Marie Tarnowska

“It is hopeless, my lady.”

Yes, it is hopeless.

(At this hour the train is hurrying from Bozen to Verona, from Verona to Vicenza, from Vicenza to Padua.)

Night falls on my despair.

“Elise, Elise! Where are you? What is the time?”

“It is nearly dawn, my lady.”

“Elise, what day is this?”

“It is the third day of September.”

The third day of September!

“Elise,” I scream suddenly, “Elise! Telegraph to Kamarowsky. Warn him.... Quickly, oh, quickly! Why, why did we not do so before?”

“Hush, my lady, hush! You were delirious; you could only rave and weep.”

“Elise, Elise, telegraph to Kamarowsky....”

“It is too late, my lady.”

Yes, it is too late.

(At this very hour of dawn the train has reached Venice. Nicolas Naumoff is hastening from the Riva degli Schiavoni, across the empty piazza and the deserted streets. He hails a gondola. “Campo Santa Maria del Giglio!”

And the gondola, with soft plash of oar, glides slowly towards the doomed sleeper.

What dreams may the angel of rest have sent to him for the last time? Perhaps the tender vision of little Grania has gladdened him, while silent and inexorable in the closed gondola the youth with the golden eyes steals towards him through the mazes of the clear canals.

“Santa Maria del Giglio.”

Nicolas Naumoff springs from the gondola, crosses the empty Campo and reaches the house. He ascends the steps quickly, knocks, enters—and closes the door behind him.)

Yes, it is too late.

I hear myself shrieking with laughter as I fall back on my pillows. Soon I am surrounded by strangers who hold me down, who thrust opiates between my lips, who lay soothing hands and cooling compresses on my brow. Then I know nothing more.

········

Elise Perrier's terrified face surges out of the darkness: she is speaking quickly, she is bending over me, imploring and urging.... What does she say? She weeps despairingly, and ever through her tears she speaks, urging and imploring.

Finally, in her thin arms, she drags me from my bed; she dresses me; she wraps a cloak about me, and hurries backwards and forwards with traveling-bags and satchels. Now we are in a carriage—no, we are in a train. Elise Perrier sits opposite me, with ashen face and her hands in gray cotton gloves tightly folded. Her lips move. She is praying.

Suddenly I struggle to my feet: “Paul!…”

As I scream the name Elise springs upon me, covering my mouth with her cotton glove, pressing my head to her breast. “Silence! hush, hush, for the love of heaven! They will hear you. Hush!”

“Is he dead, Elise, is he dead?”

“No, no, he is not dead,” gasps Elise in a toneless whisper, “he is not dead. We are going to him. He is wounded … he has been telegraphing to you for three days, begging you to come. And you would not move, you would not understand....” Elise is crying again.

But perfect peace has descended into my soul. Paul is not dead. He lives! he lives! Nothing else matters but this—he lives.

The train still rushes along, beating rhythmic time to many tunes that are in my head; I gaze out of the window, at the whirling landscape that swings past like a giant chess-board, at the telegraph wires that dip, and then ascend slowly and dip again. Hours pass or days pass.... And the train stops.

Elise is hurriedly collecting cloaks and satchels.

“Where are we, Elise? Are we in Venice?”

“Not yet; not yet. We are in Vienna.”

As I step from the train, two men whom I do not know approach me. One of them asks me if I am the Countess Tarnowska. He has not taken his hat off, and I do not deign to reply.

As I am about to pass him he lays his hand on my arm. The other man also comes forward, and, one on each side, they conduct me along the platform. I notice many people stopping to look at me.

Nothing seems to matter. I do not remember why we are in Vienna, nor whither we are bound. I notice that it is a bright, hot day, and I feel that I am walking in a dream.... I find myself thinking of Vassili; I wish he would come, and send these men away and take me home. I shall be glad when I am at home with Vassili and the children and Aunt Sonia.... Safely at home!

Then I remember—I have no home. I am a forsaken, demented creature whom Vassili cares for no longer. But where am I going? I am going to Paul Kamarowsky, who lives and loves me!… Again I weep with joy and thankfulness at the thought that Kamarowsky lives.

Now I am in a carriage driving through the streets of Vienna; and the two strange men are still with me. They are taking me to a hotel. We arrive. I pass through a large doorway and along some passages. Then I notice that it is not a hotel. It is a vast, bare room with wooden benches round the wall. Some men in uniform stand at the door, and I notice that they do not salute me when I enter.

Neither does an elderly man who is sitting at the desk rise or come to meet me. He looks at me steadily and asks me many questions; but I pay no heed to him. The windows are open; I can hear the sound of a piano very far away; somebody is practising a romance by Chaminade that I used to play at Otrada.... How sad a piano sounds when played by an unseen hand in the silence of a sunlit street!

The man at the desk speaks in German to the uniformed men; they take my golden wristbag from me, and conduct me out of the bare room down a long passage. As I go slowly forward between the two men I notice that from the far end of the passage a group of people are coming towards us. In the center of the group walks a man, handcuffed and wearing his hat crookedly at the back of his head, as if placed there by some other hand than his own. It is Prilukoff!

He sees me. A wave of livid pallor overspreads his face. Then he bends forward towards me and makes a movement with his lips, pressing them tightly together and shaking his head; he is trying to make me understand something. As they notice this the men at my side grasp my arm and make me turn quickly down another corridor. But I hear Prilukoff's voice shouting after me. He utters a Russian word: “Molci!” (Be silent).

The men thrust me rudely into an empty cell. I sit down on a bench fixed in a corner under the small, barred window and lean my head against the wall. I feel neither unhappy nor afraid; only weary, unspeakably weary; and almost at once I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. Never since I was a child at Otrada have I known such perfect rest—such utter oblivion poured upon such limitless weariness.

Suddenly my door is opened abruptly and one of the men enters; he takes me by the arm, and conducts me back to the large, bare room, where the elderly official still sits at his desk. And there, standing before him, I see Elise. She is weeping bitterly. I see her making those comical grimaces which always accompany her tears, as in Italy cheerful music accompanies a child's funeral. My mind—like a frightened bat that has flown into a room and darts hither and thither—flutters and plunges wildly through all my past life. I think of my mother, of little Peter, and of Bozevsky; I remember a pink dress I once wore here in Vienna, at a reception of the Russian Embassy.... I think of little Tioka and his days for saying “No.” … How far, how far away it all is! What a gulf of guilt and sorrow have my tottering footsteps traversed since then.... But now—now I will climb tremblingly, devoutly, the steep road that leads back to safety; humbled to my knees I will pour out my thanks. For Paul Kamarowsky is saved; he lives and will recover!

The man at my side is dragging me roughly forward. The elderly official at the desk has beckoned to me, and as I stand before him in a line with Elise he reads aloud from a sheet of foolscap. Suddenly I hear the words: “Complicity in the murder of Count Paul Kamarowsky....”

The murder? The murder!

Two of the uniformed men hold my arms.

“But,” I try to say, with chattering teeth, “Count Kamarowsky lives … he will recover.”

The man replies, “Count Kamarowsky is dead.”

I laugh out loud. The car on the switchback rushes, whirls, plunges—falls with me to destruction.

XLII