--exactly as though something had died in me.

“What makes you look like a rabbit which has had half of its brain removed?”--said Lúshin, who happened to meet me. At breakfast I kept casting covert glances now at my father, now at my mother; he was calm, as usual; she, as usual, was secretly irritated. I waited to see whether my father would address me in a friendly way, as he sometimes did.... But he did not even caress me with his cold, everyday affection.--“Shall I tell Zinaída all?”--I thought.... “For it makes no difference now--everything is over between us.” I went to her, but I not only did not tell her anything,--I did not even get a chance to talk to her as I would have liked. The old Princess’s son, a cadet aged twelve, had come from Petersburg to spend his vacation with her; Zinaída immediately confided her brother to me.--“Here, my dear Volódya,”--said she (she called me so for the first time), “is a comrade for you. His name is Volódya also. Pray, like him; he’s a wild little fellow still, but he has a good heart. Show him Neskútchny Park, walk with him, take him under your protection. You will do that, will you not? You, too, are such a good fellow!”--She laid both hands affectionately on my shoulder--and I was reduced to utter confusion. The arrival of that boy turned me into a boy. I stared in silence at the cadet, who riveted his eyes in corresponding silence on me. Zinaída burst out laughing and pushed us toward each other.--“Come, embrace, children!”--We embraced.--“I’ll take you into the garden if you wish,--shall I?”--I asked the cadet.

“Certainly, sir,”--he replied, in a hoarse, genuine cadet voice. Again Zinaída indulged in a burst of laughter.... I managed to notice that never before had she had such charming colour in her face. The cadet and I went off together. In our garden stood an old swing. I seated him on the thin little board and began to swing him. He sat motionless in his new little uniform of thick cloth with broad gold galloon, and clung tightly to the ropes.

“You had better unhook your collar,”--I said to him.

“Never mind, sir,[7] we are used to it, sir,”--he said, and cleared his throat.

He resembled his sister; his eyes were particularly suggestive of her. It was pleasant to me to be of service to him; and, at the same time, that aching pain kept quietly gnawing at my heart. “Now I really am a child,” I thought; “but last night....” I remembered where I had dropped my knife and found it. The cadet asked me to lend it to him, plucked a thick stalk of lovage, cut a whistle from it, and began to pipe. Othello piped also.

But in the evening, on the other hand, how he did weep, that same Othello, over Zinaída’s hands when, having sought him out in a corner of the garden, she asked him what made him so melancholy. My tears streamed with such violence that she was frightened.--“What is the matter with you? What is the matter with you, Volódya?”--she kept repeating, and seeing that I made her no reply, she took it into her head to kiss my wet cheek. But I turned away from her and whispered through my sobs:--“I know everything: why have you trifled with me?... Why did you want my love?”

“I am to blame toward you, Volódya” ... said Zinaída.--“Akh, I am very much to blame” ... she said, and clenched her hands.--“How much evil, dark, sinful, there is in me!... But I am not trifling with you now, I love you--you do not suspect why and how.... But what is it you know?”

What could I say to her? She stood before me and gazed at me--and I belonged to her wholly, from head to foot, as soon as she looked at me.... A quarter of an hour later I was running a race with the cadet and Zinaída; I was not weeping; I was laughing, although my swollen eyelids dropped tears from laughing; on my neck, in place of a tie, was bound a ribbon of Zinaída’s, and I shouted with joy when I succeeded in seizing her round the waist. She did with me whatsoever she would.

XIX

I should be hard put to it, if I were made to narrate in detail all that went on within me in the course of the week which followed my unsuccessful nocturnal expedition. It was a strange, feverish time, a sort of chaos in which the most opposite emotions, thoughts, suspicions, hopes, joys, and sufferings revolved in a whirlwind; I was afraid to look into myself, if a sixteen-year-old can look into himself; I was afraid to account to myself for anything whatsoever; I simply made haste to live through the day until the evening; on the other hand, at night I slept ... childish giddiness helped me. I did not want to know whether I was beloved, and would not admit to myself that I was not beloved; I shunned my father--but could not shun Zinaída.... I burned as with fire in her presence, ... but what was the use of my knowing what sort of fire it was wherewith I burned and melted--seeing that it was sweet to me to burn and melt! I surrendered myself entirely to my impressions, and dealt artfully with myself, turned away from my memories and shut my eyes to that of which I had a presentiment in the future.... This anguish probably would not have continued long ... a thunder-clap put an instantaneous end to everything and hurled me into a new course.

On returning home one day to dinner from a rather long walk, I learned with surprise that I was to dine alone; that my father had gone away, while my mother was ill, did not wish to dine and had shut herself up in her bedroom. From the footmen’s faces I divined that something unusual had taken place.... I dared not interrogate them, but I had a friend, the young butler Philípp, who was passionately fond of poetry and an artist on the guitar; I applied to him. From him I learned that a frightful scene had taken place between my father and mother (for in the maids’ room everything was audible, to the last word; a great deal had been said in French, but the maid Másha had lived for five years with a dressmaker from Paris and understood it all); that my mother had accused my father of infidelity, of being intimate with the young lady our neighbour; that my father had first defended himself, then had flared up and in his turn had made some harsh remark “seemingly about her age,” which had set my mother to crying; that my mother had also referred to a note of hand, which appeared to have been given to the old Princess, and expressed herself very vilely about her, and about the young lady as well; and that then my father had threatened her.--“And the whole trouble arose,”--pursued Philípp, “out of an anonymous letter; but who wrote it no one knows; otherwise there was no reason why this affair should have come out.”

“But has there been anything?”--I enunciated with difficulty, while my hands and feet turned cold, and something began to quiver in the very depths of my breast.

Philípp winked significantly.--“There has. You can’t conceal such doings, cautious as your papa has been in this case;--still, what possessed him, for example, to hire a carriage, or to ... for you can’t get along without people there also.”

I dismissed Philípp, and flung myself down on my bed. I did not sob, I did not give myself up to despair; I did not ask myself when and how all this had taken place; I was not surprised that I had not guessed it sooner, long before--I did not even murmur against my father.... That which I had learned was beyond my strength; this sudden discovery had crushed me.... All was over. All my flowers had been plucked up at one blow and lay strewn around me, scattered and trampled under foot.

XX

On the following day my mother announced that she was going to remove to town. My father went into her bedroom in the morning and sat there a long time alone with her. No one heard what he said to her, but my mother did not weep any more; she calmed down and asked for something to eat, but did not show herself and did not alter her intention. I remember that I wandered about all day long, but did not go into the garden and did not glance even once at the wing--and in the evening I was the witness of an amazing occurrence; my father took Count Malévsky by the arm and led him out of the hall into the anteroom and, in the presence of a lackey, said coldly to him: “Several days ago Your Radiance was shown the door in a certain house. I shall not enter into explanations with you now, but I have the honour to inform you that if you come to my house again I shall fling you through the window. I don’t like your handwriting.” The Count bowed, set his teeth, shrank together, and disappeared.

Preparations began for removing to town, on the Arbát,[8] where our house was situated. Probably my father himself no longer cared to remain in the villa; but it was evident that he had succeeded in persuading my mother not to make a row. Everything was done quietly, without haste; my mother even sent her compliments to the old Princess and expressed her regret that, owing to ill-health, she would be unable to see her before her departure. I prowled about like a crazy person, and desired but one thing,--that everything might come to an end as speedily as possible. One thought never quitted my head: how could she, a young girl,--well, and a princess into the bargain,--bring herself to such a step, knowing that my father was not a free man while she had the possibility of marrying Byelovzóroff at least, for example? What had she hoped for? How was it that she had not been afraid to ruin her whole future?--“Yes,”--I thought,--“that’s what love is,--that is passion,--that is devotion,” ... and I recalled Lúshin’s words to me: “Self-sacrifice is sweet--for some people.” Once I happened to catch sight of a white spot in one of the windows of the wing.... “Can that be Zinaída’s face?”--I thought; ... and it really was her face. I could not hold out. I could not part from her without bidding her a last farewell. I seized a convenient moment and betook myself to the wing.

In the drawing-room the old Princess received me with her customary, slovenly-careless greeting.

“What has made your folks uneasy so early, my dear fellow?”--she said, stuffing snuff up both her nostrils. I looked at her, and a weight was removed from my heart. The word “note of hand” uttered by Philípp tormented me. She suspected nothing ... so it seemed to me then, at least. Zinaída made her appearance from the adjoining room in a black gown, pale, with hair out of curl; she silently took me by the hand and led me away to her room.

“I heard your voice,”--she began,--“and came out at once. And did you find it so easy to desert us, naughty boy?”

“I have come to take leave of you, Princess,”--I replied,--“probably forever. You may have heard we are going away.”

Zinaída gazed intently at me.

“Yes, I have heard. Thank you for coming. I was beginning to think that I should not see you.--Think kindly of me. I have sometimes tormented you; but nevertheless I am not the sort of person you think I am.”

She turned away and leaned against the window-casing.

“Really, I am not that sort of person. I know that you have a bad opinion of me.”

“I?”

“Yes, you ... you.”

“I?”--I repeated sorrowfully, and my heart began to quiver as of old, beneath the influence of the irresistible, inexpressible witchery.--“I? Believe me, Zinaída Alexándrovna, whatever you may have done, however you may have tormented me, I shall love and adore you until the end of my life.”

She turned swiftly toward me and opening her arms widely, she clasped my head, and kissed me heartily and warmly. God knows whom that long, farewell kiss was seeking, but I eagerly tasted its sweetness. I knew that it would never more be repeated.--“Farewell, farewell!” I kept saying....

She wrenched herself away and left the room. And I withdrew also. I am unable to describe the feeling with which I retired. I should not wish ever to have it repeated; but I should consider myself unhappy if I had never experienced it.

We removed to town. I did not speedily detach myself from the past, I did not speedily take up my work. My wound healed slowly; but I really had no evil feeling toward my father. On the contrary, he seemed to have gained in stature in my eyes ... let the psychologists explain this contradiction as best they may. One day I was walking along the boulevard when, to my indescribable joy, I encountered Lúshin. I liked him for his straightforward, sincere character; and, moreover, he was dear to me in virtue of the memories which he awakened in me. I rushed at him.

“Aha!”--he said, with a scowl.--“Is it you, young man? Come, let me have a look at you. You are still all sallow, and yet there is not the olden trash in your eyes. You look like a man, not like a lap-dog. That’s good. Well, and how are you? Are you working?”

I heaved a sigh. I did not wish to lie, and I was ashamed to tell the truth.

“Well, never mind,”--went on Lúshin,--“don’t be afraid. The principal thing is to live in normal fashion and not to yield to impulses. Otherwise, where’s the good? No matter whither the wave bears one--’tis bad; let a man stand on a stone if need be, but on his own feet. Here I am croaking ... but Byelovzóroff--have you heard about him?”

“What about him? No.”

“He has disappeared without leaving a trace; they say he has gone to the Caucasus. A lesson to you, young man. And the whole thing arises from not knowing how to say good-bye,--to break bonds in time. You, now, seem to have jumped out successfully. Look out, don’t fall in again. Farewell.”

“I shall not fall in,”--I thought.... “I shall see her no more.” But I was fated to see Zinaída once more.

XXI

My father was in the habit of riding on horseback every day; he had a splendid red-roan English horse, with a long, slender neck and long legs, indefatigable and vicious. Its name was Electric. No one could ride it except my father. One day he came to me in a kindly frame of mind, which had not happened with him for a long time: he was preparing to ride, and had donned his spurs. I began to entreat him to take me with him.

“Let us, rather, play at leap-frog,”--replied my father,--“for thou wilt not be able to keep up with me on thy cob.”

“Yes, I shall; I will put on spurs also.”

“Well, come along.”