A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

I took his hand.

‘You want to know,’ I pronounced in a steady voice, ‘whether I like your sister? Yes, I do like her – ’

Gagin glanced at me. ‘But,’ he said, faltering, ‘you’d hardly marry her, would you?’

‘How would you have me answer such a question? Only think; can I at the moment – ’

‘I know, I know,’ Gagin cut me short; ‘I have no right to expect an answer from you, and my question was the very acme of impropriety… But what am I to do? One can’t play with fire. You don’t know Acia; she’s quite capable of falling ill, running away, or asking you to see her alone… Any other girl might manage to hide it all and wait – but not she. It is the first time with her, that’s the worst of it! If you had seen how she sobbed at my feet to-day, you would understand my fears.’

I was pondering. Gagin’s words ‘asking you to see her alone,’ had sent a twinge to my heart. I felt it was shameful not to meet his honest frankness with frankness.

‘Yes,’ I said at last; ‘you are right. An hour ago I got a note from your sister. Here it is.’

Gagin took the note, quickly looked it through, and let his hands fall on his knees. The expression of perplexity on his face was very amusing, but I was in no mood for laughter.

‘I tell you again, you’re an honourable man,’ he said; ‘but what’s to be done now? What? she herself wants to go away, and she writes to you and blames herself for acting unwisely … and when had she time to write this? What does she wish of you?’

I pacified him, and we began to discuss as coolly as we could what we ought to do.

The conclusion we reached at last was that, to avoid worse harm befalling, I was to go and meet Acia, and to have a straightforward explanation with her; Gagin pledged himself to stay at home, and not to give a sign of knowing about her note to me; in the evening we arranged to see each other again.

‘I have the greatest confidence in you,’ said Gagin, and he pressed my hand; ‘have mercy on her and on me. But we shall go away to-morrow, anyway,’ he added getting up, ‘for you won’t marry Acia, I see.’

‘Give me time till the evening,’ I objected.

‘All right, but you won’t marry her.’

He went away, and I threw myself on the sofa, and shut my eyes. My head was going round; too many impressions had come bursting on it at once. I was vexed at Gagin’s frankness, I was vexed with Acia, her love delighted and disconcerted me, I could not comprehend what had made her reveal it to her brother; the absolute necessity of rapid, almost instantaneous decision exasperated me. ‘Marry a little girl of seventeen, with her character, how is it possible?’ I said, getting up.

XV

At the appointed hour I crossed the Rhine, and the first person I met on the opposite bank was the very boy who had come to me in the morning. He was obviously waiting for me.

‘From Fraülein Annette,’ he said in a whisper, and he handed me another note.

Acia informed me she had changed the place of our meeting. I was to go in an hour and a half, not to the chapel, but to Frau Luise’s house, to knock below, and go up to the third storey.

‘Is it, yes, again?’ asked the boy.

‘Yes,’ I repeated, and I walked along the bank of the Rhine. There was not time to go home, I didn’t want to wander about the streets. Beyond the town wall there was a little garden, with a skittle ground and tables for beer drinkers. I went in there. A few middle-aged Germans were playing skittles; the wooden balls rolled along with a sound of knocking, now and then cries of approval reached me. A pretty waitress, with her eyes swollen with weeping, brought me a tankard of beer; I glanced at her face. She turned quickly and walked away.

‘Yes, yes,’ observed a fat, red-cheeked citizen sitting by, ‘our Hannchen is dreadfully upset to-day; her sweetheart’s gone for a soldier.’ I looked at her; she was sitting huddled up in a corner, her face propped on her hand; tears were rolling one by one between her fingers. Some one called for beer; she took him a pot, and went back to her place. Her grief affected me; I began musing on the interview awaiting me, but my dreams were anxious, cheerless dreams. It was with no light heart I was going to this interview; I had no prospect before me of giving myself up to the bliss of love returned; what lay before me was to keep my word, to do a difficult duty. ‘One can’t play with her.’ These words of Gagin’s had gone through my heart like arrows. And three days ago, in that boat borne along by the current, had I not been pining with the thirst for happiness? It had become possible, and I was hesitating, I was pushing it away, I was bound to push it from me – its suddenness bewildered me. Acia herself, with her fiery temperament, her past, her bringing-up, this fascinating, strange creature, I confess she frightened me. My feelings were long struggling within me. The appointed hour was drawing near. ‘I can’t marry her,’ I decided at last; ‘she shall not know I love her.’

I got up, and putting a thaler in the hand of poor Hannchen (she did not even thank me), I directed my steps towards Frau Luise’s. The air was already overcast with the shadows of evening, and the narrow strip of sky, above the dark street, was red with the glow of sunset. I knocked faintly at the door; it was opened at once. I stepped through the doorway, and found myself in complete darkness.

‘This way.’ I heard an old woman’s voice. ‘You’re expected.’

I took two steps, groping my way, a long hand took mine.

‘Is that you, Frau Luise?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ answered the same voice, ‘’Tis I, my fine young man.’ The old woman led me up a steep staircase, and stopped on the third floor. In the feeble light from a tiny window, I saw the wrinkled visage of the burgomaster’s widow. A crafty smile of mawkish sweetness contorted her sunken lips, and pursed up her dim-sighted eyes. She pointed me to a little door; with an abrupt movement I opened it and slammed it behind me.

XVI

In the little room into which I stepped, it was rather dark, and I did not at once see Acia. Wrapped in a big shawl, she was sitting on a chair by the window, turning away from me and almost hiding her head like a frightened bird. She was breathing quickly, and trembling all over. I felt unutterably sorry for her. I went up to her. She averted her head still more…

‘Anna Nikolaevna,’ I said.

She suddenly drew herself up, tried to look at me, and could not. I took her hand, it was cold, and lay like a dead thing in mine.

‘I wished’ – Acia began, trying to smile, but unable to control her pale lips; ‘I wanted – No, I can’t,’ she said, and ceased. Her voice broke at every word.

I sat down beside her.

‘Anna Nikolaevna,’ I repeated, and I too could say nothing more.

A silence followed. I still held her hand and looked at her. She sat as before, shrinking together, breathing with difficulty, and stealthily biting her lower lip to keep back the rising tears… I looked at her; there was something touchingly helpless in her timid passivity; it seemed as though she had been so exhausted she had hardly reached the chair, and had simply fallen on it. My heart began to melt…

‘Acia,’ I said hardly audibly…

She slowly lifted her eyes to me… Oh, the eyes of a woman who loves – who can describe them? They were supplicating, those eyes, they were confiding, questioning, surrendering … I could not resist their fascination. A subtle flame passed all through me with tingling shocks; I bent down and pressed my lips to her hand…

I heard a quivering sound, like a broken sigh and I felt on my hair the touch of a feeble hand shaking like a leaf. I raised my head and looked at her face. How transformed it was all of a sudden. The expression of terror had vanished from it, her eyes looked far away and drew me after them, her lips were slightly parted, her forehead was white as marble, and her curls floated back as though the wind had stirred them. I forgot everything, I drew her to me, her hand yielded unresistingly, her whole body followed her hand, the shawl fell from her shoulders, and her head lay softly on my breast, lay under my burning lips…

‘Yours …’ she murmured, hardly above a breath.

My arms were slipping round her waist… But suddenly the thought of Gagin flashed like lightning before me. ‘What are we doing,’ I cried, abruptly moving back… ‘Your brother … why, he knows everything… He knows I am with you.’

Acia sank back on her chair.

‘Yes,’ I went on, getting up and walking to the other end of the room. ‘Your brother knows all about it… I had to tell him…’

‘You had to?’ she articulated thickly. She could not, it seemed, recover herself, and hardly understood me.

‘Yes, yes,’ I repeated with a sort of exasperation, ‘and it’s all your fault, your fault. What did you betray your secret for? Who forced you to tell your brother? He has been with me to-day, and told me what you said to him.’ I tried not to look at Acia, and kept walking with long strides up and down the room. ‘Now everything is over, everything.’

Acia tried to get up from her chair.

‘Stay,’ I cried, ‘stay, I implore you. You have to do with an honourable man – yes, an honourable man. But, in Heaven’s name, what upset you? Did you notice any change in me? But I could not hide my feelings from your brother when he came to me to-day.’

‘Why am I talking like this?’ I was thinking inwardly, and the idea that I was an immoral liar, that Gagin knew of our interview, that everything was spoilt, exposed – seemed buzzing persistently in my head.

‘I didn’t call my brother’ – I heard a frightened whisper from Acia: ‘he came of himself.’

‘See what you have done,’ I persisted. ‘Now you want to go away…’

‘Yes, I must go away,’ she murmured in the same soft voice. ‘I only asked you to come here to say good-bye.’