Marie Tarnowska

A flush had mounted to the Count's temples.

“Who was that?” he asked in a harsh voice.

I mentioned Prilukoff's name, and Kamarowsky with knitted eyebrows exclaimed: “You must have very confidential relations with him, if he permits himself to give you ten thousand rubles.”

“Oh, no—no,” I stammered. “He is—he is only lending them to me. I shall pay them back, of course—”

Kamarowsky had risen from his chair. He took both my hands and pressed them to his breast.

“How wrong of you! How wrong! Why did you not ask me? Have you no confidence in me? How can you accept assistance from a stranger when I am here—I, who am so devoted to you?”

I know not why I burst into tears. A sense of shame and degradation overcame me. In a moment his arms were round me.

“Dearest, sweetest, do not cry. I know you must feel humiliated at accepting money from that man, who may afterwards make all kinds of claims upon you. Return the money to him, I implore you, and accept it from me.”

I could not answer for my tears.

“Promise me that you will give it back,” Kamarowsky went on, clasping me closer to him. “If you refuse me this favor I shall go away and you shall never see me again. For the sake of our Emilia—for the sake of little Grania—accept it from me. And let me be your friend from now on and forever.”

It took a long time to reconcile me to the sense of my own debasement.

He wrote out a check to me for ten thousand rubles and put it into my hands. He closed my fingers forcibly over it, pressing them closely and thanking me in a moved voice.

Then he went away, and I was left alone with the check and Prilukoff's sealed envelope.

I had wanted five thousand rubles and here I was with twenty thousand before me!

Poor, good Kamarowsky! And poor, dear, kind Prilukoff!

“I do not see why I should really return this to Prilukoff!” I said to myself.

I broke the seals and opened the envelope that he had presented to me with so much solemnity. Petrified with astonishment I gazed at its contents. Then I laughed softly.

“On the whole, I think I will return it,” I said, and laid the envelope aside.

It was full of old newspaper cuttings!

XXV

Facilis descensus Averni.

My downfall was rapid and irretrievable.

I soon became familiar with expedients and intrigues, I trod the tortuous paths that lead down into the valley of dishonor. For the outside world I might still appear a person of distinction, I might still call myself the Countess Tarnowska, but I had ceased to be that simple, ordinary, peerless being—an honest woman. I seemed to be surrounded by that peculiar atmosphere which envelops the adventuress as in an invisible mist—that imperceptible emanation by which persons of repute are instinctively repelled, and which draws within its ambit the idler and adventurer, the depredator and outcast of society.

I had accepted money to which I had no claim. From this want of dignity to the want of rectitude how brief is the step! Between indiscretion and transgression how uncertain is the boundary! And suddenly there comes a day when one awakes to find oneself—a criminal!

Ah, then we stop short in horror. We look back and see the abyss, the impassable gulf that henceforward separates us from the distant, candid summits of innocence. How has it been possible for us to travel along that vertiginous road which knows no return? What evil spirits have bandaged our eyes, have placed for our feet bridges and stepping stones so that almost without noticing it we have crossed ravines and precipices which never in this life we may traverse again? We can but go forward and downward: we can turn back no more.

Not at this period did I realize the irrevocable character of the fate I had chosen. Rather did I seem to perceive a new life opening out before me, leading me back once more to rectitude and honor, a return to that peaceful, conventional existence so often scorned by those who lead it, so bitterly regretted and desired by those who have forfeited and forsaken it.

Prilukoff still held me bound to him by the triple bonds of gratitude, of affection and of complicity. But Count Kamarowsky was swaying me towards a brighter and securer future. My marriage with Vassili, so long merely an empty and nominal tie, was about to be dissolved by a decree from the Holy Synod, and Kamarowsky implored me to marry him. His sadness and the loneliness of his little son moved me deeply; the thought of bringing light and joy into their lives was unspeakably sweet to me, while for my part I rejoiced to think that by the side of a worthy and honorable man I might take my place in the world once more, rehabilitated and redeemed. With Prilukoff, as I could see, downfall and ruin were imminent. He had left Moscow for a few days; but he would return, and alas! he would resume his dominion over me. I knew that with him the ultimate plunge into dishonor was inevitable.

And so with bitter tears of repentance, clasping the two fair heads of Tioka and Grania to my breast, I vowed to Heaven that I would be to them both a tender and a faithful mother, worthy of the lofty duty that by Divine grace was to be once more assigned to me.

Count Kamarowsky's gratitude and joy were boundless.

“You are giving back life to me,” he said, his kind eyes shining with emotion. “I do not feel worthy of so much happiness.”

“Don't, don't!” I said, turning away my face and flushing deeply at the thought of my recent unprincipled life. “It is I, I who am unworthy—”

But Kamarowsky interrupted me.

“Hush, Marie, hush. I know that you have suffered much and that you have been led astray. But let the dead past bury the past. All I ask of you is the pure white page of the future.”

“You are generous, you are kind,” I said, and tears burned in my eyes. “But let me tell you, let me tell you all—”

“Mura,” he said, calling me by the tender pet-name of my childhood, “do not raise impassable barriers between us. What I have no knowledge of does not exist so far as I am concerned. The unknown is but a shadow; and I am not afraid of shadows. But if to that shadow you give a living shape and a name, it will rise between you and me, and I shall not be able to clasp you in my arms until I have destroyed it. Speak if you must. But, for our happiness, it were far better for you to keep silence—and to forget.”

“Ah, you are right! Let there be no more sorrow, no more tragedies around me. Take me away from Moscow, away from all who know me. I will keep silence, and forget.”

Our departure from Moscow was like a flight. I left a letter for Prilukoff, entreating him to forgive and forget me, begging him not to debar me from taking my way again towards safety and rehabilitation. I expressed to him my sympathy, my gratitude and regret; and I implored him in the name of all that he still held dear or sacred to return to his family and to his career, to the lofty and straightforward course of honor from which I, unhappy creature that I was, had unwittingly, unwillingly turned him aside.

Kamarowsky took us to the Riviera—from the snows of the north to the fragrant orange-groves of Nice and Hyères. The tinkling of sleighs gliding through the blue-cold streets of Moscow still seemed to ring in my ears when, lo! the lazy, sun-warm silence of the south enwrapped my senses in its languorous sweetness. The two children, dazed with the heat and the blueness around them, stood in amazement, with hands clasped and mouths open, at the sight of the golden oranges and the huge foliage of cacti and aloes, thinking that by some wonder-working charm they had been carried into fairyland.

The distant sails, aslant on the radiant indigo of the sea, looked like white butterflies poised on a stupendous flower of lapis lazuli....

For three brief days I thought that fate had not overtaken me, and that my sins would not find me out.

My sins! As in the old German fable the children are led into the depths of a forest, and left there to be lost and forgotten—even so did I think that my sins would be lost and forgotten, even so did I think that they would never issue again from the shade in which I had hidden them.

Smiling, I moved forward to meet the future, exalted by the affection of an honorable man, purified by the love of two innocent children.

And I said in my heart: “Fate is pitiful and God has shown mercy. He has suspended His judgment and has allowed me one last chance. I shall not be found wanting; I shall be worthy of His clemency.”

Then lo! at a turning in my pathway, the forgotten avengers stand before me; my sins, like spectral furies, have found me out!

We were finishing dinner on the terrace of the Bellevue at Hyères, my betrothed and I. The children had said good night, had kissed and embraced us and run off, chattering and twittering with Elise, to their rooms. Kamarowsky had just lit a cigarette, and was leaning over to me with a word of tenderness, when I perceived immediately behind him at a neighboring table—a face, a grinning, fiendish face.

My heart bounded. It was the Scorpion!

Why was it that name that first rushed to my mind? Why was my primitive sense of fear and repulsion renewed at the sight of him?

Ah, that man staring and grimacing at me over Kamarowsky's shoulder was not the friend, the lover, the knight of the heroic Saga whom I had known and trusted in my days of desolation; no, he was the terrifying and truculent monster of the octopus story; he was the Scorpion who years ago had filled my soul with dread.

When had he come? How long had he been sitting at that table, watching my garrulous gladness, my timorous, reawakened happiness?

XXVI

I glanced at him apprehensively; I tried to greet him, but he made no return to my timid salute. He was smiling with a crooked mouth, his arms crossed before him on the table. He was mocking at Kamarowsky and at me, and my terror seemed greatly to amuse him.

I rose nervously, wishing to retire, but Kamarowsky detained me.

“What is troubling you, dearest?” he asked, noticing my frightened eyes. And he turned to see what was behind him.

I trembled in prevision of a stormy scene. But the Count did not recognize Prilukoff; he had only seen him once for a few moments that evening in my drawing-room when he had brought me the mysterious sealed envelope. Now Donat had his hat on his head; and besides, with that sinister smirk distorting his face I scarcely recognized him myself.

As soon as we rose from the table, Prilukoff did the same, and passing in front of us entered the hotel before we did. I trembled, while Kamarowsky with his arm in mine led me, talking placidly and affectionately, towards the entrance of the hotel. Doubtless he intended to accompany me to my sitting-room. But what if we found Prilukoff there?

It was Elise Perrier who saved me. As we stepped out of the lift I saw her coming quickly down the corridor to meet us.

“If you please, madame,” she stammered, “there is a lady—a visitor”—her lips were white as she uttered the falsehood—“who wishes to see madame. She is waiting here, in the sitting-room, and she would like to—to see your ladyship alone.”

“Who is it?” asked the Count.

“I think it is the—that relation of madame's”—Elise was going red and white by turns—“that relation from—from Otrada.”

“Ah, I know,” I stammered breathlessly. “Aunt Sonia, perhaps.” Then turning to Kamarowsky: “Will you wait for me downstairs in the reading-room?”

“Very well. Don't be long.” And Count Kamarowsky turned on his heel and left us.

I went rapidly on in front of Elise, who, humiliated by the falsehood she had told, hung her head in shame both for herself and for me; and I entered my sitting-room.

On the couch, smoking a cigarette, sat Prilukoff. He did not rise when I entered. He sat there smoking and looking at me with that curious crooked smile. A great fear clutched my heart.

“Donat,” I stammered, “why did you not let me know you had arrived?”

He made no answer; but he laughed loudly and coarsely, and my fear of him increased.

“Did you receive my letter? Are you cross with me?”

“Cross?” he shouted, leaping to his feet, his eyes glaring like those of a madman. “Cross? No, I am not cross.” I recoiled from him in terror, but he followed me, pushing his distorted face close to mine. “You ruin a man, you drive him to perdition, and then you inquire whether he is cross. You take an honorable man in your little talons, you turn and twist him round your fingers, you mold him and transform him and turn him into a coward, a rogue, and a thief; then you throw him aside like a dirty rag—and you ask him if he is cross! Ha, ha!” And he laughed in my face; he was ghastly to look at, livid in hue, with a swollen vein drawn like a cord across his forehead.

I burst into tears. “Why—why do you say that?” I sobbed.

“Why do I say that?” stormed Prilukoff. “Why? Because I had a wife and I betrayed her for you; I had two children and I forsook them for you; I had a career and I lost it for you; I was a man of honor and I have turned thief for you.”

“Oh, no, no!” I stammered, terrified.

“What? No? No?” he exclaimed, and with trembling hands he searched his breast-pocket and drew from it a bulky roll of banknotes. “No? This I stole—and this—and this—and this—because you, vampire that you are, needed money.”

“But I never told you to steal—”

“No, indeed; you never told me to steal. And where was I to get the money from? Where? Where?” So saying, he flung the banknotes in my face and they fell all over and around me. “You did not tell me to steal, no. But you wanted money, money, money. And now you have got it. Take it, take it, take it!”

I sobbed despairingly. “Oh, no, no, Donat! Have pity!”

“I have had pity,” he shouted. “I have always had pity—nothing but pity. You were ill and miserable and alone, and I left my home in order to stay with you. You wept, and I comforted you. You had no money, and I stole it for you. How could I have more pity?” He was himself in tears. “And now, because I am degraded and a criminal on your account, you leave me, you fling me aside and you marry an honest man. And I may go to perdition or to penal servitude.”

“Do not speak like that, I implore you.”

“Ah, but Countess Tarnowska, if I go to penal servitude, so shall you. I swear it. I am a thief and may become a murderer; but if I go to prison, you go too.” He collapsed upon the sofa and hid his face in his hands.

As I stood looking down upon him I saw as in a vision the somber road to ruin that this man had traversed for my sake, and I fell on my knees at his feet.

“Donat! Donat! Do not despair. Forgive me, forgive me! Go back, and return the money you have taken; go back and become an honest man again!”

He raised a haggard face in which his wild, bloodshot eyes seemed almost phosphorescent.

“There is no going back. By this time all Moscow knows that I have absconded, and carried off with me the money that was confided to my care.”

“But if you go back at once and return it?”

“I am ruined all the same. I am utterly lost and undone. Who would ever place their trust in me again? Who would ever rely upon my honor? No, I am a criminal, and every one knows it. The brand of infamy is not to be cancelled by a flash of tardy remorse. I am done for. I am a thief, and that is all there is about it.”

A thief! I had never seen a thief. In my imagination thieves were all slouching, unkempt roughs, with caps on their heads, and colored handkerchiefs tied round their throats. And here was this gentleman in evening dress—this gentleman who had been introduced to me as a celebrated and impeccable lawyer, who had been my lover, and Tioka's friend, and Elise's Lohengrin—and he was a thief!

I could not believe it.

At that moment a voice was heard outside. It was one of the bell-boys of the hotel; he was passing through the corridor calling: “Forty-seven! Number forty-seven.”

Prilukoff started. “Forty-seven? That is the number of my room. Who can be asking for me? Who can know that I am here?”

In his eyes there was already the look of the fugitive, the startled flash of fear and defiance of the hunted quarry.

I looked round me at all the banknotes scattered on the carpet, and I felt myself turn cold. “Hide them, hide them,” I whispered, wringing my hands.

“Hide them yourself!” he answered scornfully.

I heard footsteps in the corridor. They drew near. They stopped. Some one knocked at the door. Terror choked my throat and made my knees totter.

I stooped in haste to pick up all the money while Prilukoff still looked at me without moving. I held it out to him in a great heap of crumpled paper. But still he did not stir.

Again the knocking was repeated. Who could it be? Kamarowsky? The police? I opened a desk and flung the bundle of banknotes into it.

Then I said, “Come in.”

XXVII

It was only a saucy little page-boy in red uniform.

“If you please, Count Kamarowsky sends word that he is waiting for you.”

“Say that I shall be down directly.”

“No,” contradicted Prilukoff; “send word that you are not going down.”

“But then he will come here.”

“You will say that you cannot receive him.”

And that was what took place. And not on that evening only. Prilukoff installed himself, during long days and evenings, in my apartments, and refused to go away. Very often he did not even allow me to go out of the room.

Then came Count Kamarowsky knocking at the door.

“No! no! You cannot come in!” cried Elise Perrier, pale and trembling, leaning against the locked door.

“But why? Why? What has happened?”

“Nothing has happened. Madame is not feeling well,” Elise would reply, in quavering tones.

“But that is all the more reason why I should see her,” protested the Count. “I must see her!”

“It is impossible!” And Elise, whom fear rendered well-nigh voiceless, would roll towards me her round, despairing eyes.

Then the Count would speak to me through the closed door, entreating and arguing; and every time he used a tender expression Prilukoff, who held me fast, pinched my arm.

“Mura, Mura, let me in. Let me see you for a moment. You know how I love you (pinch); it is cruel to lock me out as if I were a stranger. If you are ill let me take care of you, with all my tenderness (pinch), with all my love (pinch)—”

In feeble accents I would reply: “Forgive me—I shall soon be better—do not trouble about me.”

“But what is the matter? Why do you not want to see me? Do you not love me any more?”

“Oh, yes, I love—(pinch). Please, please go away. I shall come down as soon as I can.”

Then I could hear his slowly retreating footsteps, while Prilukoff glared at me and, on general principles, pinched my arm again.

It was with the greatest difficulty that I could conceal Prilukoff's presence from little Tioka.

One day the child caught sight of him seated on the terrace, and, with a wild cry of delight, started to run towards him. I caught him in my arms. “No, darling, no! That is not Prilukoff. It is some one very much like him; but it is not our friend.”

And as the man, with scowling countenance, was gazing out at the sea, and paid no heed to us, Tioka believed me, and, with a little sigh of regret, ran in search of his playmate Grania.

The life Prilukoff led me in this grotesque and unbearable situation is impossible to describe. My days were passed in an agony of terror. When I dined with Kamarowsky, Prilukoff invariably took a seat at the next table, and I might almost say that it was he who regulated our conversation. If any subject were raised that was distasteful to him—my approaching marriage to Kamarowsky, for instance, or some tender reminiscence which my betrothed loved to recall—Prilukoff, at the adjoining table, made savage gestures which terrified me and attracted the attention of all the other guests. He would shake his fists at me, glare at me with terrible eyes, and, if I pretended not to notice him, he upset the cruet-stand or dropped his knife and fork noisily to attract my attention. He would stare at the unconscious, slightly bald head of Kamarowsky, and imitate his gestures with a demoniacal grin.

The guests of the hotel thought him insane, and he certainly behaved as if he were. I myself have often thought: “Surely he is a madman!” when I came upon him suddenly, hidden behind the curtains in my sitting-room, or crouching in a dark corner, or lying on my bed smoking cigarettes. I felt that my nerves and my reason were giving way.

“What do you want of me, you cruel man?” I sobbed. “What am I to do? Do you wish me to tell everything to Kamarowsky? To break off the marriage and return to Moscow with you?”

“We cannot return to Moscow, and you know it,” growled Prilukoff.

“Somewhere else, then. Anywhere! I will go wherever you like, I will do whatever you like. Anything, anything, rather than endure this torture any longer.”

“For the present we stay here,” declared Prilukoff, who seemed to enjoy my anguish. “And as for the future,” he added, rolling his terrible eyes, “you can leave that to me.”

Sometimes he forbade me to go out with Kamarowsky. At other times he followed us in the streets, torturing me behind the unconscious back of my betrothed, who marveled and grieved at my extraordinary and frequently absurd behavior.

Early one morning, as I looked out of my window, I saw Kamarowsky standing on the terrace, gazing thoughtfully out at the sea. I ran down to him. We were alone. “Paul,” I whispered hurriedly, “let us go away from here; let us leave quietly, to-day, without saying a word to any one.”

He laughed. “What a romantic idea! Do you not like this place? Are you not happy here?”

“No, Paul, no! There is some one spying upon me.”

“Spying upon you?” he repeated, greatly astonished. “Is that the reason of your strange behavior?”

“Yes, yes, but do not ask me any more questions.”

“Who is it? I must know who it is.”

“No, Paul. I will tell you later on. Hush!”

“You are a fanciful creature,” he said, laughing and patting my cheek.

I felt hurt at his calm acceptance of what I had told him, and wondered that he did not insist upon knowing more. I reflected in my folly that if he really loved me he ought to have been less satisfied and secure. I did not understand—alas! I never understood—his guileless and noble trust in me. The insensate and exacting passion of others who until now had dominated my life had spoiled me for all normal affection. Hypersensitive and overwrought, I myself suffered unless I caused suffering to those I loved; nor did I ever feel sure of their love unless they doubted mine.

The love that varies not from day to day,A tranquil love, unruffled and serene—

was not the love I knew. My storm-tossed heart did not recognize it. Neither on that day nor ever could I bring myself to believe that Paul Kamarowsky really loved me.

During those few moments that we were alone together on the terrace, we arranged that I should start with Tioka and Elise that very evening, during the dinner hour, leaving all our trunks behind us for my betrothed to see to after we had left. He could join us three days later in Vienna, and then we should all proceed to Orel, where important affairs claimed his presence.

Half-way through dinner, as had been arranged (and as usual Prilukoff sat at a table next to ours), Elise entered the dining-room timidly and came to our table.

“I beg your ladyship's pardon. Master Tioka is outside and wishes to say good-night.”

“Bring Master Tioka in,” I said, trying to speak naturally and raising my voice a little so that Prilukoff should hear.

“I am sorry, my lady, but he refuses to come,” and Elise hung her head as she spoke these words; the treason we were perpetrating on Lohengrin grieved her even more than the tortures that Lohengrin had inflicted upon me.

“Pray excuse me a moment,” I said to Count Kamarowsky, and rose from the table. “I shall be back at once.”

No sooner was I outside the dining-room than Elise threw my traveling cloak round me. A motor-car was throbbing at the door, and in it with beaming face sat Tioka surrounded by our hand-bags and dressing-cases, shawls and hats.

“What are we doing?” he cried gleefully. “Are we running away?”

“Yes, darling,” and I clasped him to my heart, as I sank into the seat beside him. The motor was already gliding through the twilight roads towards Cannes.