Marie Tarnowska

“Do you really mean that we are not to receive them?”

“No,” he reiterated. “This is my 'no' day.” And the reception for that evening was actually put off. The jest seemed highly entertaining to Vassili. I heard him laughing to himself as he went downstairs; and in the days that followed he frequently repeated it.

Shortly afterwards he took us all back to Kieff and there he had many “no” days. In particular he would not let Bozevsky visit us; and more than a month passed without my seeing him.

At last it happened that the Stahls invited us to a ball, and Vassili, who chanced to be in a good temper, accepted. I knew I should meet Bozevsky there, and at the mere thought of seeing him again I trembled with joy and fear.

Elise Perrier dressed me in a filmy gossamer gown of soft opalescent tints, and fastened round my neck the famous O'Rourke pearls—those pearls which, according to family traditions, had once decorated the slender neck of Mary Stuart.

As Vassili put me into the troika he was all kindness and amiability; he wrapped me closely in the furs, and then took his seat beside me, muffling himself up to his nose in the bearskins. The horses started and we were off like the wind.

During the drive tender and kindly feelings towards Vassili filled my heart. I said to myself that perhaps he was after all not wholly to blame for his faults and follies. He, too, was so young; perhaps if I had been less of a child at the time of my marriage I should have known how to make him love me more. And, after all, were we not still in time to reshape our lives? What if we were to go far away from Kieff, far from St. Petersburg, and try to take up the thread of our broken idyll again? My hand sought his. He grasped it and held it warmly clasped under the rug without turning towards me; I could see his eyes shining under his fur cap as he gazed straight before him, while we sped over the silent snow. During that drive, from the bottom of my heart, I forgave him all his transgressions and silently craved forgiveness for mine. Already I seemed to see myself with him and the children and Aunt Sonia happily secluded in some smiling rose-clad mansion in Italy. He would take up the study of his music again, perhaps he would compose, as he had often spoken of doing—while I, seated at his feet, would read the Italian poets that I loved, raising my eyes now and then to contemplate the motionless blue wave of the distant Apennines....

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.