Marie Tarnowska

Surely it is thus, thus wondering and perplexed, that he must have looked in the face of death and treachery, on that summer morning when he was struck down by the hand of his friend.

The switchback plunges downward in its mad race to the abyss—the end is near.

At Kieff, as arranged, I meet Naumoff.

I sob out my despair to him. Paul Kamarowsky must die. I give no reason, I explain nothing; I repeat unceasingly the three words: “He must die,” until there seem to be no other words in the world—until the universe seems to ring with those three words: “He must die!”

Naumoff recoils from me, pale-faced and horrified. Then I drive him from me, crying: “Go, you are a coward. Let me never see you again!”

“But why should he die?” cries Naumoff. “What has the poor man done to you?”

Ah, what, indeed, has the poor man done?

Ramblingly, incoherently, I try to explain to Naumoff; I tell him of Tioka and his illness, of my vow.... He listens amazed, without comprehending.

“But Mura, Mura! This is delirium, this is madness. You are ill, you are out of your mind. How can such an insensate idea possess you? How can you imagine that God would demand such an iniquity?”

Then I rack my brain for arguments that will convince him. I invent all manner of falsehoods; I repeat the tale of insults and outrages that I have endured at the hands of Kamarowsky; I accuse him of violence and brutality … and even as I tell these mad stories they seem to myself to be true. I am thrilled by my own words; I tremble, I weep convulsively; and Naumoff, ever more pale, ever more bewildered, does not know what to believe.

Continually, a dozen times a day, blind to all caution, reckless of all consequences, I send telegrams to Prilukoff—the telegrams that afterwards were found, and led to our arrest—“Berta refuses.” (Prilukoff, I know not for what reason, had nicknamed Naumoff “Berta.”) Then again: “Berta will do it.” And again: “Berta irresolute. What am I to do?”

Then seized by sudden panic: “Wait! Do no harm to any one. Advise me. Help me. I am going mad.”

Prilukoff telegraphs back his usual set phrase: “Leave it to me.” And he forthwith proceeds to send me a number of telegrams, all of which contain a series of insults and taunts addressed both to Naumoff and to myself. He signs them “Paul Kamarowsky.” Naumoff reads them in amazement, then in anger; finally he, too, becomes possessed of the idea of crime, obsessed by the frenzy of murder.

How can I tell the terrible story further?… The gust of madness caught us in its whirlwind, dashing us round like leaves blown in a storm.

One evening—it was a pale, clear twilight at the close of August—I sprang suddenly to my feet, and winding a black veil round my hair, I ran from my rooms and down the wide shallow flights of the hotel staircase. There were large mirrors on every landing. As I descended I saw at every turn a woman coming to meet me, a tall, spectral creature with a black veil tied round a white, desolate face … her light, wild eyes filled me with fear, and I hurried forward to reach the hall, where I heard voices and music.

Standing beside the piano in the vast lounge, two young girls were singing; they were English girls, and they sang, with shy, cool voices, a duet of Mendelssohn:

Some distance away, listening to them with tranquil contentment on their peaceful faces, sat their parents—the father, a stern, stately old man with kindly eyes; the mother, gentle and serene, wearing the white lace cap of renunciation on her smooth gray hair. As I passed them with faltering step the mother turned and looked at me. What did she read in my face that wakened such a look of tenderness and pity in hers?… She smiled at me, and that smile seemed to stop my heart, so guileless was it, so maternal and so kind.

For an instant a wild thought possessed me: to stop, to fall upon my knees before this gentle, unknown woman and implore her help.

What if I cried out to her: “Help me, have pity upon me! I am an unhappy creature whom the Fates pursue.... I am distraught, I am demented—to-morrow I shall have murder on my soul. Keep me near you … save me! Unless you help me I am lost....”

But the Furies that pursued me laughed aloud and lashed me forward.

And now Nicolas Naumoff, who had noticed my flight, came running down the staircase to follow me....

I crossed the hall rapidly and went out into the dusk.

XLI

Through the twilight streets I hastened, and Naumoff followed, calling me by my name; but I did not answer him. Through the long Road of the Cross I hurried silently, and out through the Golden Gate, and on, down dusty solitary streets, past the Church of All Saints, until at last I stood before the cemetery where my mother is laid to rest.

“Where are we going?” asked Naumoff. “Why have you come here?”

But without answering him I threw a ruble to the gatekeeper and entered the silent pathways of the churchyard.

The sky was still light in the west, but the paths were gloomy in the shadow of willow and cypress trees. Hastening on between the double rows of flower-decked graves, and the monuments that gleamed whitely in the twilight, I reached my mother's tomb. I knelt and kissed the great marble cross that stands so heavily above her frail brow. And the thought of her lying there, so desolate and alone, abandoned to the rains and the winds and the darkness of long dreadful nights, struck terror to my heart.

“Speak to me, mother,” I whispered to her. “Tell me what I am to do. You who know all—all about the vow and little Tioka, and the terrible things that are in my life—tell me, mother, must Paul Kamarowsky die?”

My mother did not answer.

“Tell me, tell me, mother! Is he to die?” My mother was silent. But the evening breeze passed over the delicate flowers, the lilies and campanulas which cover her grave; and they all nodded their heads, saying: “Yes, yes, yes.”

“Did you see?” I whispered to Naumoff.

But he only looked at me with bewildered eyes. And I drew him away. “We must go quickly,” I said.

Now it was growing dark. I hastened along the winding narrow pathways until in a deserted corner I found what I was seeking: a neglected grave marked by a gray stone bearing a name and a date.

As I gazed at that mound of earth, on which a long-since withered wreath spoke of forgetfulness, a wave of desolation swept over my heart. How sad and empty and useless was everything! Life and hope and love and desire—all empty, all unavailing....

“Who is buried here?” asked Naumoff under his breath. He bent forward and read the name aloud: “Vladimir Stahl.”

Something stirred. Perhaps it was only the dry leaves of the withered wreath, but I was afraid—afraid that I should see Stahl suddenly move and rise up, covered with mold, to answer to his name.

“Vladimir Stahl…” whispered Naumoff again, raising his haggard boyish face and gazing at me, “Mura, Mura, I see you encompassed by the dead.”

Doubtless he meant the tombs which spread around me in a livid semicircle; but to me it seemed that he could discern standing behind me all my dead—my mother and Stahl, and Bozevsky and little Peter.... I uttered a scream as I looked fearfully behind me.

“Why do you scream?” gasped Naumoff; and he also turned and looked round. Then he pointed to the grave in front of us. “Who was this?” he asked in a low voice. “Did he love you?” His eyes flickered strangely. There was horror and lust and frenzy in the gaze he fixed upon me.

I was silent.

“Did he love you? Did he love you?” He pressed closer to me, with parted lips and quickening breath.

Then I bent towards him, and a thrill such as I have never felt passed through me. “Swear—on the dead—that you will kill that man.”

“I swear it,” he gasped. “Terrible woman that you are, I swear it.”

“Go,” I whispered. “Go … at once.” But he sprang towards me and fastened his lips upon mine.

Amid all the horrors that haunt my memory, all the spectral visions which drift darkly through the labyrinth of my life, that frenzied embrace among the tombs in the crepuscular cemetery, still rises before me—a ghost of darkness and of shame.

He turned and left me. I heard his footsteps running along the gravel path, I saw his tall shadowy figure vanish in the gloom.... He was gone.

I was alone in the nocturnal churchyard, alone by Stahl's desolate grave.

“Nicolas Naumoff!” I cried. But no one answered me, and fear ran into my heart with thudding steps.

I hurried forward, down the narrow path bordered with tombs and turned to the right, down another wider avenue among other endless rows of the dead.... Where was I? In which direction lay the gate?… I turned and ran back. I must find Stahl's grave again, and then go to the left through the unconsecrated burial-ground of those who had died by their own hand.... With shuddering breath I stumbled forward, but nowhere could I find the dreary field of the unshriven dead. Tall sepulchers and mausoleums loomed dimly on either side of me, limitless rows of tombstones and statues … but Stahl's low, dreary mound was nowhere to be seen. Stay—behind the willows on the right, was that not the white cross standing on my mother's grave?… To reach it quickly I left the pathway and ran diagonally across the burial ground trampling the graves in my haste to reach that large cross shimmering in the gloom.... No, it was not my mother's grave. But further on, and further, other crosses glimmered and beckoned—and I ran on, crazed and terror-stricken, stumbling over mounds and hillocks, tripping in iron railings, trampling over flowers and wreaths … until I fell in the darkness and lay unconscious and silent amid the silent and unconscious dead.

········

A breath of soft morning air awoke me. I opened my eyes. Elise was bending over me with pale and anxious face. The room—my bedroom—whirled and swam before my dizzy sight.

“Elise!”…

Elise Perrier clasped her hands. “Thank God!” she murmured. “I feared you would never wake again.” Her face worked strangely, and she burst into tears.

“Elise—what has happened? What is to-day?” Before she could answer, another question sprang to my lips: “Where is Naumoff?”

“He has left, my lady,” whispered Elise in awestruck tones.

“Left?” A long silence held us. “Left? Where has he gone?”

Elise looked down at me with blanched and quivering countenance.

“To Venice,” she said in low tones.

I started up. “To Venice?” To Venice! My memory darted to and fro like a child playing hide and seek. “Elise! Elise! Elise!” I stretched out my hands like one sinking and drowning in the darkness. Elise wept. I watched the strange faces that Elise always made when she wept: funny, pitiful grimaces with puckered brow and chin.

“To Venice.” My memory flickers like a feeble light, then blazes into sudden flames that sear my soul with fire. “Elise! He must be stopped. He must not reach Venice! Elise, stop him, stop him—!”

“It is impossible, my lady.”

Yes, it is impossible.

(By this time the train which is carrying Naumoff on his mission of death has passed Warsaw and is hastening towards Brünn; hastening, ever hastening through the dawning hours and the noonday sunshine, hastening on into the twilight—and at dusk it rumbles and pants into the station at Vienna.)

I fall fainting back upon my pillows, and all through the day and the night I dream that I am speeding after the rushing train, catching up with it and losing it again, sweeping through the air, tearing along the unending rails, reaching it at last, and being struck down and crushed under its rolling wheels.

Day dawns once more.

“Elise, Elise, bring Naumoff back. Telegraph to him. Elise, for heaven's sake, bring him back!”

“It is hopeless, my lady.”

Yes, it is hopeless.

(At this hour the train is hurrying from Bozen to Verona, from Verona to Vicenza, from Vicenza to Padua.)

Night falls on my despair.

“Elise, Elise! Where are you? What is the time?”

“It is nearly dawn, my lady.”

“Elise, what day is this?”

“It is the third day of September.”

The third day of September!

“Elise,” I scream suddenly, “Elise! Telegraph to Kamarowsky. Warn him.... Quickly, oh, quickly! Why, why did we not do so before?”

“Hush, my lady, hush! You were delirious; you could only rave and weep.”

“Elise, Elise, telegraph to Kamarowsky....”

“It is too late, my lady.”

Yes, it is too late.

(At this very hour of dawn the train has reached Venice. Nicolas Naumoff is hastening from the Riva degli Schiavoni, across the empty piazza and the deserted streets. He hails a gondola. “Campo Santa Maria del Giglio!”

And the gondola, with soft plash of oar, glides slowly towards the doomed sleeper.

What dreams may the angel of rest have sent to him for the last time? Perhaps the tender vision of little Grania has gladdened him, while silent and inexorable in the closed gondola the youth with the golden eyes steals towards him through the mazes of the clear canals.

“Santa Maria del Giglio.”

Nicolas Naumoff springs from the gondola, crosses the empty Campo and reaches the house. He ascends the steps quickly, knocks, enters—and closes the door behind him.)

Yes, it is too late.

I hear myself shrieking with laughter as I fall back on my pillows. Soon I am surrounded by strangers who hold me down, who thrust opiates between my lips, who lay soothing hands and cooling compresses on my brow. Then I know nothing more.

········

Elise Perrier's terrified face surges out of the darkness: she is speaking quickly, she is bending over me, imploring and urging.... What does she say? She weeps despairingly, and ever through her tears she speaks, urging and imploring.

Finally, in her thin arms, she drags me from my bed; she dresses me; she wraps a cloak about me, and hurries backwards and forwards with traveling-bags and satchels. Now we are in a carriage—no, we are in a train. Elise Perrier sits opposite me, with ashen face and her hands in gray cotton gloves tightly folded. Her lips move. She is praying.

Suddenly I struggle to my feet: “Paul!…”

As I scream the name Elise springs upon me, covering my mouth with her cotton glove, pressing my head to her breast. “Silence! hush, hush, for the love of heaven! They will hear you. Hush!”

“Is he dead, Elise, is he dead?”

“No, no, he is not dead,” gasps Elise in a toneless whisper, “he is not dead. We are going to him. He is wounded … he has been telegraphing to you for three days, begging you to come. And you would not move, you would not understand....” Elise is crying again.

But perfect peace has descended into my soul. Paul is not dead. He lives! he lives! Nothing else matters but this—he lives.

The train still rushes along, beating rhythmic time to many tunes that are in my head; I gaze out of the window, at the whirling landscape that swings past like a giant chess-board, at the telegraph wires that dip, and then ascend slowly and dip again. Hours pass or days pass.... And the train stops.

Elise is hurriedly collecting cloaks and satchels.

“Where are we, Elise? Are we in Venice?”

“Not yet; not yet. We are in Vienna.”

As I step from the train, two men whom I do not know approach me. One of them asks me if I am the Countess Tarnowska. He has not taken his hat off, and I do not deign to reply.

As I am about to pass him he lays his hand on my arm. The other man also comes forward, and, one on each side, they conduct me along the platform. I notice many people stopping to look at me.

Nothing seems to matter. I do not remember why we are in Vienna, nor whither we are bound. I notice that it is a bright, hot day, and I feel that I am walking in a dream.... I find myself thinking of Vassili; I wish he would come, and send these men away and take me home. I shall be glad when I am at home with Vassili and the children and Aunt Sonia.... Safely at home!

Then I remember—I have no home. I am a forsaken, demented creature whom Vassili cares for no longer. But where am I going? I am going to Paul Kamarowsky, who lives and loves me!… Again I weep with joy and thankfulness at the thought that Kamarowsky lives.

Now I am in a carriage driving through the streets of Vienna; and the two strange men are still with me. They are taking me to a hotel. We arrive. I pass through a large doorway and along some passages. Then I notice that it is not a hotel. It is a vast, bare room with wooden benches round the wall. Some men in uniform stand at the door, and I notice that they do not salute me when I enter.

Neither does an elderly man who is sitting at the desk rise or come to meet me. He looks at me steadily and asks me many questions; but I pay no heed to him. The windows are open; I can hear the sound of a piano very far away; somebody is practising a romance by Chaminade that I used to play at Otrada.... How sad a piano sounds when played by an unseen hand in the silence of a sunlit street!

The man at the desk speaks in German to the uniformed men; they take my golden wristbag from me, and conduct me out of the bare room down a long passage. As I go slowly forward between the two men I notice that from the far end of the passage a group of people are coming towards us. In the center of the group walks a man, handcuffed and wearing his hat crookedly at the back of his head, as if placed there by some other hand than his own. It is Prilukoff!

He sees me. A wave of livid pallor overspreads his face. Then he bends forward towards me and makes a movement with his lips, pressing them tightly together and shaking his head; he is trying to make me understand something. As they notice this the men at my side grasp my arm and make me turn quickly down another corridor. But I hear Prilukoff's voice shouting after me. He utters a Russian word: “Molci!” (Be silent).

The men thrust me rudely into an empty cell. I sit down on a bench fixed in a corner under the small, barred window and lean my head against the wall. I feel neither unhappy nor afraid; only weary, unspeakably weary; and almost at once I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. Never since I was a child at Otrada have I known such perfect rest—such utter oblivion poured upon such limitless weariness.

Suddenly my door is opened abruptly and one of the men enters; he takes me by the arm, and conducts me back to the large, bare room, where the elderly official still sits at his desk. And there, standing before him, I see Elise. She is weeping bitterly. I see her making those comical grimaces which always accompany her tears, as in Italy cheerful music accompanies a child's funeral. My mind—like a frightened bat that has flown into a room and darts hither and thither—flutters and plunges wildly through all my past life. I think of my mother, of little Peter, and of Bozevsky; I remember a pink dress I once wore here in Vienna, at a reception of the Russian Embassy.... I think of little Tioka and his days for saying “No.” … How far, how far away it all is! What a gulf of guilt and sorrow have my tottering footsteps traversed since then.... But now—now I will climb tremblingly, devoutly, the steep road that leads back to safety; humbled to my knees I will pour out my thanks. For Paul Kamarowsky is saved; he lives and will recover!

The man at my side is dragging me roughly forward. The elderly official at the desk has beckoned to me, and as I stand before him in a line with Elise he reads aloud from a sheet of foolscap. Suddenly I hear the words: “Complicity in the murder of Count Paul Kamarowsky....”

The murder? The murder!

Two of the uniformed men hold my arms.

“But,” I try to say, with chattering teeth, “Count Kamarowsky lives … he will recover.”

The man replies, “Count Kamarowsky is dead.”

I laugh out loud. The car on the switchback rushes, whirls, plunges—falls with me to destruction.

XLII

Like a dream within a dream.—Poe.

It was in the prison infirmary that I first heard the details of what had passed in the Villa Santa Maria del Giglio, on that fatal morning of August the 3rd. As the nursing sister sat beside me, renewing from time to time the cold bandages placed on my throbbing forehead, she told me in low tones the mournful and tragic story. I listened as if I were listening in a dream to the story of a dream.

“When (she said) at early morning the Venetian servant-girl heard a knock at the door she went to open it, and a pale youth stepped quickly across the threshold. He asked for Count Kamarowsky, and bade the girl tell him that Nicolas Naumoff, of Orel, had arrived and desired to see him. The girl went to her master's door and knocked. He was awake and had risen. On hearing her message, he hurried out to meet his friend, for he loved him like a brother—”

(“Ah, sister, I know, I know! He loved him like a brother!”)

“When he saw Naumoff come in he went forward to meet him with open arms. The young man raised his hand and fired five shots point blank into his body. The Count fell to the ground; but even then he stretched out his arms to the young man and said: 'My friend, why have you done this to me? In what way have I ever harmed you?' The young man, with a cry as if he had awakened from a dream, flung himself on the ground at his feet. Then the wounded man showed him the balcony from which he might escape, and with fast-ebbing breath forgave him and bade him farewell.”

(“Oh, sister, sister, with fast-ebbing breath he forgave him and bade him farewell!”)

“He was carried to the hospital, and the doctors wanted to give him chloroform while they probed the gaping, deep-seated wounds; but he would not take it. 'Do what you have to do without sending me to sleep,' he said. 'I shall have plenty of time to sleep—afterwards.' The doctors groped for the bullets in the lacerated flesh, and stitched up the five, deep-seated wounds.... When it was over he asked for you.”

(“Sister, sister, he asked for me!”)

“He begged that you might be summoned quickly, and many telegrams were sent, but you neither came nor replied.”

(“I neither came nor replied!”)

“On the third day he was better. He spoke to those around him, and again he asked for you, and hoped that you would come. In the hospital he was in the hands of an old and very famous surgeon; but alas! as Fate would have it—”

(“What? what? As Fate would have it—?”)

“As Fate would have it, the mind of this old and celebrated surgeon suddenly gave way. None knew that anything was amiss, as he stood that day at the bedside of the sufferer whom his skill had saved. He spoke to his assistants in the same calm, authoritative voice as usual, but he ordered that the stitches should be taken out of the five wounds that were just beginning to heal. Those around him recoiled in amazement. They were thunderstruck. But he repeated the disastrous order in the voice of one who is accustomed to command and to save lives that are in peril. Then—”

(“What then? What then?”)

“Then the assistants, doubting their own wisdom, but not that of the man who had been their master, obeyed, and reopened the five deep-seated wounds which were just beginning to heal. And again, as Fate would have it—”

(Ah, Fate! The ghoul, the vampire Fate! She who has pursued me since my birth! She who has caught us and crushed us all in her torturing grip, splintering us like frail glass bubbles in her hand! Now she had entered the sick room of Paul Kamarowsky, had brooded over his bedside, and in fiendish pleasantry had scourged the old surgeon's brain with madness, whipping it to frenzy as a child whips a top, guiding his hand to tear the injured body and reopen the fast-healing wounds.)

“As Fate would have it, the old surgeon gave other and still more dreadful orders. Ah, holy Virgin! how shall the horror be told?… When the bewildered assistants, aghast at what they had done, laid the sufferer back on his pillows, the slaying had been accomplished.”

(“The slaying had been accomplished!”)

“With his last breath he called upon your name.”

(“With his last breath he called upon my name!”)

XLIII

E son quasi a l'estremo.Luce degli anni miei, dove se' gita?Carducci.

If I were to be asked to name the darkest hour of my dark life, well do I know which of all my gloomy memories would raise its spectral face.