Marie Tarnowska

“No! no! Don't say that! don't let me!” I screamed, incoherent with terror while Stahl and Bozevsky laughed.

Vassili from a distance caught sight of me: “Bravo, Mura!” he cried. “That's right. Go on. Shoot!”

“No! no!” I cried with my eyes shut and standing rigid in the position in which Bozevsky had placed me, for I dared not move a muscle.

Vassili called impatiently: “What on earth are you waiting for?”

Still motionless, I gasped:

“Perhaps—I might dare—if some one were to cover my ears.”

Amidst great amusement Bozevsky came behind me and placed his two hands over my ears.

“Come now!” cried Stahl. “Do not be frightened.”

“Mind you hit the third bottle,” shouted Vassili from the distance.

Bozevsky standing behind me was clasping my head as though in a vice and whispering into my hair: “Darling, darling, darling! I love you.”

“Don't,” I cried, almost in tears under the stress of different emotions, “and don't hold my ears so tight.”

The warm clasp relaxed at once.

“Oh, no, no!” I cried. “I can hear everything. I don't want to hear—,” but even as I spoke the gun went off. I felt a blow near my shoulder, and thought I was wounded; but it was only the recoil of the weapon.

Everybody was laughing and applauding.

“What have I killed?” I asked, cautiously opening my eyes.

“The third bottle!” cried Vassili, and he was so delighted with my exploit that he ran up and embraced me. But the pistol he was holding in his hand and Bozevsky's glance of jealous wrath filled me afresh with twofold terror.

The afternoon passed as if in a dream. Vassili became very much excited and drank a great deal of vodka. Then Madame Grigorievskaja, who had once visited the United States, concocted strange American drinks which we had never tasted before—cocktails, mint-juleps, pousse-cafés and gin-slings. They were much approved of by every one.

I remember vaguely that half way through the afternoon some one let down my hair and set me among the shattered bottles with an apple on my head. I seem to see Vassili standing in front of me with a rifle and taking aim at me while the others utter cries of protest. Suddenly Bozevsky snatches the weapon from my husband's hands, and there is a brief struggle between them. Soon they are laughing again, and shaking hands—then Bozevsky joins me among the shattered bottles, and stands in front of me; he is so tall that I can see nothing but his broad shoulders and his fair hair. And Vassili is shooting—the bullets whirr over my head and all around me, but I have no sense of fear; Bozevsky stands before me, straight and motionless as a rampart.

We go in to dinner; gipsy musicians arrive and play for us. Late at night when the garden is quite dark we go out again to the targets; instead of the bottles Vassili has ordered a row of lighted candles to be set up, and we are to extinguish them with our shots without knocking them down. There is much noise around me; Vassili is dancing a tarantelle with Ivan Grigorievsky on the lawn. Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky are always by my side. I keep on shooting at the candles, but they spin round before my confused eyes like catharine-wheels; and Stahl laughs, and Bozevsky sighs, and the gipsies play....

Suddenly Tioka's nurse comes hurriedly down the pathway towards me.

“May I speak to your ladyship for a moment?”

“Yes, Elise. What is it?”

“Master Tioka cannot go to sleep. He says you have forgotten to bid him good-night.”

I put down my rifle and follow the straight small figure of Elise Perrier through the garden. I hasten after her into the house and upstairs to the nursery.

Little Tania is already fast asleep, with scarlet lips parted and silken hair scattered on her pillow. But Tioka is sitting up in his cot awaiting me. His bright soft eyes wander over my face, my hair, my dress; his innocent gaze seems to pierce me like a fiery sword. He holds out his arms to me and I hide my flushed face on his childish breast.

“Good-night, mother dear,” he whispers, kissing me and patting my face with his small hand. Then he adds, with a funny little sniff at my cheeks and hair: “You smell of many things—of perfume and powder and cigarettes and wine....”

This sequence of gay words on the childish lips strikes at my heart like so many daggers.

“Hush, darling,” I whisper, taking refuge in those frail arms as in a haven of safety. “Forgive—forgive your mother.”

But he does not know what there is to forgive; and he laughs and yawns and then nestles down in his pillow, still holding tightly to my hand.

“Must you go away?” he sighs, in a sleepy, endearing voice.

“No, darling, no. I will stay with you.”

“Then tell me the poetry about the Virgin Mary coming down to see us in the night.”

Holding my child's hand in my own, I begin softly:

“When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon…”

But already Tioka is in the land of dreams.

XIII

The whole party of guests stayed at our house that night. Even one of the gipsy musicians was found next morning asleep on the sofa in the library.

No one came down to breakfast. Only Bozevsky got up early and went for a gallop on the hills.

I awoke at eight o'clock and rang the bell. Elise Perrier came in and opened the windows. The fresh April breeze blew in and the chirrup of the nests greeted me.

“Elise, is the morning fine? Can the mountains be seen?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Elise, when you see the mountains do you not feel homesick for Switzerland?”

“Yes, my lady.” And Elise stooped down to set out my slippers and to hide the flush that rose to her face.

“I am homesick, too, Elise. I am homesick I hardly know for what—homesick for solitude and peace.”

She made no reply.

“Should I find them in your Switzerland, do you think?”

Elise Perrier shakes her head and answers in a low tone: “No, my lady. Swiss homesickness and Russian homesickness are different.”

“In what way?”

“We Swiss are homesick for—how shall I say?—for the outside things we are far away from … homesick for mountains and pine-trees and villages. But Russians are homesick for what they miss in their own hearts.”