In Vain

"It means nothing; what should it mean? Is all this to mean something right away?"

"Augustinovich, thou art hiding something?"

"But the fellow is thinking only of Lula!" cried Augustinovich, with increasing despair.

Yosef with unheard-of effort mastered himself, but that was a calm before a terrible storm. His sunken cheeks grew still paler, his eyes were flaming.

"Well, I will tell thee all!" cried Augustinovich, anticipating the outburst. "I will tell, I will tell! Ei, who will forbid me to tell thee that thou hast won the case! May Satan – me if thou hast not won. She loves thee."

Yosef put his trembling hands to his perspiring face.

"But Pelski?" asked he.

"He has not proposed yet."

"Does she know everything about me?"

"Yosef!"

"Speak!"

"She knows nothing. I told her nothing."

Yosef's voice was dull and hoarse when he asked, —

"Why hast thou done me this injustice?"

"I thought that thou wouldst return to her."

Yosef twisted his hands till the fingers were cracking in their joints; Augustinovich's last words fell on him like red-hot coals. Return to her? That was to abandon Helena, and did not conscience itself defend Helena's cause? To return to Lula was to purchase the happiness of a lifetime, but to return to her was to dishonor Helena, to kill her, to become contemptible, to purchase contempt for himself. Oh, misfortune!

In Yosef's soul was taking place that devil's dance of a man with himself. Yosef was dancing with Yosef to the music of that orchestra of passion. Various thoughts, plans, methods, stormed in him; the battle raged along the whole line.

Augustinovich looked at his comrade with a face which was despairingly stupid, and he would have liked, as the saying is, to take himself by his own collar and throw himself out of doors.

All at once some decision was outlined on Yosef's face. The case was lost.

"Augustinovich!"

"What?"

"Thou wilt go this moment to Pani Visberg's and tell Lula that I am going to marry, that the ceremony will take place in a month, and that I never shall return to her, never. Dost understand?"

Augustinovich rose up and went.

Malinka received him in the way known to us. Lula was to hear their conversation from behind the door.

Malinka, full of imaginings from her recent talk with Lula, was gladsome and smiling; she pressed Pan Adam's hand cordially.

But he did not respond with a like cordiality.

"It is well that you have come," said she. "I have much to tell you, much."

"And I too have much to tell, much. I have come as an envoy."

"From Pan Yosef?"

"From Pan Yosef."

"Is he better?"

"He is sick. Has Pelski been here?"

"He has. I have wanted to talk of this."

"I am listening, Panna Malinka."

"He proposed to Lula."

"And what then?"

"She refused him. Oh, Pan Adam, she loves no man but Pan Yosef, she wants to belong to him only. My dear, honest Lula!"

Silence lasted a moment.

Pan Adam's voice quivered when he pronounced the following words deliberately, —

"She will not belong to him."

"Pan Adam!"

"Yosef, according to promise, is going to marry."

This news struck both young ladies like a thunderbolt. For a moment there was deep silence. All at once the door of the adjoining chamber opened. Lula entered the drawing-room.

On her face a blush of offended womanly dignity was playing, in her eyes pride was gleaming. It seemed to her that everything which she held sacred in her heart had been trampled.

"Malinka," cried she, "ask no more, I implore thee! Enough, enough! This gentleman has delivered his message. Why lower one's self by an answer?"

And taking Malinka by the hand, she led her out of the chamber almost with violence.

Augustinovich followed them awhile with his eyes, then nodded a couple of times.

"By the prophet!" said he, "I understand her. She is right, but so is Yosef. Hei! I must fly before everything breaks."

In a moment he ran to Pelski, told him the whole story.

"Some fatality weighed on them," concluded Augustinovich. "Yosef could not act otherwise, could he?"

"He acted as was fitting, but what inclined you to tell me of this?"

"A bagatelle. One question: Did not Lula act nobly in rejecting your hand?"

"I will leave the answer to myself."

"Leave it, my dear sir! The answer is all one to me, Lula is nothing to me; I know only that if my friend withdraws her future will not be enviable, and you are her cousin – The case is too bad."

Pelski thought awhile.

"Too bad? Ha, what is too bad?"

"That your proposal did not come a little later."

Pelski walked with quick step through the room.

"Now, never!" whispered he to himself.

Augustinovich heard this monologue.

"Too late, too late; but – but – now one small request. Tell no one that I was here, especially do not tell Pani Visberg or my friend if ever you see them."

"What is this to your friend?"

"Everything; but you would not understand it, dear count – Till our next meeting!"

Pelski, left alone, meditated long as to how that could really concern Augustinovich. He did not think out any answer, but came to the conviction that it might concern his own self somewhat.

"I might return to her, feigning ignorance of what has happened," said he. "Poor Lula!"

CHAPTER XX

The two young ladies were sitting in Lula's chamber. That was a painful silence. If there are grievous moments in life, they had thrown their weight on the present fate of Lula. Everything which she held sacred in her breast had been trampled. She had put into that love the best parts of her moral existence, the victory to her had been like a wedding solemnity; by the power of this feeling she had risen from a momentary fall, she had conquered family prejudice, rejected the hand of a man who loved her, and with it a calm future, life in plenty, her own independence, and the pay for all this was information that he whom she loved was to marry another.

Ei! she lost still more. All the angelic qualities which preceding days had given her were crushed now into ruins of despair. Her soul might wither to its foundation! Had she not lost with love also faith and hope, not in their theological sense, but in all their vital value for life? The ground was pushing from under her. Like a boat without an oar, she was to drift in the future beyond sight of shore. To-day an orphan gathered in by honest hearts, she may find herself to-morrow simply suffering hunger, without a morsel of bread; to-day so white that lilies might bloom on her breast, she may in future stain that whiteness with the gall of her own bitterness: to-day half a child almost, in the spring, in the May morning, she may after this or that number of years have to look at her life's fruitless autumn.

Humiliated, broken, "like twigs after a tempest," pushed away from her moral basis, killed in her happiness; with dry burning eyes she pressed the weeping Malinka to her bosom convulsively.

Lula did not weep, although she had tears enough for weeping; anger had dried them. But Malinka cried enough for both.

Next morning the countess received two letters, – one from Pelski, the other from Yosef.

"Madame (wrote Pelski), – The pain which I felt in consequence of your answer did not permit me to reckon with my words. I rejected the friendship which you offered me. I regret that act. Though I cannot explain your treatment of me, I see that you followed the voice of your heart. I trust that that voice has not deceived you. If he whom you have chosen loves you as much as I should, be assured of your happiness. I reproach him not, I dare not judge a man whom you love. As to myself, forced by stern necessity to part with the hope of possessing you, I implore you as the highest favor not to remember my words thrown out in a moment of pain. Permit me to return and claim that friendship inconsiderately rejected, friendship which for me in the future may take the place of the happiness of a lifetime."

In the evening Augustinovich brought a letter from Yosef. Lula did not wish to open it.

"Do not do him injustice," said Augustinovich, imploringly, "for at the present moment my old friend is perhaps – " Tears choked him, further words stuck in his throat. "These may be his last words – I took him to the hospital yesterday," whispered he.

Lula grew as pale as linen. It seemed for a moment that she would faint. In vain did she strive to preserve a calm and cool face, her whole body shook like a leaf. Come what might, she loved Yosef.

She took from Pan Adam's hand the letter, which read as follows: —

"Dear Lady, – I was able to endure the loss of your hand, but not of your respect. Read and judge. A dying friend left to my care a woman whom he loved with all the power of a suffering heart. I had deprived him of the love of this woman without wishing to do so. After his death I became acquainted with her more intimately, and it seemed to me that I loved her. Unfortunately I told her so. After that you know, beloved lady, what happened. After that I hid from myself my ill-fated attachment to you. How much I suffered! Oh, pardon me! I am a man, I too must love, but still it was not from my lips that you learned of that love. When at last I stood before my own conscience, when the moment of memory came, judge yourself, how was I to act, whither was I to go, what was I to do? The oath to a dying man, the word given to a woman unhappy beyond expression, everything except my heart commanded me to abdicate you. It was not through my fault that you learned of this only yesterday. This news should have gone to you at the time when Count Pelski appeared. Misfortune, and the frivolity of a man ordained otherwise. This is the state of affairs! Judge, and, if you are able, forgive. Adam says that I am ill. This is true: my thoughts are weeping, I feel a burning in my blood, and out of pain and chaos I see one thing clearly, – that I love! that I love thee, O angel!"

After the reading of this letter the remnants of anger and pride vanished from Lula's forehead, on her beautiful face a mild though deep melancholy fixed itself.

"Pan Adam," said she, "tell the gentleman that he has acted as he should."

"And forgive me, dear lady," said Augustinovich, throwing himself on his knees. "I was unjust. I did you a wrong, but I had no idea, I knew not, that there were such women in the world as you are."

CHAPTER XXI

Augustinovich went directly from Pani Visberg's to the hospital, where he remained all night. Yosef was ill, very ill. Typhus rushed at that strong organism, threatening it with utter destruction. About midnight the sick man began to rave; he talked with himself, and argued obstinately on the immortality of the soul with a black cat which he saw sitting on the bed. It appeared that he feared death, for a number of times indescribable terror was depicted on his face. He feared and trembled very acutely after every movement of Augustinovich. At moments he sang with a quivering voice, and as it were through sleep various gladsome and melancholy songs, or conversed with acquaintances. There was even a kind of astonishing humor in the naturalness of tones in these conversations.

Augustinovich, unmanned already by the events of preceding days, was irritated unspeakably. He waited for morning with longing, looking often at the window-panes, which, as if through spite, continued to be as black as ever. Outside there was deep darkness, and fine rain began to cut the window-panes, filling the hospital chamber with a sound which was monotonous and disagreeable.

For a long time such sad and disquieting thoughts had not wandered into Augustinovich's head as at that moment. Resting his elbows on his knees and covering his face with his hands, he meditated over the marvellous and painful complication of events during the last few days. Sometimes he raised his head and cast a quick glance at the sick man; at times it seemed to him that the gloom of death was falling on the withered, sharp features of Yosef.

Augustinovich pondered over this, how a man, so active and broadly living a short time before, would be in a couple of days, perhaps, something dead, which they would bury in the ground, and the comedy would be ended! Oh, an ordinary, everyday thought, and every day equally bitter for those who must think: This is the end! dust! Still, when he lived with full life, he judged, analyzed, acted perhaps more widely than others. As a plough turns out the sod, so he, in the soil of life, from the furrows of good and evil was winning good and – ? Involuntarily one asks for the moral sense of this fable. Where, when, on what planets, will living persons find an answer beyond the tomb? Immortality? – In the ocean of human acts perhaps a few moral atoms of the deeds of the dead survive, but that I, powerful, energetically self-conscious, where is it? And those atoms of acts are like the corpse of a sailor dropped down from a ship into the abyss of the sea. Where shall we look for them, and who will find them? Will God ever fish them out from those shoreless billows, and will He develop from them a new self-conscious being? "È bene trovato!" The bitterness of these thoughts settled now on the sleepy forehead of Augustinovich, but meanwhile the window-panes from black began to turn gray. It was dawning. In the chamber the light of the candle grew rosier gradually and fainter, objects began to issue from the shade. In the corridors were heard now the steps of the hospital servants. An hour later the doctor came in.

"How is the patient?" inquired he.

"Ill," answered Augustinovich, abruptly.

The doctor thrust out his lower lip with importance, wrinkled his forehead, and felt the pulse of the sick man.

"What do you think?" inquired Augustinovich.

"Well, what? I think nothing – he is ill, very ill."

A shade of irony passed over Augustinovich's face.

"But I think, professor, that medicine is a very dull child which believes that if it takes its heels in its hands it can lift itself. Is this not the case?"

The doctor nodded a couple of times, prescribed some cooling medicine, and went out. Augustinovich, looking at the prescription, shook his head in his turn, shrugged his shoulders, and sat at the bed.

Meanwhile the patient grew worse toward evening, about midnight he was almost dying. Augustinovich wept like a child and knocked himself against the walls of the chamber. He sat up again through the whole night.

Toward morning it seemed to him that he noticed a slight improvement, but that improvement was deceptive. Pale and red spots appeared on the sick man; evidently he had burnt out in fever and was quenching.

In the evening Pani Visberg came. Augustinovich would not admit her to the room. From his face she learned that something terrible must be happening.

"Is he alive?" cried she.

"He is dying!" answered Augustinovich, briefly.

A few hours later the chaplain of the hospital anointed Yosef. Augustinovich had not strength to be present at the ceremony; he ran out into the city.

He needed to collect his thoughts, he needed to draw breath; he felt that his thoughts were beginning to grow dim – very likely the loss of Yosef would destroy his balance. He had expected everything, but not that Yosef would die.

He did not know himself whither he was hurrying; a number of times he halted as if in fear that he would return too late.

All at once some thought flashed through his head; he noticed that he was standing before Helena's lodgings.

"I will go in. Let her take farewell of him!"

Half an hour later Helena was kneeling at Yosef's bed. Her unbound hair was lying in broad tresses on the bed; she was embracing the sick man's feet with her hands, her face resting on them.

In that room of the hospital reigned a silence of the grave; nothing was heard but the quick broken breath of Yosef.

So passed the long, cursed night, every moment of which seemed the last one for Yosef. Finally, on the thirteenth day from the first the disease was vanquished. Yosef was decidedly better.

At his bed sat, without leaving it, Augustinovich and Helena; the latter seemed to forget the world at that bed. With Yosef's life life returned to Helena also. She was delighted to ecstasy with even the smallest proof of improvement.

At last Yosef regained consciousness.

Augustinovich was not present at that moment; the first person whom he saw was Helena.

The sick man looked at her for a moment; on his forehead a certain working of thought became evident.

At last he recalled her to mind. He smiled. Evidently the smile was forced; still Helena threw herself on her knees with tears of delight.

But Augustinovich when he returned noticed that her presence disquieted the sick man and even tortured him. Yosef did not take his eyes from Helena for an instant; he followed every movement of hers.

With that inane gesticulation peculiar to old or to sick people he moved his lips.

Augustinovich followed Yosef's eyes carefully. He had a foreboding of evil.

Meanwhile, as usual, toward evening the fever increased; still the sick man fell asleep. Augustinovich strove to persuade Helena to go home for rest.

"I will not leave him for a moment," answered she, with what for her was uncommon decision.

Augustinovich took his seat in the armchair in silence and meditated deeply; soon his head began to weigh on him, his lids became leaden, an invincible drowsiness seized him with increasing force, his head dropped on his breast, he nodded to the right, to the left, and fell asleep.

After a while he woke again.

"Is he sleeping?" inquired he, looking at Yosef.

"He is sleeping, but unquietly," answered Helena.

Augustinovich again dropped his head. Suddenly a shriek from Helena roused him.

The sick man was sitting up in bed in a paroxysm of malignant fever; his face was burning, his eyes glittering like those of a wolf; his emaciated hand was extended toward Helena.

"What is this!" cried Augustinovich.

Helena seized him convulsively by the hands; she felt that his whole body trembled.

"Do not torture me!" whispered the sick man, with a hoarse, broken voice. "Thou hast killed Gustav, and now thou wouldst kill me. Away! I do not love thee! Be off!"

Again he fell on the bed.

"Lula, my Lula, save me!" whispered Yosef.

Augustinovich almost by force conducted Helena from the chamber. In the corridor was heard for a while quick conversation, and the name of the countess was repeated. At last Augustinovich returned alone.

He was pale, great drops of sweat were flowing down his forehead.

"Everything is ended now," said he, in a whisper.

Helena ran driven by despair. Yosef's words and the brief conversation with Augustinovich had cleared as with a bloody lightning-flash many circumstances which had been dark to her. She ran with the single object of going straight forward. Her thoughts were burning her like fire, or rather they were thoughts no longer, they were a circle of fire sparks driven around madly by a whirlwind.

The city in that evening hour was lighted with a thousand lamps, calm domestic fires looked through the clear windows at her. She ran on. Through the streets throngs of people flowed forward as usual; some passers-by turned around to gaze at her; one young man said something with a smile, but looking her in the eyes he drew back in fright. She ran on. At last instead of streets there were alleys, next alleys which were emptier and darker. In the windows lights were evident no longer; there the wearied population were sleeping after the toil of the day; in a rare place a lamp gleamed, or the echoes of a footstep were heard.

The night was damp, but calm; a kind of weight oppressive to the spirit was hanging in the atmosphere. From the Dnieper came a harsh breeze; a watery mist left drops on Helena's clothing and hair. On, on she ran. Nervous spasms distorted her face. In spite of the coolness it seemed to her that fire from heaven was falling on her head, her hands, and her breast. Those little fires seemed to dance and whirl about her, and in each one of them she saw the face now of Yosef, now of Gustav. Her cape had fallen off, the wind had torn her hat away, dampness unbound her hair. She fell to the earth a number of times. Soon amid night and emptiness she found herself alone. Only the distant noise of the city and the barking of dogs in that part through which she was hastening pursued her. She ran ever forward.

She felt neither torture nor pain. All her thoughts rushed to one centre; that was her misfortune. When love takes a part of one's life, it pays with disappointment; for Helena love had been everything. Existence for her had ceased now to have sense. The charm was broken. There was no forgiveness for that woman, though she had "loved much;" there could be only peace, not in life, but beyond it.

Meanwhile she ran forward, but strength was deserting her. Her lips had grown parched, her eyes were now dim, her clothing wet and bespattered with mud. She fell oftener and oftener; sometimes she turned her face to the sky, seizing the air greedily. The ground on which she was running became wetter and wetter. From afar could be heard now the sobbing of the wave, and that marvellous converse of water, half fitful, half gloomy.

At the brink Helena halted a moment.

Closing her eyes on a sudden and stretching her hands out before her, the woman rushed forward.

With the plash in the river was heard a short scream, stopped by the water, – her last scream.

Then followed silence. Deep night was in the sky.

CHAPTER XXII

"Everything is marvellously involved in this poor world," said the ancient poet. This is certain, that more than once life becomes so involved that it is only to be cut like that Gordian knot of old. So was it with Yosef.

A few years before he had come to Kieff full of confidence in his own strength. It had seemed to him that he could push forward not only his own fate, but that of others in a way chosen in advance. Meanwhile he had convinced himself that in a short time he had lost the rudder even of his own boat. He had been left to rush and save himself if he wished, but he had to sail with the wind, and therewith he had little happiness in life. In his case, as in that of all men, life, or rather the excess of that seething of youthful years, had to pour out in the single but very narrow direction of love for woman. There was little space between the banks; hence the stream flowed too violently, so that in all Yosef's past there were barely a few peaceful moments. He lacked little of paying with his life for the past, and God knows there was nothing to pay for. After the last incident with Helena the danger might be renewed. Augustinovich feared relapse; happily his fears were not justified.

Yosef improved continually. It was difficult to foresee how long he would have to lie in bed yet; his weakness after the grievous illness was very great, but his return to health was assured.

Augustinovich shortened the long hospital hours to the best of his power and ability, but vain were his efforts to win back the old-time humor. Recent events had made him sedate and sparing of words. He had lost many of his old habits. From the time of Yosef's illness he had not visited Pani Visberg even once, though she came rather often to inquire for Yosef's health.

But if in this way events of recent days had acted on Augustinovich, how much more had they acted on Yosef! Out of his long illness he rose a new man altogether. He had no longer that lively, active, unbending temperament. In his movements there was slowness, in his look heaviness, and as it were indolence.

Augustinovich attributed this, and justly, to the weakness unavoidable after such an illness, but soon he noticed in the sick man other things foreign to him before. A certain marvellous indifference approaching apathy broke through his words. He began to look at the world again, but in a manner entirely different from that in which he had looked at it earlier. He seemed to be capable of no vivacious feeling. It was disagreeable to look at him; these changes had touched not merely his moral side, he had changed physically also. His hair had grown thin, his face was white and emaciated, his eyes had a sleepy look, he had lost his former brightness. Lying whole days without movement, he looked for hours together at one point in the ceiling, or slept. The presence of any one did not seem to concern him.