Marie Tarnowska

But the troika had stopped, and Vassili sprang out upon the snow. Through the illuminated windows the tzigane music poured forth its waves of sensuous melody—and alas! the rhythmic swing of it swept away, as in a whirlwind, the peaceful dreams of Italy, of the rose-clad mansion and the Italian poets.

While the servants were taking our cloaks and snowshoes from us I whispered hurriedly to Vassili: “Dearest, be good to-night. Do not drink much.”

“Why not? What a strange idea!” he said; and we passed into the overheated, overlighted rooms.

At the far end of the ballroom some thirty tziganes, women and men, in their picturesque costumes were making music. The men played and the women sang. The dancing couples whirled round in the scent-laden air.

Doctor Stahl's wife, a kindly German woman, received us with amiable smiles; Stahl himself greeted us with excited effusiveness. He was quite pale with two red spots on the summit of his cheeks. I was struck anew by his strange air of intoxication, for I knew he never touched wine. Immediately, from the end of the room Bozevsky came hastening to meet us, superb in his full uniform—blue tunic and scarlet belt.

“Hail Fata Morgana!” he cried. “Give me this dance,” and he put his arm round my waist. But I drew back.

“Alas, Prince Charming, I dare not.”

He turned pale; then he bowed, twirled on his heels and moved away. He did not come near me again until late in the evening. I saw him surrounded by women, who danced with him, smiling into his face, floating with languid grace in his arms.

I shrank into a corner of the vast room where tall plants and flowers screened me from the dancers.

“Why, what are you doing hidden here?” cried Stahl, coming up to me. His pupils were narrower than ever and his breath came and went in short gasps. He bent over me and scanned my face. “What are your thoughts, Countess Marie?”

“I have no thoughts,” I replied sadly.

“Then I will give you one,” said he laughing; “a blithe and comforting thought—think that a hundred years hence we shall all be dead!”

“True,” I answered, and a wave of unspeakable melancholy invaded my soul. “We may, perhaps, be dead even fifty years hence.”

“Or thirty,” laughed Stahl.

“Or twenty,” I sighed, in even deeper despondency.

“Oh, no,” said Stahl. “Twenty years hence you will still be a charming matron getting on towards middle-age.” And, as some one was calling him, he turned away and left me.

His words sank into my heart, heavy and searing as molten lead. How short, how short was life! How the years flew past! How brief were the wings of youth and happiness! I raised my eyes—doubtless they were full of sadness—and I saw that Bozevsky at the far end of the room was looking at me. Several brilliantly attired women were laughing and talking to him, but abruptly, without excuse or explanation, he left them and crossed the room to where I sat.

The tziganes were playing a wild, nerve-thrilling czarda. Without a word Bozevsky put his arm round me and drew me into the dance.

The music went faster and faster, wilder and ever more wild.

Light as air I swung round in Bozevsky's arm. I could have wished to dance thus forever—dance, dance to the very brink of life and, still dancing, to plunge over into the abyss of death.

As we whirled round I perceived that Vassili was watching us. He was drinking champagne with vodka in it and was laughing loudly while he spoke to Stahl; but his eyes never left me as I swept round the ballroom with Bozevsky. His gaze alarmed me. I was dizzy and out of breath, but I did not dare to stop dancing for fear of Vassili. I danced and danced, breathless and distraught; I felt my heart beating furiously, pulsing with the mad rapidity, the battering throb of a motor-cycle at full speed—and still I danced and danced on, while the ballroom, the guests, the tziganes spun round and round before my blurred eyes....

Vassili's gaze still followed me.

XV

Suddenly my strength failed me. The room seemed to be paved with water; the floor yielded and undulated under my feet; the motor-cycle pulsing in my breast stopped dead. Then I felt Bozevsky's arm sustain me as I fell forward on his breast. Everything whirled, darkened—vanished.

When I opened my eyes I was seated near the window; the dancers crowded round me. Stahl was bending over me with a small shining instrument in his hand. It was a hypodermic syringe.

I shrank back in terror. “No, no!” I cried.

Seeing that I had recovered my senses Vassili, who stood behind me, laid an iron hand on my bare shoulder.

“Come,” he said in a hoarse and brutal voice. “Come at once.”

“Where to?” I rose trembling to my feet. I still felt dizzy and weak, and scarcely knew where I was.

“Home,” said Vassili, bending over me with a terrible look. His face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath upon me, hot and laden with that subtle sweetish exhalation of ether that vodka leaves behind it. “The dance is over,” he muttered. “It is over, it is over.” I noticed his clenched fists; and I was afraid. A deep silence had fallen on the entire room. “Come!” he repeated in a tone that made me quake.

I shrank back in terror. Then Vassili put out his hand and seized my pearl necklace; it broke in his grasp. The milky gems fell to the ground and rolled away in all directions; the guests, both men and women, stooped down to search for them and pick them up.

But now Bozevsky had taken a step forward, and stood, haughty and aggressive, in front of Vassili. He uttered a brief word in a low voice.

Vassili turned upon him with livid countenance. “Insolent scoundrel!” he cried, wildly searching his pockets for a weapon; then in a frenzy he turned on the awe-stricken assembly: “Go away, everybody!” he shouted. “Stahl, turn out the lights. We are going to have a game of blind man's buff, the Uhlan and I. A game of blind man's buff in the dark! Quick, Stahl, give us a couple of revolvers. Send all these people away and turn out the lights.”

He was beside himself with vodka and with wrath.

Bozevsky still faced him, calm and unmoved. “Why should it be in the dark, Count Tarnowsky? Why not in the light of day—at ten paces?”

“No!” roared Vassili. “I'll kill you in the dark, evil beast that you are. I'll slaughter you like a wild beast in the dark!”

I never knew how we succeeded in getting him out into the troika, but at last the feat was accomplished, and he drove off with Madame Grigorievska and Semenzoff, the only two people who had any influence over him. I followed in another sleigh, alone with Dr. Stahl, who during the entire drive panted and shivered beside me, as if in the throes of some fierce physical agony.

Through the starry calm of the night, while the sleighs glided silently over the snow, we could hear Vassili's strident and drunken voice still roaring: “Blind man's buff with the officer! Ha, ha, ha! In the dark—bing bang. Blind man's buff!”

The scandal in Kieff was enormous. The whole town spoke of nothing else. All the women sided with Vassili, and all the men with me. As for Vassili, he cared nothing for the opinion of either. He came and went with lowering brows, never speaking either to me or to the children.

I was unspeakably frightened and unhappy. At last, one evening, unable to endure the strain of his silence any longer, and praying God to give me courage, I went tremblingly and knocked at his study door.

He said “Come in,” and I entered.

He was standing by the window, smoking, and he turned upon me a cold vindictive eye.

“Vassili”—my voice trembled—“Vassili, don't be angry with me any more. Forgive me. I did not mean to offend you. I did not mean—” I burst into tears.

He seemed somewhat moved and held out his hand to me without speaking.

I grasped it eagerly. He continued to smoke and look out of the window, while I stood awkwardly beside him, holding his hand and not knowing what to say.

Perhaps my silence pleased him, for soon I felt him press my trembling fingers more closely. Looking timidly up into his face I saw that his lips were quivering.

“Vassili,” I whispered.

He turned to me abruptly. “Let us go away,” he said, “Mura, let us go away!”

“Where?” I asked, overcome with sudden fear.

“Far away from here, far away from Russia. I cannot live in this accursed country any longer.” And Vassili let go my hand in order to clench his fists.

“I had thought of it, too,” I said unsteadily. And in a low voice I told him my thoughts of the rose-clad house in Italy, my dreams of an azure exile in that beauteous land, alone with him and the children.

“Mura! Mura!” he said, taking my face between his hands and gazing deeply into my eyes. “Tell me—is it not too late?”

Was it too late?

In my soul my unlawful passion for Bozevsky rose like a giant wave, towered over me, enveloped and submerged me. Then—then to the eyes of my spirit there came the vision of my children, of a flower-filled Italian garden, of peace reconquered and deliverance from evil. “No, Vassili, no. It is not too late!”

With a sigh I lay my cheek against his shoulder and bowed my face upon his breast.

Before our departure from Russia, in order not to leave ill-feeling or evil talk behind us, it was decided that Vassili and Bozevsky should meet and be reconciled.

The Stahls and Grigorievskys gladly undertook to organize an afternoon reception at which we were to take leave of all our friends and acquaintances. After that there would be a theater party at the opera, and, finally, the more intimate of our friends were to be the guests of Bozevsky himself at a supper at the Grand Hotel. There we were to say farewell to one another for many years, perhaps forever.

In spite of the burning desire which drew me towards Bozevsky, I had honorably kept my part of the agreement and had refused to see him for even an instant before the appointed day.

Vassili took the necessary steps to get our passports and every preparation was made for our final departure from Russia.

And now the eve of our journey had come—the afternoon reception was over; and this was the fatal evening which was to mark the supreme and ultimate hour of my happiness.

Satins and jewels decked my aching heart; flowers garlanded my ringleted hair; I wanted Alexis to see me for the last time looking my fairest. I longed to remain forever in his memory a loved and radiant vision.

“You are dazzlingly beautiful,” said my cousin Vera to me, as soon as I entered the room, surveying me from top to toe. “I can quite understand why every one is crazy about you.”

I was immediately surrounded by all our most intimate friends, who lamented in every key our resolve to leave Russia.

“Without you, Kieff will be empty. It will be like a ring which has lost its brightest gem.”

I smiled and sighed, feeling both gratified and mournful.

Who would have thought that after this evening all those who now surrounded me with flattering words would pass me by without a greeting, would turn from me as from some vile and tainted creature?

Bozevsky, pallid and stern, came to me, and bowed low as he kissed my hand.

“Ave! Ave … Maria!” he said. Then he raised his eyes and looked at me long and fixedly. Despair was so clearly written on his countenance, that I felt afraid lest Vassili should notice it; Alexis read the fear in my eyes, and laughed. “Do you know what I believe?” he said.

I looked at him without understanding.

“I believe,” he continued in scornful tones, “that I am in a trap.”

“A trap? What do you mean?” I gazed questioningly into his face.

“Yes, yes, a trap,” said he with a cynical laugh. Then in a tone that seemed in keeping with the frivolous atmosphere that surrounded us:

“Countess,” he continued, “has it ever happened to you to go wrong in some well-known quotation? To begin, for instance, with one author, and to end with another?”

“I do not understand,” I stammered, perplexed by the strangeness of his manner. “What—what do you mean?”

Vassili was approaching, and Alexis with a scornful laugh raised his voice slightly as he spoke. “Because to-night,” he said, “a misquotation of that kind keeps ringing through my brain. “Ave, Maria!… Morituri te salutant!”

Vassili stood beside us and heard the words with a puzzled smile.

“Morituri?” he said, holding out his hand to Bozevsky with a frank and friendly gesture. “Morituri? Indeed I hope not.”

Bozevsky took his hand and looked him in the face. Vassili returned his gaze; then, with an impulsive gesture, in true Russian fashion, my husband bent forward and kissed him on both cheeks.

No! no, it was not a trap! From the depths of my broken heart, from my inmost consciousness, there springs up this protest on behalf of him who on that fatal evening wrecked my life. I know that it was an impulse of his fervent heart that impelled Vassili to open his arms to the man whom an hour before he had hated—and whom an hour later he slew.

No; it was not a trap.

XVI

Doubtless that evening I was beautiful. During the supper party at the Grand Hotel I felt that I diffused around me an atmosphere of more subtle intoxication than the music or the wines. Placed between Vassili and Stahl I laughed and laughed in a fever of rapturous gaiety. I was excited and overwrought.

Bozevsky sat facing me. As I glanced at his proud, passionate face, I said in my heart: “To-morrow you will see him no more. But this evening he is here; you see him, pale for the love of you, thrilled by your presence. Do not think of to-morrow. To-morrow is far away!”

So I laughed and laughed while the rhythmic charm of waltzes played on muted strings wrought upon my senses, swaying me towards an unreal world, a world of transcendent passion and incomparable joys.

Stahl, seated at my right hand, was flushed and elated, but still drew the hurried sibilant breaths I had so often noticed in him. Vassili seemed to have fallen in love with me anew. He murmured rapturous words into my ear. “To-morrow you shall be mine, mine only, out of reach of all others, beyond the sight and the desire of all these people—whose necks I should like to wring.” And he drank his Clicquot looking at me with kindling eyes.

“Vassili,” I whispered imploringly, “do not drink any more.”

“Don't you wish me to?” he asked, turning to me with his glass of champagne in his hand. “Don't you wish it? Well—there!” He flung the glass full of blonde wine behind him over his shoulder. The thin crystal chalice was shattered into a thousand pieces.

“What are you doing, Vassili? What are you doing?” cried Grigorievsky. “Are you playing the King of Thule?”

“Precisely,” laughed Vassili. “Was he not the paragon of all lovers, who chose to die of thirst in order to follow his adored one to the grave?”

And somewhat uncertainly he quoted:

“Then did he fling his chaliceInto the surging main,He watched it sink and vanish—And never drank again.”

“Here's to the King of Thule!” cried one of the guests. And they all drank Vassili's health.

Bozevsky had sprung to his feet; his eyes gleamed strangely. “You may be the King of Thule, Tarnowsky,” he cried in a mocking tone, “but I am the knight Olaf. You know the legend?” His clear insolent eyes surveyed the guests provocatively. “Olaf—you remember—was condemned to death for daring to love the king's daughter. He was at his last banquet. 'Take heed, Olaf,' said the king. 'The headsman stands at the door!' 'Let him stay there, sire, while I bid farewell to life in a last toast!' And standing up—just as I stand here—he raised his glass, as I raise mine:

“I drink to the earth, I drink to the sky,I drink to the sea and the shore;I drink to the days that I have seen,And the days I shall see no more;I drink to the King who has sentenced me,And the Headsman at the door.“I bless the joys that I have hadAnd the joys that I have missed;I bless the eyes that have smiled on meAnd the lips that I have kissed!”

Here Bozevsky turned and looked straight at me:

“To thy red lips that I have kissedI raise this cup of wine,I bless thy radiant lovelinessThat made my life divine,And I bless the hour that brings me deathFor the hour that thou wert mine!”

He uttered these words in a loud voice, with his daring eyes fixed steadily on mine; then he raised his glass and drained it.

Vassili had sprung to his feet. But instantly Stahl was beside him, speaking rapidly, while Grigorievsky exclaimed:

“The sleighs are waiting. It is time to go home!”

Amid nervous and hurried farewells the perilous moment passed and the danger was averted. We all hastened to our sleighs; my cousin Vera and Madame Grigorievska were beside me; Stahl and Grigorievsky had each with an air of easy friendliness taken my husband by the arm.

“Good-by! Good-by! Bon voyage! Good-by!” The last farewells had been exchanged. The impatient horses were shaking their bells in the icy night air. Vera had already taken her place in the sleigh, and I was about to step in beside her, when I saw Bozevsky striding rapidly towards me. He passed in front of my husband, who was standing near the second sleigh with Stahl and Grigorievsky, and came straight to me. He stretched out his hand with a gesture of despair.

“So it is all over—all over!” he said. “And this is good-by!”

His voice broke, and he bent his fair head over my hand, crushing my fingers in his feverish clasp.

At that instant the report of a shot rang out, followed by a mad outburst of laughter from Vassili. I saw the horses of the sleigh plunge and rear.

Bozevsky, still clasping my hand, wrenched himself upright; a convulsive shiver passed through him, and his head jerked backwards with a strange, wooden movement like that of a broken doll—then with a shrill burst of laughter which showed all his teeth, he fell forward at my feet.

With a cry I bent over him, and I felt a splash of blood on my face. It spurted forth like the jet of a fountain from the side of his neck. Once again my hands, my dress were covered with his blood—I thought I was in a dream. Every one had come rushing up. Now they raised him. I saw Stahl snatch a white scarf from some one's shoulders and wind it round and round the wounded neck, and immediately a dark stain appeared on the scarf and slowly widened.

Supported by Stahl, Bozevsky stared about him with haggard eyes, until his gaze met mine.

A quiver passed over his face. “I bless the hour—” he gasped. Then a gush of blood came from his mouth, and he was silent.

XVII

Bozevsky was carried to his room and the manager and servants of the Grand Hotel thronged in murmuring consternation round his door. A Swedish doctor, staying at the hotel, was summoned in haste. He appeared in his dressing-gown, and with Stahl's assistance carefully dressed and bound up the deep double wound caused by the bullet, which had passed through the left side of Bozevsky's neck and come out beneath his chin.

Trembling and weeping I followed the sinister procession, and with Cousin Vera and Madame Stahl entered Bozevsky's room. Now I stood, silently praying, at the foot of the bed. Bozevsky sunken in his pillow, with his eyes closed and his head and neck in bandages, looked as if he were already dead.

He suddenly opened his eyes, and his gaze wandered slowly from side to side until it rested on me. He moved his lips as if to speak, and I hastened to his pillow and bent over him.

He whispered, “Stay here.”

“Yes,” I said, and sat down beside him, taking his moist, chill hand between my own.

He repeated weakly: “Stay here. Do not go away.”

The Swedish doctor was washing his hands and talking in a low voice to Stahl. He turned to me and said:

“You must try not to agitate him. Do not let him speak or move his head.” Then he went out into the corridor with Stahl.

Mrs. Stahl and Vera sat mute and terror-stricken in a corner. I watched Bozevsky, with a deep, dull ache racking my heart. He seemed to be falling asleep. I felt his hand relax in mine and his short breathing became calmer and more regular.

But Stahl came in again, and Bozevsky opened his eyes.

Stahl approached the bedside and stood for a long while looking down at his friend. Then he turned to me. “A nurse is coming,” he said. “I will take you ladies home and then come back and pass the night with him.”

Take me home! How could I return home? How could I endure to meet Vassili again? At the mere thought of seeing him, who with a treacherous shot from behind had shattered this young existence, hatred and terror flamed up within me. No! I would not return home. Never again would I touch the hand of Vassili Tarnowsky.

While these thoughts traversed my mind, some one knocked at the door. It was the nurse. Vera and Madame Grigorievska, after questioning me with their eyes, got up softly; then, with a glance of pity at Bozevsky, they went on tiptoe out of the room.

At the door Stahl beckoned to me to come. But I shook my head. As if he knew what was passing Bozevsky opened his eyes again.

“Stay here,” he whispered. Then he put his hand to the bandage round his neck. “If you leave me I will tear it all off.” He made a gesture as if he would do so.

“I shall not leave you,” I whispered bending over him. “I shall never leave you again.”

I kept my word.

Later I learned that Vassili had given himself up to the authorities, and that my grief-stricken mother had come to fetch our children and had taken them with her to Otrada. To her and to my father they were the source of much melancholy joy.

Thus did the old garden of my youth open again its shadowy pathways and flowery lawns to the unconscious but already sorrow-touched childhood of little Tioka and Tania—those tragic children whose father was in prison and whose mother, far away from them, watched and suffered by the sinister death-bed of a stranger. To me the two innocent, angelic figures often came in my dreams; and I cried out to them with bitterest tears: “Oh, my own children, my two loved ones, forgive your mother that she does not forsake one who is dying for her sake. This very night, perhaps, or to-morrow—soon, soon, alas!—his life will end. And with a broken heart your mother will return to you.”

But Bozevsky did not die that night. Nor the following day. Nor the day after.

Fate had in store for him and for me a much more appalling doom. He dragged his frightful death-agony through the interminable hours of a hundred days and a hundred nights. He was doomed to trail his torment from town to town, from surgeon to surgeon, from specialist to charlatan. One after another, they would unbandage the white and withered neck, probe the blue-edged wound, and then cover up again with yellow gauze the horrifying cavity; leaving us to return, heart-stricken and silent, to the luxurious hotels that housed our irremediable despair.

About that time I heard that Vassili had been released on bail. Later on he was acquitted by a jury in the distant city of Homel, on the ground of justifiable homicide.

Perhaps it was a just verdict. But for him whom he had struck down—and for me—what anguish, great Heavens! What lingering torture of heart-breaking days and nights.

Ah, those nights, those appalling nights! We dreaded them as one dreads some monstrous wild beast, lurking in wait to devour us. All day long we thought only of the night. As soon as twilight drew near Bozevsky, lying in his bed with his face towards the window, clutched my hand and would not let it go.

“I am afraid,” he would murmur. “I wish it were not night. If only it were not night!”

“Nonsense, dearest,” I would say, cheerfully. “It is quite early. It is still broad daylight. Everybody is moving about. The whole world is awake and out of doors.”

But night, furtive and grim, crouched in the shadowy room, lurked in dark corners, and then suddenly was upon us, black, silent, terrifying. Round us the world lay asleep, and we two were awake and alone with our terror.

Then began the never-ending question, ceaselessly repeated, reiterated throughout the entire night:

“What is the time?”

It was only nine o'clock. It was half-past nine.... Ten… Half-past ten… A quarter to eleven… Eleven o'clock… Five minutes past…

As soon as it was dawn, at about four o'clock, Bozevsky grew calm. Silence fell, and he slept.