Marie Tarnowska

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.