"Où sont aujourd'hui la croix et l'ombrageQui marquaient la tombe de ma pauvre mère."
"Où sont aujourd'hui la croix et l'ombrageQui marquaient la tombe de ma pauvre mère."
"That's not exactly the way that Pouchkina[5]expressed himself," I said.
"I should like to be Tatiana,"[6]continued she, still pensive. "Come, speak," she said with vivacity.
But that was far from my thoughts. I looked at her; inundated by the warm light of the sun, she seemed to me so calm, so serene.—About us, at our feet, above our heads, the country, the river, the heavens,—all were radiant; the air seemed to me quite saturated with splendor.
"See, how beautiful it is," I said, lowering my voice involuntarily.
"Oh, yes, very beautiful," she replied in the same tone, without looking at me. "If you and I were birds, how we would dart forth into space—into all that infinite blue! But we are not birds."
"Yes, but we can bring forth wings."
"How's that?"
"Life will teach you. There are many feelings that will raise you above this earth; never fear, the wings will come to you."
"Have you had any?"
"What shall I say? I don't think that I have taken wing so far."
Annouchka became thoughtful once more. I was leaning over her.
"Can you waltz?" she said to me suddenly.
"Yes," I replied, a little surprised at the question.
"Then come quickly; come. I am going to beg my brother to play us a waltz. We will pretend that the wings have appeared, and that we are flying into space."
She ran towards the house. I quickly followed her, and a few moments had hardly elapsed before we were whirling about the narrow room, to the sounds of a waltz of Lanner's. Annouchka danced with much grace and animation. I do not know what womanly charm suddenly appeared upon her girlish face. Long afterwards the charm of her slender figure still lingered about my hand; for a long time I felt her quick breathing near me, and I dreamed of her dark eyes, motionless and half closed, with her face animated, though pale, about which waved the curls of her sweet hair.
Nothing could have been more delightful than that day. We amused ourselves like children. Annouchka was pleasing and artless. Gaguine regarded her with pleasure. I left them a little later. When I reached the middle of the Rhine I begged the boatman to let his boat drift down the river. The old man rested on his oars, and the majestic river carried us along. I looked about me, listened, and dreamed. Suddenly I felt a weight at my heart. Astonished, I raised my eyes to the heavens, but found no quiet there. Studded with stars, the entire heavens seemed to be moving, palpitating, trembling; I leaned towards the river, but down there in those cold and dark depths, there, too, were the stars trembling and moving. Everything appeared incited by a restless agitation, and my own trouble only increased it. I leaned upon the edge of the boat. The sighing of the wind in my ears, the rippling of the water, which made a wake behind the stern, irritated me, and the cold air from over the water did not refresh me. A nightingale began to sing near the river bank, and the sweetness of the melodious voice ran through me like a delicious and burning poison. But they were not tears from an excitement without cause; what I felt was not the confused emotion of vague desires,—it was not that effervescence of the soul which wished to clasp everything in its embrace, because it could understand and love everything that exists; no, the thirst for happiness was kindled in me. I did not yet venture to put it into words—but happiness, happiness to satiety—that was what I wished, what I longed for. Meanwhile, the boat kept on down the stream, and the old boatman dozed on his oars.
While going the next morning to Gaguine's, I did not ask myself if I was in love with Annouchka, but did not cease to dream of her, to ponder on her fate; I rejoiced in our unforeseen reconciliation. I felt that I had not understood her until the previous evening; up to that time she was an enigma. Now, at length, she was revealed to me; in what an entrancing light was her image enshrouded, how new she was to me, and what did she not promise!
I followed deliberately the road that I had gone over so many times, glancing at every step at the little white house that was seen in the distance. I thought not of the far-off future; I did not even give a thought to the next day; I was happy.
When I entered the room Annouchka blushed. I noticed that she had again dressed herself with care, but by the expression of her face she was not entirely at her ease, and I—I was happy. I even thought I noticed a movement to run away, as usual, but, making an effort, she remained. Gaguine was in that particular state of excitement which, like a fit of madness, suddenly takes hold of thedilettanti, when they imagine that they have caught Nature in the act and can hold her.
He was standing, quite dishevelled and covered with paint, before his canvas, bestowing upon it, right and left, great strokes of his brush.
He greeted me with a nod that had something quite fierce about it, going back a few steps, half closing his eyes, then again dashing at his picture. I did not disturb him, but went and sat by Annouchka. Her dark eyes turned slowly towards me.
"You are not the same to-day as you were yesterday," I said, after vainly trying to smile.
"It is true, I am not the same," she replied in a slow and dull voice; "but that's nothing. I have not slept well. I was thinking all night long."
"Upon what?"
"Ah, mon Dieu, upon a great many things. It is a habit of my childhood, of the time that I still lived with my mother."
She spoke this last word with an effort, but repeated it again:—
"When I lived with my mother I often asked myself why no one knew what would happen to them, and why, when foreseeing a misfortune, one cannot avoid it. And why also can one not tell the whole truth. I was thinking moreover last night that I ought to study, that I know nothing; I need a new education. I have been badly brought up. I have neither learned to draw nor to play upon the piano; I hardly know how to sew. I have no talent, people must be very much bored with me."
"You are unjust to yourself," I replied to her; "you have read a great deal, and with your intelligence"—
"And I am intelligent?" she asked, with such a curious naïve air that I could hardly keep from laughing.
"Am I intelligent, brother?" she asked of Gaguine.
He did not reply, but kept on painting assiduously, changing his brush over and over again, and raising his hand very high at every stroke.
"Really at times I have no idea what I have in my head," replied Annouchka, still thoughtful. "Sometimes, I assure you, I am afraid of myself. Ah! I would like—Is it true that women should not read a great many things?"
"A great many things are not necessary, but"—
"Tell me what I should read, what I should do. I will follow your advice in everything," added she, turning towards me with a burst of confidence.
I could not think immediately of what I ought to tell her.
"Come, would you not be afraid that I should weary you?"
"What a strange idea!"
"Well, thanks for that," said she, "I was afraid that you might be wearied in my society," and with her small burning hand clasped mine.
"I say! N——," cried Gaguine at this moment, "is not this tone too dark?"
I approached him, and the young girl rose and left the room.
She reappeared in about an hour at the door, and beckoned me to her.
"Listen," said she; "if I should die, would you be sorry?"
"What singular ideas you have to-day," I exclaimed.
"I don't think that I shall live long; it often seems to me that everything about me is bidding me good-by. It is better to die than to live as—Ah! don't look at me so; I assure you that I'm not pretending; otherwise, I shall begin again to be afraid of you."
"Were you afraid of me then?"
"If I am queer, you must not reproach me. See, already I can no longer laugh."
She remained sad and preoccupied until the end of the evening. I could not understand what had come over her. Her eyes often rested upon me; my heart was oppressed under her enigmatic look. She appeared calm; nevertheless, in looking at her, I could not keep from saying something to lessen her trouble. I contemplated her with emotion; I found a touching charm in the pallor spread over her features, in the timidity of her indecisive movements. She all the while imagined that I was in a bad humor.
"Listen," she said to me before I left, "I fear that you do not take me seriously. In future believe all that I tell you; but you, in your turn, be frank with me; be sure that I shall never tell you anything but the truth,—I give you my word of honor!"
This expression, "word of honor," made me smile once more.
"Ah! don't laugh," said she vivaciously, "or I shall repeat what you told me yesterday, 'Why do you laugh?' Do you remember," added she, after a moment's silence, "that yesterday you spoke to me of wings? These wings have sprung forth. I don't know where to fly."
"Come, then," I replied, "all roads are open to you."
She looked at me earnestly for some moments.
"You have a bad opinion of me to-day," she said, frowning slightly.
"I! a bad opinion of you?"
"Why are you standing there, with those dismal faces?" asked Gaguine at that moment. "Do you wish me to play a waltz for you, as I did yesterday?"
"No, no," cried she, clasping her hands; "not for the world to-day!"
"Don't excite yourself; I don't wish to force you."
"Not for the world," repeated she, growing pale.
"Does she love me?" I thought, as I approached the Rhine, whose dark waters rushed rapidly along.
"Does she love me?" I asked myself the next morning on awakening. I feared to question myself more. I felt that her image—the image of the young girl with the "rire forcé"—was engraved on my mind, and that I could not easily efface it. I returned to L., and remained there the entire day, but I only caught a glimpse of Annouchka. She was indisposed; she had a headache. She only came down for a few moments, a handkerchief wrapped about her forehead. Pale and unsteady, with her eyes half closed, she smiled a little, and said,—
"It will pass away; it is nothing. Everything passes away, doesn't it?" and she went out.
I felt wearied, moved by a sensation of emptiness and sadness, and yet I could not decide to go away. Later on I went home without having seen her again.
I passed all the next morning in a kind of moral somnolence. I tried to lose myself by working; impossible, I could do nothing. I tried to force myself to think of nothing; that succeeded no better. I wandered about the town; I re-entered the house, then came out again.
"Are you not Monsieur N——?" said suddenly behind me the voice of a little boy.
I turned about,—a child had accosted me.
"From Mademoiselle Anna."
And he handed me a letter.
I opened it and recognized her handwriting, hasty and indistinct:—
"I must see you. Meet me to-day at four o'clock in the stone chapel, on the road that leads to the ruins.—I have been very imprudent. Come, for heaven's sake! You shall know everything. Say to the bearer, Yes."
"Is there any answer?" asked the little boy.
"Say to the young lady,Yes," I replied. And he ran away.
I went back to my room, and, sitting down, began to reflect. My heart beat quickly. I read Annouchka's letter over several times. I looked at my watch; it was not yet noon.
The door opened and Gaguine entered. He looked gloomy. He took my hand and pressed it fervently. You could see that he was under the influence of a deep emotion.
"What has happened?" I asked him. Gaguine took a chair, and seated himself by my side.
"Three days ago," he said to me, with an uneasy smile and a constrained voice, "I told you some things that surprised you; to-day I am going to astonish you still more. To another than you, I would not speak so frankly; but you are a man of honor, and a friend, I hope; then listen. My sister Annouchka loves you."
I started, and rose quickly.
"Your sister, you tell me—?"
"Yes," he replied bruskly, "I said so. It is foolish; she will drive me mad. Fortunately, she cannot lie, and confides everything to me. Ah! what a heart that child has; but she will surely ruin herself!"
"You are certainly in error," I exclaimed, interrupting him.
"No, I am not mistaken. Yesterday she remained in bed the entire day without taking anything. It is true she did not complain; but she never does complain. I felt no uneasiness, but towards evening she had a little fever. About two in the morning our landlady came and awoke me.
"'Go and see your sister,' she said to me; 'I think she is ill.'
"I ran to Annouchka's room, and found her still dressed, consumed with fever, in tears; her head was on fire; her teeth chattered.
"'What is the matter with you?' I asked.
"She threw herself upon my neck and begged me to take her away, if I valued her life. Without being able to understand anything, I tried to calm her; her sobs redoubled, and, suddenly, in the depth of her grief, she confessed to me,—in a word, I learned that she loves you.—There! You and I are grown men, governed by reason. Well! we will never understand how deep are the sentiments that Annouchka feels, and with what violence they manifest themselves; it is something at once unforeseen and irresistible, like the bursting of a storm. You are, without doubt, a very attractive man," continued Gaguine, "but yet, how have you inspired such a violent passion? I cannot conceive of it, I confess it! She pretends that, as soon as she saw you, she was attracted towards you. That is why she wept so much of late in assuring me that she would never love any one in the world but me. She thinks that you look down upon her, knowing probably her origin. She asked me if I had told you her story. I told her No, as you may imagine, but her penetration frightens me. She had but one thought, that was to go away, and quickly. I stayed with her until morning. She made me promise that we should start to-morrow, and only then was she quieted. After mature reflection, I decided to come and confer with you upon the subject. In my opinion, my sister is right; the best thing is to leave, and I should have taken her away to-day if an idea had not occurred to me, and stopped me. Who knows? Perhaps my sister pleases you; if so, why then should we part? So I decided, and putting aside my pride, relying upon some observations that I had made—yes—I decided to come—to come and ask you"—
Here Gaguine, disconcerted, stopped short.
"Pray excuse me—pardon—I am not accustomed to interviews of this kind."
I took his hand.
"You wish to know if your sister pleases me!" I said to him firmly. "She does please me!"
Gaguine fixed his eyes upon me. "But, in short," replied he, hesitating,—"would you marry her?"
"How can I answer that question. I make you the judge of it.—Can I do it now?"
"I know it, I know it," cried Gaguine; "no, I have no right to expect an answer from you, and the question that I have asked you is unconventional in every particular, but force of circumstances compelled me to do so. It is not safe to play with fire! You don't understand what Annouchka is. She may fall ill, or run away, or even—or even give you a rendezvous. Another would know how to conceal her feelings and wait, but she cannot. It is her first experience, that's the worst of it! If you could have seen to-day the way in which she sobbed at my feet, you would share my fears."
I began to reflect. The words of Gaguine, "Give you a rendezvous," oppressed my heart. It seemed shameful to me not to answer his honest frankness by a loyal confession.
"Yes!" I at length said to him, "you are right. I received, about an hour ago, a letter from your sister; there it is." He took it, ran through it rapidly, and again let his hands fall upon his knees. The astonishment that his features expressed would have been laughable, if I could have laughed at that moment.
"You are a man of honor," he said. "I am not the less embarrassed to know what to do. How! She asks me to fly, and in this letter she reproaches herself for her imprudence! But when, then, did she have the time to write to you? and what are her intentions in regard to you?"
I reassured him, and we applied ourselves, with as much coolness as was possible, to discuss what we should do. This is the plan which we finally determined upon to prevent all unhappiness. It was agreed that I should go to the rendezvous and speak plainly with Annouchka. Gaguine promised to remain at home, without showing that he had read the letter; and it was decided, moreover, that we should meet in the evening.
"I have full confidence in you," he said, pressing my hand; "have consideration for her and for me; but, nevertheless, we will leave to-morrow," added he, rising, "since it is settled that you will not marry her."
"Give me until this evening," I replied.
"So be it! you will not marry her!"
He took his departure; I threw myself upon the divan and closed my eyes. I was dazed; too many thoughts at once crowded into my brain. I was angry with Gaguine for his frankness; I was angry with Annouchka: her love filled me with joy—and yet I was afraid of it.
I could not account for her having made a full confession to her brother. That which above all caused me great pain was the absolute necessity of making a sudden and almost instantaneous decision.
"Marry a girl of seventeen, with a disposition like that; it is impossible!" I cried, rising.
At the hour agreed upon I crossed the Rhine, and the first person I met on the bank was the same little boy who had found me in the morning. He seemed to be waiting for me. "From Mademoiselle Anna," he said to me, in a low voice, and he gave me another note.
Annouchka announced to me that she had changed the place of the rendezvous. She told me to meet her in an hour and a half—not at the chapel, but at Dame Louise's; I was to knock at the door, enter, and go up three flights.
"AgainYes?" asked the little boy.
"Yes," I replied, and walked along the river bank. I had not time enough to return to my house, and did not wish to wander about the streets.
Behind the walls of the town stretched a little garden, with a bowling-alley covered with a roof, and some tables for beer-drinkers. I entered it.
Several middle-aged Germans were bowling; the balls rolled noisily along; exclamations could be heard from time to time. A pretty little waiting-maid, her eyes swollen from crying, brought me a jug of beer; I looked her in the face, she turned away bruskly and withdrew.
"Yes, yes!" muttered a stout German with very red cheeks, who was seated near me; "our Hannchen is in great distress to-day; her sweetheart is drawn in the conscription." I looked at her at this moment; retiring into a corner, she was resting her cheek upon her hand, and great tears slowly rolled between her fingers. Some one asked for beer; she brought him a jug, and went back to her place. This grief reacted upon me, and I began to think of my rendezvous with sadness and uneasiness.
It was not with a light heart that I was going to this interview. I must not give myself up to the joys of a reciprocal love. Must keep to my word, fulfil a difficult duty. "It is not safe to play with fire." This expression, which Gaguine had used in speaking of his sister, pierced me like a sharp arrow to the bottom of my soul. Yet three days before, in that boat carried along by the stream, was I not tormented by a thirst for happiness? Now I could satisfy it, and I hesitated. I thrust back this happiness; it was my duty to do so; the unforeseen something which it presented frightened me. Annouchka herself, with her impulsive nature, her education, this girl strange and full of fascination, I confess it, frightened me.
I struggled a long time with these feelings. The moment fixed upon approached. "I can not marry her," at last I said to myself; "she will not know that I have loved her."
I arose, put a thaler into poor Hannchen's hand (she did not even thank me), and proceeded towards the house of Dame Louise.
The shades of night were already in the air, and above the dark street stretched a narrow band of sky, reddened by the setting sun. I gently tapped at the door; it was immediately opened.
I crossed the threshold and found myself in complete darkness.
"This way," said a cracked voice, "you are expected."
I groped along in the dark a few steps; a bony hand seized mine.
"Is it you, Dame Louise?" I asked.
"Yes!" answered the same voice, "it is I, my fine young man."
The old woman took me up a very steep staircase, and stopped upon the landing of the third story. I recognized then, by the faint glimmer from a little garret window, the wrinkled face of the burgomaster's widow. A sly and mawkish smile half opened her toothless mouth, and made her dull eyes glitter. She pointed out a door. I opened it with a convulsive movement, and slammed it after me.
The little room in which I found myself was quite dark, and it was some moments before I saw Annouchka. She was seated near the window, enveloped in a large shawl, her head turned away and almost concealed, like a startled bird. I felt a deep pity for her. I approached; she turned away her head still more.
"Anna Nicolaëvna!" I said to her. She turned quickly and tried to fasten her look upon mine, but had not the strength. I took her hand; it was like a dead person's, motionless and cold in mine.
"I would like," said she, attempting to smile, but her pale lips would not allow of it; "I would like—no, impossible," she murmured. She was silent; indeed, her voice grew fainter at every word.
I sat down by her.
"Anna Nicolaëvna!" I said again, and, in my turn, I could say nothing more. There was a long silence. Retaining her hand in mine, I gazed at her. Sinking down, she breathed quickly, biting her lower lip, in order to keep back the tears which were ready to flow. I continued to gaze at her; there was in her motionless and timorous attitude an expression of weakness deeply touching. It was as if she had fallen crushed upon the chair and could not stir. My heart was filled with pity.
"Annouchka!" I said in a low voice. She slowly raised her eyes to mine. O the look of a woman whose heart has just opened to love! how find words to describe it?—They beseech, those eyes! they question, they give themselves up.—I could not resist them—a subtle fire ran through my veins. I bent over her head and covered it with kisses.—Suddenly my ear was struck by a trembling sound like a stifled sob. I felt a hand which trembled like a leaf pass over my hair. I raised my head and saw her face.—What a sudden transfiguration had come over it!—Fright had disappeared; her eyes had a far-away look that seemed to ask mine to join with them; her lips were slightly apart; her forehead was as pale as marble, whilst her curls floated behind her head, as if a breath of air had blown them back!
I forgot everything. I drew her towards me. She offered no resistance. Her shawl slipped from her shoulders, her head fell and rested gently upon my breast, under the kisses of my burning lips.
"I am yours!" she murmured feebly.
Suddenly the thought of Gaguine flashed across me.
"What are we doing?" I cried, pushing her from me convulsively. "Your brother knows everything; he knows that we are here together!"
Annouchka fell back upon the chair.
"Yes," I said, rising and going away from her, "your brother knows everything! I was forced to tell him all."
"Forced?" she stammered. She seemed hardly to understand me.
"Yes, yes," I repeated harshly, "and it is your fault,—yours, yours alone! What reason had you to give up your secret? Were you forced to tell your brother everything? He came to me this morning and repeated all you had told him."
I tried not to look any more at her, and paced the room.
"Now," I replied, "all is lost,—all, absolutely all."
Annouchka attempted to rise.
"Stay!" I cried. "Stay, I beseech you; fear nothing, you have to do with a man of honor! But, for heaven's sake, speak! What has frightened you? Have I changed towards you? As to myself, when your brother came to me yesterday, I could not do otherwise than tell him what our relations were."
"Why tell her all that?" I thought to myself, and the idea that I was a cowardly deceiver, that Gaguine was aware of our rendezvous, that all was disclosed—lost beyond redemption—immediately crossed my mind.
"I did not send for my brother last night," she said, with a choking voice, "he came of himself."
"But do you see what this has led to? Now you wish to go away."
"Yes, I must go," she said, in a very low voice. "I besought you to come here to say farewell."
"And you think, perhaps, that to part from you costs me nothing?"
"But why was it necessary to confide in my brother?" replied Annouchka in a stupefied tone.
"I repeat to you, I could not do otherwise. If you had not betrayed yourself"—
"I was shut up in my room," she replied naïvely. "I did not know that the landlady had another key."
This innocent excuse at the moment put me in a rage; and now I cannot think of it without deep emotion. Poor child, what an upright and frank soul!
"So all is at an end," I replied once more; "at an end—; and we must part."
I looked at her furtively. The color mounted to her face; shame and terror—I felt it only too keenly—seized her. On my side, I walked to and fro, speaking as if in delirium.
"There was in my heart," I continued, "a feeling just springing up, which, if you had left it to time, would have developed! You have yourself broken the bond that united us; you have failed to put confidence in me."
While I spoke, Annouchka leaned forward more and more.—Suddenly she fell upon her knees, hid her face in her hands, and began to sob. I ran to her, I attempted to raise her, but she resisted obstinately.
Woman's tears thoroughly upset me. I cried out to her:—
"Anna Nicolaëvna! Annouchka,—pray, for heaven's sake,—calm yourself,—I beseech you."
And I took her hand in mine.
But at the moment when I least expected it, she suddenly arose, then, like a flash, ran towards the door and disappeared.
Dame Louise, who entered the room a few moments later, found me in the same place, as if struck by a thunderbolt.
I could not understand how this interview could have ended so abruptly, and in such a ridiculous manner, before I had expressed a hundredth part of what I had to say; before I even could foresee what the consequences of it were.
"Mademoiselle has gone?" Dame Louise asked me, raising her yellow eyebrows.
I looked at her with a stupefied air, and left.
I passed through the town and walked straight ahead to the fields. A feeling of vexed disappointment filled my heart. I loaded myself with reproaches. Why did I not appreciate the motive that had induced this young girl to change the place of our meeting? Why did I not appreciate how hard it would be for her to go to this old woman's house? Why, finally, did I not stay away?
Alone with her in that dark, isolated room, I had had the courage to thrust her away, and to remonstrate with her; and, now her image pursued me, I asked her pardon—her pale face, her eyes timid and full of tears; her hair in disorder, flowing over her bended neck; the touch of her forehead as it rested upon my breast; all these remembrances made me beside myself, and I thought I still heard her murmuring, "I am yours!"
I reflected: I have obeyed the voice of my conscience.—But no? it was false! for, most certainly, I should never have wished in my heart for such adénouement.—And, then, to be separated from her, to live without her, shall I have the strength?—"Fool! miserable fool that I am!" I cried angrily.
In the meantime night was approaching. I directed my hurried steps towards the dwelling of Annouchka.
Gaguine came out to meet me.
"Have you seen my sister?" he cried, from a distance.
"She is not at home then?" I asked him.
"No."
"Not returned?"
"No."
"No,—but I have something to confess," continued he: "in spite of the promise I made you, I couldn't help going to the chapel. I didn't find her there. Did she not go there, then?"
"No, not to the chapel."
"And you have not seen her?"
I was obliged to admit that I had seen her.
"Where then?"
"At Dame Louise's.—I left her about an hour ago; I thought she was about to return."
"We will wait for her," Gaguine said to me.
We entered the house, and I sat down beside him. We were silent; a painful constraint was on us both. On the alert for the least sound, sometimes we looked at each other stealthily, sometimes we cast our eyes upon the door.
"I can stay here no longer!" said he, rising; "she will kill me with anxiety. Come, let us look for her."
"Yes, let us do so!"
We went out; it was already night.
"Come, tell me what happened," demanded Gaguine, drawing his hat over his eyes.
"Our interview lasted but five minutes at the utmost, and I spoke to her as we agreed upon."
"Do you know," said he, "I think we had better separate. Let us look for her each on his own responsibility; that is the quicker way to find her; but in any case return to the house in an hour."
I hastened down the path that passed through the vineyards and entered the town; after hurrying through all the streets and looking in every direction, even at Dame Louise's windows, I came back to the Rhine, and ran along the river bank. Here and there was a figure of a woman, but none of them Annouchka's. It was no longer vexation that consumed me, but a secret terror; still more it was repentance that I felt, boundless pity, finally love—yes, the deepest love. I threw my arms about; I called Annouchka; at first, as the shades of night were deepening, in a low voice, then louder and louder; I repeated a hundred times that I loved her, swearing never to leave her; I would have given all that I possessed to press once more her cold hand, to hear once more her timid voice, to see her once more before me. She had been so near me; she had come to me with such resolution, in all the frankness of her heart; she had brought me her young life, her purity,—and I did not take her in my arms; I had foregone the happiness of seeing her sweet face brighten.—The thought drove me mad!
"Where can she have gone? what could she have done?" I cried, in the impotent rage of despair.
Something whitish suddenly appeared at the edge of the water. I recognized the place. There, above the grave of a man who drowned himself seventy years before, arose a stone cross, half sunken in the ground, covered with characters almost illegible. My heart was beating as though it would break. The white figure had disappeared.
"Annouchka," I cried, in such a fierce voice, that I even frightened myself.
But no one answered; I finally decided to go and find out whether Gaguine had not found her.
Quickly going up the vineyard road, I perceived a light in Annouchka's room. This sight calmed me a little. I approached the house; the entrance door was closed. I knocked. A window that had no light opened softly in the lower story, and Gaguine thrust out his head.
"You have found her?" I asked him.
"She has returned," he answered in a low voice. "She is in her room and is going to bed. All is for the best."
"God be praised!" I cried, in a paroxysm of indescribable joy. "God be praised! Then everything is all right; but you know we have not had our talk together."
"Not now," he answered, half closing the window; "another time. In the meanwhile, farewell!"
"To-morrow," I said, "to-morrow will decide everything."
"Farewell," repeated Gaguine.
The window closed.
I was upon the point of knocking at it,—I wished to speak to Gaguine one instant longer, to ask his sister's hand,—but a proposal of marriage at such an hour! "To-morrow," I thought, "to-morrow I shall be happy."
Happiness has no to-morrow; it has no yesterday; it remembers not the past; it has no thought of the future; it knows only the present, and yet this present is not a day, but an instant.
I know not how I returned to Z.—It was not my legs that carried me, it was not a boat that took me to the other side; I was wafted along, so to speak, by strong, large wings.
I passed a thicket where a nightingale was singing. I stopped, listened a long time; it seemed to be singing of my love and my happiness.
The next morning, on approaching the white house, I was astonished to see the windows open, also the entrance door. Some pieces of paper were scattered about the threshold; a servant, her broom in her hand, appeared at the door. I approached her.
"They have gone!" she exclaimed, before I could ask whether Gaguine were at home.
"Gone!" I repeated; "how is that? Where have they gone?"
"They went this morning at six o'clock, and did not say where they were going. But are you not Monsieur N——?"
"Yes."
"Very well! my mistress has a letter for you."
She went upstairs, and came back with a letter in her hand.
"Here it is," said she.
"You must be mistaken, it's impossible!" I stammered.
The servant looked at me vacantly, and began to sweep.
I opened the letter; it was from Gaguine. Not a line from Annouchka!
In beginning, he begged me to forgive him for this hasty departure. He added that when I was calmer I would approve, no doubt, of his determination. It was the only means of getting out of an embarrassing position, and one that might become dangerous.
"Yesterday evening," he said to me, "while we were waiting for Annouchka in silence, I was convinced of the necessity of a separation. There are prejudices that I respect; I can understand that you could not marry her. She has told me all, and for her sake I must yield to her urgent entreaties."
At the end of his letter he expressed regret at the breaking off of our friendly intercourse so soon; hoped that I would always be happy; pressed my hand, and begged me not to try and meet them again.
"A question of prejudices indeed!" I exclaimed, as if he could hear me. "Folly all that! What right has he to take her away from me?" I clutched my head wildly.
The servant began to scream for her mistress, and her fright brought me to my senses. I felt that I had but one object: to find them again; to find them again at any cost. To bear such a blow; to resign myself; to see things end in this way was truly beyond my strength! I learned from the landlady that they went at six o'clock to take the steamboat down the Rhine. I went to the office; they told me that they had taken places for Cologne. I returned to my house to pack up and immediately follow them.
As I passed Dame Louise's house I heard some one call me. I raised my head and perceived the burgomaster's widow at the window of the room where the previous evening I had seen Annouchka. Upon her lips hovered that disagreeable smile that I had noticed before. She beckoned to me. I turned away, and was about to go on, but she called out that she had something to give me. These words stopped me, and I entered the house. How can I express to you my emotion, when I found myself again in that little room.
"To tell the truth," began the old woman, showing me a note, "I should only have given you this if you had come to my house of your own accord; but you are such a fine young man—there!"
I took the note; I read upon a little piece of paper the following lines, traced in haste with a pencil:—
"Farewell! we shall see each other no more. It is not through pride that I go away; I cannot do otherwise. Yesterday, when I wept before you, if you had said to me but oneword, asingle word, I would have remained. You did not say it.—Who knows? Perhaps it is for the best that it is so. Farewell forever!"
She had expected but "one word!" Fool that I was! ThatwordI said the previous evening again and again with many tears; I threw it to the wind; I cried it out in the midst of lonely fields: but I did not say it to her; I did not tell her that I loved her! Yes, it was then impossible for me to pronounce that word. In this fatal room, where I found myself face to face with her, I was not yet fully conscious of my love; it did not awaken even then, when in a dull and gloomy silence I stood near her brother,—it only burst forth, sudden and irresistible, a few moments after, when, terrified by the thought of a misfortune, I began to seek her, calling aloud; but then already it was too late!—It is impossible, they will tell me;—I know not if it is impossible, but I know that it was so. Annouchka would not have gone if she had had the least coquetry, if she had not found herself in an essentially false position. An uncertain position that any other woman would have accepted she found intolerable. This did not occur to me. My evil genius, then, at my last interview with Gaguine, under his dark window, had checked that confession which was upon my lips, and thus the last thread that I could have seized had broken in my hands.
I returned the same day to L. with my traps, and started for Cologne. I often remember that at the moment when the steamboat left the shore, and when I said farewell to all those streets, to all those places that I should never forget, I perceived Hannchen, the little servant-maid.
She was seated upon a bench near the river bank: though yet pale, her face was no longer sorrowful. A handsome young fellow was by her side and laughing with her, whilst at the other side of the Rhine my little Madonna, concealed in the dark foliage of the old ash, followed me sadly with her glance.
At Cologne I again came upon the track of Gaguine and his sister. I learned that they had gone to London. I immediately went to that city; all researches that I made there were in vain. For a long time I did not allow myself to be discouraged; for a long time I showed obstinate persistence, but finally was obliged to give up all hope of meeting them again.
I never saw them again! I never again saw Annouchka!—Later I heard some quite vague rumors of her brother; but as to her I have never heard her spoken of; I do not even know if she still lives.
Some years ago, while travelling, I caught sight for an instant, at the door of a railway-carriage, of a woman whose face had a little resemblance to those features that I shall never forget; but this resemblance was doubtless the result of chance. Annouchka lived in my memory as the young girl whom I saw at our last interview, pale and trembling, leaning upon the back of a wooden chair in the dark corner of a lonely room.
Besides, I must confess that the course of my grief was not of long duration. Soon I persuaded myself that fate had been favorable to me in preventing my marriage with her, and that a woman with such a disposition would certainly not make me happy. I was still young at this period, and that time so short and limited that they call the future appeared to me infinite. "That which has happened once to me upon my travels," I said to myself, "can I not meet it again, more charming and more delightful?" Since then I have known other women; but that feeling so tender that Annouchka had once awakened was never again aroused. No—no glance has ever replaced the glance of those eyes fastened upon mine; I have never again clasped to my breast a heart to whose throbbing mine has responded with an ecstacy so joyful. Condemned to the solitary existence of a wandering man, without a home, I regard those days the saddest of my life; but I still preserve as a relic two little notes and a withered sprig of geranium that she once threw me from the window; it breathes even now a slight fragrance, whilst the hand that gave it to me, that hand that I pressed upon my lips only once, has, perhaps, long since returned to dust. And I, what have I become? What is there left in me of the man of former days, of the restlessness of youth, of my plans, of my ambitious hopes?—Thus the slight perfume of a blade of grass outlives all joys, all human griefs,—outlives even man himself.