The sunbeam which wakes Mascha every morning lies broad and full on the carpet in her bedroom, creeps caressingly on her pillow, strokes her round white cheeks, but she sleeps soundly and sweetly, like a very young child who sleeps heavily after a great grief.
There is a knock at her door, first gentle, then louder. "Maschenka, my little dove, it is I," calls a dear, well-known voice. She does not hear. Softly Lensky turns the knob, hesitates a moment on the sill. He approaches the little white bed; there she lies sleeping so innocently, so peacefully. A touchingly sad expression is on her slightly swollen eyelids, her red lips. How long and thick are the black lashes resting on her cheeks!
"Maschenka--sluggard--lazy-bones!" calls he, teasingly, and strokes her cheeks.
"Ah!" with the short, soft cry of a bird frightened out of its sleep, she starts up. "You, papa!"
"Yes, I--who else? I have knocked twice at your door without any answer. If one sleeps as soundly as you, my little witch, one should certainly bolt one's door."
"Ah! I am not afraid of thieves, only of ghosts, and they creep through key-holes," says Maschenka, laughing, and he laughs and strokes her cheeks.
"Childish one!" murmurs he.
"How dear, how beautiful that you came!" says she, tenderly, and presses her lips to his hand.
"And did you think that I would go away without taking leave of you?" asked he.
She turns her head slightly away from him. "Ah! I did not know," murmured she. "How should I? Yesterday I no longer knew whether you really loved me. You were so busy with all those insolent women who swarmed around you. Ah! papa, how can you associate with that rabble?"
"That does not concern you at all," says he, looking at her quite harshly, while he this time, as his old custom was, conceals his embarrassment behind defiant obstinacy. Then he notices the significant traces of the difficultly vanquished sadness of the past night in the little childish face, and when Maschenka, frightened at her father's roughness, starts anxiously and shyly, the greatest anxiety overcomes him. "How pale you are, my angel; is anything the matter?"
"No, papa--no--only--I was ragingly unhappy yesterday, and then I dreamed so horribly."
"What then?"
"It was oppressive; and I was followed by a horrible monster, and when I called to you, you were busy with--with other strange men, and did not look round--and in my mortal fear I called to mother--in my dream I had forgotten that she is dead--and then I awoke."
"My poor little dove, my poor, orphaned little dove!" murmurs he. "Who can replace your mother to you? That was a fearful loss. There is no second mother like her."
For a while both are silent, then Mascha asks:
"How long shall you be away?"
"I shall come back to Paris in June."
"Then--then you will be unendingly loving to me again for two days; and after that leave me alone again?"
"No, no; then I give up the wandering life, Mascha. It is the last time. It is only to win a princely dowry for you that I go about the world."
"Father, if you knew how willingly I would resign your wealth!" said she, very softly.
He laughs somewhat constrainedly. "No, no; you must be wealthy. For this time all must remain so; do not make my heart heavy; for believe me that I long greatly for a calm, comfortable home, that it pains me to part with you. You have grown fearfully into my heart, you defiant, tender little curly-head, you! But how long will you stay with me, my little white lamb? Who knows? When I return I will find a dreamy, sentimental Mascha, a quite different----"
"Papa, you will be late!" now calls Nikolai from below.
"Is it time?"
"High time. You will miss the train."
"Adieu, papa!"
He bends over her. She throws both arms round his neck, kisses him, sobbing violently. "Farewell!"
"My heart, my soul," murmurs he. "Write to me very, very often."
He has kissed her again and again; at last he has left her. At the door he turns round to her once more, sees her in the snow-white bed, with her tender, tearful face, with her sun-kissed hair, breathes once more the atmosphere of the room slightly perfumed with violets. Carrying away with him an impression of childish purity and innocence, he goes out.
page 113
Two or three days after the elder Lensky's departure, Mascha, who is busy dressing for dinner, is told that a large package has been left for her. Immediately suspecting what it is, she summons the maid to bring it to her.
"It is a huge package," the maid sighs while she drags it in and lays it down before the chimney in Mascha's room.
"Where are the scissors, Lis, please?" Mascha dances with excitement while she cuts the string in all directions. Her suspicion has not deceived her: the skin of a remarkable bear, with immense head and mighty paws, comes to view. In his horrible open jaws the monster holds a bouquet of white roses and a note as follows:
"A disarmed enemy, Fräulein Marie Lensky, for friendly remembrance of an adventure in Katerinowskoe, and
"Your humble servant,
"K. Bärenburg."
Beside herself with delight, Mascha immediately hurries into Anna's room, and with sparkling eyes calls out:
"Anna, Anna, please come--see--Count Bärenburg--he has----"
"Well, what about him?" asks Anna, indifferently.
"He has sent me the bear-skin, you know, the skin of the bear which almost strangled Colia. It must have been a splendid bear. It has a head--a head----"
"Ah! that is very nice," replies Anna, without moving. "But I beg you, hurry a little with your dressing, and another time do not run into the hall with floating hair and in your dressing-sack, like a prima donna in the fifth act."
"H-m, she is jealous!" thinks Mascha. And shrugging her shoulders, with a triumphant smile on her fresh lips, she returns to her room, where she first completes her interrupted toilet, then crouches on the floor and sinks herself in contemplation of the bear.
Then Anna comes in to her--Anna, with quite a changed, sweet face. "Vinegar with sugar, we know that," thinks Mascha to herself, without rising from her strange position.
"Ah! that is the skin," says Anna, with condescending interest.
"Yes," says Mascha, slowly rising, with a humorous, quite childish impertinence, which would have forced a laugh from every unprejudiced spectator. "That is the skin, those are the flowers, there is the note."
"And you, indeed, take that for a proof of great admiration?" lisps Anna.
Mascha nods defiantly.
"You are very inexperienced, my little Mascha," says Anna. "You always have such a hostile manner to me that it is unusually hard for me to--h-m! how shall I express myself?--give you the enlightenment which in a certain manner, as your relative, I owe you. You do not know men as I do, dear child."
"Have you had very sad experience in this direction, poor Anna?" sighs Mascha, compassionately.
"I have had no experience, but I have observed," says Anna. "Bärenburg is a man from whom one must guard one's self. He has a new flame every moment, whom he overwhelms with the most poetic attentions until--one day he no longer greets her on the street. I am very sorry to diminish your pleasure, but I must warn you."
"H-m!" says Mascha, in the same tone of humorous impertinence; and copying Anna's glance with photographic exactness, she says: "My dear Anna, would you like very much to marry Count Bärenburg yourself?Seniores, priores--I withdraw."
"One cannot speak to you," says Anna, and rises, blushing with anger. But Maschenka holds her back; her impertinence suddenly truly pains her. How indelicate it was to reproach Anna with her age! As if she could help it! "Anna," says she, cordially, "I did not mean badly; I only wanted to laugh. But tell me, I will not repeat it, do you like Count Bärenburg? I will certainly not stand in your way."
Instead of being touched by this childish sacrifice, Anna stares arrogantly at her cousin from head to foot. "I can, perhaps, put up with your rivalry," says she. "Calm yourself,moutarde après dîner, ma chère! If I had wished to marry Bärenburg, I could have had him this autumn in Spaa. He is as indifferent to me as that"--with a snap of her fingers. "But show me your hands;comme vous avez les ongles canailles. I always tell you you should not practise so much; you already have nails like a professional pianist--c'est très mal porté."
The Jeliagins have paid Mascha a little attention. To-day, at lunch, she found on her plate a box-ticket for the Porte St. Martin. It has long been her most ardent wish to go to the theatre.
"You can invite Sonia and Fräulein von Sankjéwitch. Nikolai will accompany you. It would be better that you dine with Fräulein von Sankjéwitch," proposes her aunt, "if that suits you."
"Oh, it suits, naturally it suits!" cries Mascha, and springs up to embrace her aunt.
"Do not make so much of this trifle," says Madame Jeliagin, a trifle ashamed. "It is not worth the trouble. I rack my brains often enough to think how one can amuse you. But with girls like you, who are too old to play with dolls, too young to go into society, it is hard."
"Am I, then, really too young, auntie? I was seventeen the fifth of last December," says Mascha, looking longingly and coaxingly at Barbara.
Barbara Jeliagin is silent with embarrassment, but Anna speaks. "Your age alone is not the thing. You have notenue, are not sufficiently lady-like. You must accustom yourself to more repose and self-command before one can think of taking you into society without fearing to be embarrassed by you."
This kind remark Mascha receives silently, but with burning cheeks.
Madame Jeliagin, who has learned quite against her will to love Mascha, perhaps because Mascha's obliging lovability is the only bit of sunshine which has warmed her for years, pats her kindly on the shoulder, and says: "It is not so dreadful. To be old and sedate is no art; that comes of itself."
And Mascha wipes the tears from her eyes, and again is happy over her ticket, inquires what she shall wear in honor of this festive occasion, and is only sorry that one visits the Porte St. Martin in street costume.
The box ticket is for the next evening. All arranges itself splendidly.
Nita and Sonia dine with the brother and sister in the Avenue Murillo. The little dinner is excellent and Colia happy. But after the meal, when they are about to break up, Mascha notices that she has left her opera-glass at home. Great despair! Sonia has none, and Nita's is really not enough for three shortsighted persons. They decide to take the roundabout way through the Avenue Wagram and get the glass.
"I will come immediately; I will not keep you waiting a moment," says Mascha, gayly. But scarcely has she entered the hall when she perceives that something unusual is going on. The vestibule is brilliantly lighted, several ladies' wraps and men's overcoats are there. Mascha's large eyes become gloomy. "And I thought they wished to give me a pleasure," thinks she, angrily. "They only got me out of the way because they were ashamed of me." Then, turning to the servant who appears, she asks ruthlessly, directly:
"Who is dining here?"
"The Ladies Anthropos, Count Bärenburg, Monsieur d'Eblis, Prince Trubetzkoy----"
But Maschenka hears no more. "Bärenburg!" her passionate heart beats loudly. "Moutarde après dînerit may be; but, in any case, Anna seems not to so lowly estimate my insignificant youthfulness as rival, as she acts thus," thinks she to herself. "But we will see, Anna, we will see!" And Maschenka sets her teeth and clenches her tiny fist.
The next morning she makes a great scene for her aunt and cousin, reproaches them violently and with bitter tears for that she is unlovingly pushed about and repressed, that she plays therôleof a Cinderella in their house; that she cannot endure living with people who do not love her, etc.
Barbara Alexandrovna bows her head with shame at these reproofs. Anna, on the contrary, opposes the anger of her passionate, excited cousin with icy calm.
"Before all," she begins, "I would beg to remark to you that we are not at all obliged to put up with your rudeness. I do not condescend to answer your ill-bred accusations, for I think without that you will be ashamed of them in a calmer frame of mind. But for the rest, I tell you very plainly, if life with us does not suit you, you can take refuge in a boarding-school."
If Mascha had possessed shrewdness enough to declare herself agreed with the plan of boarding-school, it would have placed the Jeliagins in great embarrassment, on account of the pecuniary aid which they received from Mascha's stay with them. But she did not think of that. A boarding-school is for her something horrible--a prison, where she must give up all possibility of seeing Bärenburg again. And so she submits, shyly, shame-facedly.
When they tell her that, for the third time this week, she is to dine alone, she takes it with such sad, helpless submission that it pains her aunt, and she proposes to ask Nikolai to share her solitary meal; perhaps he may be disengaged.
"Yes, that would be nice," says Mascha. And completely reconciled with her fate, she sends a message to her brother, forms the most delightful plans--then comes her brother's answer.
"Dear Heart:--Just received a despatch from Aunt Katherine. Uncle Sergei is ill, desires me urgently. I must leave by the 3.25 train. Have not even time to take leave of you. Unfortunate for our cosey evening. God keep you, my little dove; be brave and prudent for love of me, and also for your own sake. Write me all that is on your heart, every little annoyance which weighs upon you. If you ever need immediate advice, go to Sonia and Fräulein von Sankjéwitch, who both love you. I kiss and embrace you."Your faithful brother,"Colia."
"Dear Heart:--Just received a despatch from Aunt Katherine. Uncle Sergei is ill, desires me urgently. I must leave by the 3.25 train. Have not even time to take leave of you. Unfortunate for our cosey evening. God keep you, my little dove; be brave and prudent for love of me, and also for your own sake. Write me all that is on your heart, every little annoyance which weighs upon you. If you ever need immediate advice, go to Sonia and Fräulein von Sankjéwitch, who both love you. I kiss and embrace you.
"Your faithful brother,
"Colia."
"Is there nothing but unpleasantness in the world?" sighs Mascha, upon receiving this note. "But still, what use to torment one's self?"
After she has devoted perhaps fifteen minutes to the deepest sorrow, she runs singing about the house, and makes gay little jokes.
Now it is evening, and they stand in the vestibule and await the carriage--Anna and aunt; Anna with her regal bearing and carelessly trailing draperies; Barbara with her nervous anxiety and scant, short dress.
"What lace is that around your neck?" calls out Anna, angrily, looking at her mother through herlorgnon. "Did you buy that fichu on the Campo dei Fiori? It is grotesque! You look like a stage mother."
Barbara pulls uneasily at her fichu and drops her purse.
"Wait, auntie, I have such wonderful lace of mamma's up-stairs," says Mascha, who until now has been sunk in childish admiration of Anna's ice-cold blond beauty and whitecrêpe de Chinesplendor. "Only a moment, auntie, I will bring it immediately." And she rushes up-stairs and returns in a minute with sewing utensils and a box smelling ofPeau d'Espagne. "See, you must put on this scarf, auntie."
"We will call the maid," proposes Madame Jeliagin.
"Ah, no! I will do it myself. You will be beautiful at once, now, auntie," says Mascha, while she removes the shabby ornament condemned by Anna and replaces it with splendid old point lace.
"See, so; mamma wore it so. No, not the old mosaic brooch; here, take my pin." And Mascha drags it from her neck. "Oh, how that becomes you! Look in the glass, and see how pretty you are. Only a few stitches to make it firm. Is it not nice so, Anna?"
"Mais oui, très bien," Anna lets fall from her thin lips.
The servant announces the carriage. Madame Jeliagin becomes uneasy. "Now we are ready." And Mascha springs up from the floor, where she has knelt to fasten one end of the lace to her aunt's girdle. Then the servant gives them their wraps, Anna's red embroidered one, another of the unpaid-for articles which her mother has begged from the dressmaker with tears, and Barbara's old-fashioned shabby mantle, and they go.
But at the door Barbara turns round. Her flabby, wrinkled, painted face twitches a little, and taking Maschenka's head between both hands she kisses the girl on the forehead.
"My good child!" murmurs she, "my dear good child, I am very sorry that you must pass your evening alone. We will try to come home soon."
"How you smell of benzine, mamma!" Maschenka hears Anna say, as they get into the carriage.
Maschenka had taken no further notice that the hands which had caressed her were incased in cleaned gloves. It was so lovely to be a little bit caressed.
Mascha has eaten her solitary dinner. Afterward she played a little, improvised all sorts of droll, charming nonsense. About ten o'clock--they have just brought the tea to her--she hears the house-door open. Have they returned already? No; that is a visitor, a well-known voice--he. How unpleasant, just to-day, when no one is at home! Then the maid--a new one who has been engaged for Mascha and works for Anna--opens the door. "Count Bärenburg," she announces, with her insinuating, theatrical smile. "Does mademoiselle receive?"
Before she really knows what she does, Mascha says, "Yes."
Scarcely has she spoken the word when she would like to recall it. She knows that it is not permissible from a social standpoint for her to receive him, but for eight days she has longed so unspeakably to see him again, to thank him for the bear-skin, and then, why was Anna so hateful to her?
He enters, very handsome, very distinguished, very respectful. She forgets all thetraits d'espritprepared for him, and as if paralyzed with shyness, she stammers:
"My aunt is not at home; had you perhaps a message for her which I can deliver?" And with a charmingly diffident gesture she stretches out her hand to him. He takes it in his, holds it a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.
"Do you find it absolutely necessary to send me away again?" asks he.
Ah! she feels so happy in his presence. "At least not before I have expressed my thanks for your gift," she stammers.
Bräenburg, to whom it would be indescribably vexatious to be forced to break off his conversation with this strange, interesting little being, seeks some pretext to prolong his visit. His glance falls on the tea apparatus.
"Would your thankfulness go so far as to give me a cup of tea?" he remarks, and adds with genial inspiration: "Perhaps your aunt will return meanwhile."
"Yes; aunt said she would soon return," assured Mascha, gayly. The situation is justified; how happy she is to dare keep him there, were it only for a quarter of an hour.
She gives him his tea, he sits down in an arm-chair near the chimney opposite her. A deep silence follows. In vain does she try to find something suitable to the occasion in her carefully collected hoard of intellectual anecdotes. At length she says simply: "It must have been a splendid bear."
"Yes," replied the count. "It also was Russian boldness to creep into the thicket after the beast. Poor Nikolai, how the brute had cornered him! Really, I owed him the skin; but as I know him, he is always ready to share the best of everything with his little sister."
"Yes; he spoils me very much," says Mascha, moved. "I shall miss him fearfully--fearfully. You know, perhaps, that he has left the city to-day. You cannot think how unpleasant it is for me to be so quite alone."
"Alone?" repeated he.
"That is--well, yes, I am with relatives," Mascha hastens to explain. "Aunt is very good to me, but I cannot warm to my cousin; I do not like her. She is very beautiful, but intolerable. And you, Count Bärenburg, how do you find Anna?"
"She has a very decorative effect," says he, dryly. "She reminds me of an aloe, she is so stiff and pointed. She would do very well on a terrace."
"I am only surprised that she has not yet married," remarks Mascha, very pleased at Bärenburg's cool description of Anna's charms.
"I am not at all surprised," replies he. "I have often noticed that these acknowledged beauties usually marry very late. They are like the too beautiful apples on the dessert dishes, which remain because no one has the courage to reach for them. And then, finally, to kindle a flame one must have somewhere a spark about one; and your cousin is of ice."
"Yes, that is true," laughs Mascha; then, restraining herself, she adds: "But I really should not speak so of my nearest relatives to a stranger. I--I always forget that you are a stranger; you seem to me like--a friend."
He smiles at her, and says softly: "When I so soon feel such warm sympathy for any one as for you, it seems to me as if we had long been good friends in heaven, and had found each other again on the earth."
"Really?"
"Certainly," says he, earnestly. "I can distinctly remember our acquaintance up there. You were a lovely, gay, half-grown little angel, with short, unformed wings, with which you could not yet majestically sail about in the air, but only helplessly flutter a little. But every one loved you, and all the other angels were jealous of you. Then--now the affair becomes considerable; shall I go on?" he smilingly interrupts his improvisation.
"Oh, yes, yes, please," begs she. She looks charming, leaning back in the immense chair, with curious, friendly gay expression in the eyes fixed on him. "Yes, yes, please!" And unconsciously she makes a movement as if she would push the chair nearer the young man.
"Well," Bärenburg continues, "one day the devil presented himself in Paradise and demanded you for himself. He said you were his property, and had only by chance got into Paradise. We did not want to give you up, but as it could not be agreed upon, it was decided to send you back to earth so that you might make a second decisive trial of life and show whose being you were. I was so frightfully bored without you that I hurried down to earth to seek you."
"How droll you are!" says Maschenka, laughing loudly and childishly, and again she makes a movement as if she would draw nearer to him. "And do you think that I will go back to heaven?"
"I hope so." Meanwhile the clock strikes--eleven.
Maschenka suddenly grows red. "How long aunt stays!" murmurs she, and rises.
Bärenburg also rises. "I really cannot longer wait for the ladies," says he in an undertone, and gives her his hand. She sinks her head.
"I--I really should not have received you," stammers she with confusion.
"Why not?" says he, impatiently.
"No, I know it--but--" and suddenly raising her head, she looks at him from a pair of such wonderful, tearfully bright eyes that his senses swam--"but, I so longed to speak to some one who sympathizes with me a little," whispers she.
The whole pitiful neglect of the poor child dawns upon him, and a great compassion overcomes him. "You really need not fear being misunderstood by me," says he. "Oh! if you only had a suspicion of how lovely you are-- Good-night. And if you ever need a man who would go through fire for you, you know where to seek him."
He kisses her hand tenderly, passionately, and goes.
Long after he has gone Maschenka stands on the same spot, frightened, paralyzed, and looks at her hand.
A little later she goes up to her room.
"Has mademoiselle amused herself well?" asks the maid, while she helps her undress. "I was so sorry that, mademoiselle must pass the evening alone. Naturally, I will say nothing of it to madame."
"And why not?" burst out Mascha, violently.
"Oh! as mademoiselle wishes. I only thought----"
"I shall tell aunt myself that Count Bärenburg was here," says Mascha, defiantly. "And now go!"
In the midst of all her tender-heartedness she has fits of harsh, repellant roughness, which, like so much about her, are an inheritance from her father.
With loosened hair, half undressed, she sits before the fire, with her bare feet resting on the bear-skin. "Ah, it was lovely!" A great embarrassment robs her of breath. Again she looks at her hand. "He loves me!" And suddenly an uneasiness, something like dissatisfaction, creeps over her. Why had he not immediately told her that he loved her? Why had he not drawn her to his breast and kissed her?
She kneels down on the bear-skin, draws the shaggy head of the beast to her breast, and kisses it on the forehead.
"Why are you so out of temper; is anything the matter?"
This question Karl Bärenburg hears to annoyance in the days which follow his visit in the Avenue Wagram. And old friend even asked him: "Have you gambling debts? Confide in me."
He looks badly, and his manner is absent-minded.
He does not show himself in the Avenue Wagram. The recollection of the scene with Mascha is painful to him. He repeats to himself incessantly that he has behaved perfectly correctly, that every other man would have taken the situation differently. He would have given his life for a kiss, and--really, she would not have fought against it. To have renounced that was an heroic deed which bordered on quixotism. Why, then, was he not satisfied with himself?
He was not a bad, but only a weak, wavering man, a man without any originality, who, of his own inclination, had courage neither to do anything good nor bad which was not on the fixed programme of life of his companions in rank.
Still, he had fallen desperately in love with this little Russian. It was really fatal, for he could not marry her. In principle he was resolved to marry, to marry soon; he was urged on all sides to marry. What could he wish better than Sylvia Anthropos? She was beautiful, wealthy, of very good family, and, more than all this, she was wise, practical, and possessed the strength of will which he lacked. She would take the responsibility of his existence upon herself, think for him, act for him, resolve for him. There had formerly been a time when he was one of her most ardent admirers. She had refused him, but that was long ago, full three years, and in the life of a young diplomat that is an eternity. She had done her best to recompense him for her former unkindness and win him back; but the charm was gone. He knew that if he offered her his hand to-day it would not be refused. But never had he felt such a warm feeling for any one as for Mascha. With all her unconventional impulsiveness, her lack of restraint and social routine, her physical and moral personality was yet penetrated by such a subtle refinement! Shame, eternal shame! Well, he did not need to decide to-day or to-morrow. Perhaps it would pass. Before he had made up his mind he courted Sylvia Anthropos, and in a sympathetic hour, in the Hôtel Meurice, she laughed at him quite unexpectedly, and suddenly resting her large eyes very seductively upon him, she said: "You good, faithful, stupid man! Can you then never find courage to tell me that you love me?"
When, about an hour later, he left the Hôtel Meurice he was betrothed, and carried away with him a comfortable feeling of general satisfaction with himself. At least, all was now settled!
Between his betrothal and the moment when he had murmured to Mascha, "If you ever need a man who would go through fire for you, you know where to seek him!" scarcely five days had elapsed!
Among the different returns of attention which the Jeliagins' musicale have brought them, come several invitations to a large charity ball in the Hôtel Continental. Anna is not disinclined to attend it, but has already been invited for the same evening to a dance. But Mascha is going with Madame d'Olbreuse, who, at the last moment, has good-naturedly offered to take her with her.
It is against custom to take such a young girl to this ball; but what is not against custom in Mascha's loveless, unprotected existence?
Mascha, who has passed the last days in feverish expectation of Bärenburg's proposal, looks forward with a kind of feeling between hope and fear to this ball. Perhaps he will be there. "But will he trouble himself about me?" she asks herself.
Ah! what does it concern her? He is quite indifferent to her, she persuades herself--quite, however little she can understand him. Who could? How can one say such feeling words to a girl, look at her with such tender enthusiasm, kiss her hand as he had kissed Mascha's, and then suddenly disappear, and for eight long days let nothing be heard of him? It is incomprehensible. "Perhaps he thinks that with a child like me he can permit himself anything," says she to herself, "but I will show him that he has deceived himself in me. I wish he would be at this ball, only that I might show him how little I think of him, how arrogant I can be!"
Meanwhile she prepares for the ball, and takes the greatest pains about her toilet. As, since Nikolai is gone, no one has time to accompany her, she drives about the boulevards alone, and makes the wildest purchases. In the midst of her preparations she takes a trip to the Avenue Frochot, where she is always a welcome guest in Nita's studio.
With no one is she on such a good footing as with Nita, whom she clings to with a kind of idolatry, and--Nita returns her affection. Sonia is consumed with jealousy when she sees her friend, formerly not at all inclined to exaggeration, caressing the dear little witch.
On the evening of the great event, Mascha puts on the same white dress which she had worn in honor of her socialdêbut, and places a wreath of loosely fastened pink anemones on her head. That this adornment, which she herself thought of and which became her excellently, was a trifle too picturesque for a young girl of good family she does not suspect, and who should direct her attention thereto? The Jeliagins have already gone their own way, before she had begun to dress, and Madame d'Olbreuse, when she comes to get Mascha, does not leave her carriage, but merely sends her servant to announce that she is waiting.
They have reached the Hôtel Continental. In the vestibule a gentleman comes up to the Countess d'Olbreuse, some vicomte, who is introduced to Mascha, bows to her, and troubles himself no further about her. He offers the Countess his arm; she looks around for a cavalier for Mascha, but finds none.
"Keep by me, dear child," says she, taking the Vicomte's arm. And so, somewhat ashamed and vexed, as an accidental dependant of the Countess, Maschenka enters.
People like the Countess visit such entertainments from curiosity, from a wish to admire the arrangements and criticise the people.
She walks through all the rooms on the arm of her cavalier, and from time to time turns round to Maschenka with a "Are you here, my child?" Whereupon her companion shows her something droll, and she immediately forgets Mascha again.
The heat is stifling, the crowd fearful. At first Maschenka takes pleasure in shyly looking at herself in the mirrors along the walls, then no longer--her eyes meet such a weary, disappointed little face, with such a vexed, gloomy look.
"Now you have shown me enough foolishness. I should like at length to see something beautiful," says the Countess, petulantly, to her companion.
"Do you really wish to see something beautiful--the most beautiful thing ever created?" replies the Vicomte. "A beautiful woman. Then you must come with me into the patronesses' room."
"Oh, clear, no; I know all the ladies; they would immediately take possession of me, and there would be an end of my independence for the rest of the evening."
"At least take a peep through the door," the Vicomte proposes. "There, the lady under the palm near the statue--an Englishwoman, one sees at the first glance--blonde, and in a white gown."
Mascha puts up herlorgnon, looks into the room.
There, near the statue, in a white toilet slipping far down from her shoulders, sits Sylvia Anthropos with her imperial diadem of reddish curls, her short, antique upper lip, her large dark eyes, her golden eyelashes, and finely pencilled eyebrows.
The regular faultlessness of her features is to-day warmed by an expression unusual to her. She holds her head somewhat bent back, and looks up--to whom? Mascha feels something like a cold, hard blow on her heart.
There, leaning against the pedestal of the statue, speaking to the beautiful Englishwoman, stands Karl Bärenburg. Now he raises his eyes, discovers Mascha, starts perceptibly, and turns his eyes away from her.
An hour has passed since then.
Maschenka is one humiliation richer. The only man who has asked her to dance was her Italian teacher, Signor Supino. Besides, a wealthy leather dealer has offered her his arm for a promenade. Poor Supino she dismissed with a harshness which later pains her, but her strength and resolution did not suffice to shake off the leather merchant. He had met Mascha a single time in Nita's studio, and treats her as if she were his niece.
At length she is rid of him. With convulsive resolution she clings to an old, white-haired American, whom she knows as the father of one of the scholars in the Sylvain studio. His daughter is waltzing in the ball-room, the Countess d'Olbreuse is waltzing. Maschenka sits with Mr. Cornelius Merryfield in the prettiest room, a winter garden with artificial moonlight and rocks; sits there weary, sad, and lets the old man explain to her the narrow influence of the North American Quakers.
Suddenly she hears a voice near her say: "At last! I have sought you already for half an hour!" It is Bärenburg.
All the blood in her body rushes to her heart. She has but the one thought, not to let him notice how much she cares for him, to be as indifferent to him as possible.
"Ah, really! Then Miss Anthropos has already left the ball half an hour ago?" says she, slowly, raising her brows, whereupon, turning to Mr. Merryfield, she asks: "Did you know President Lincoln?"
"Have the kindness to introduce me," interrupts Bärenburg, irritably.
"Count Bärenburg--Mr. Merryfield," says she, shortly; and still turned toward Mr. Merryfield, she continues: "I heard once that when an Englishman, in conversation with Lincoln, let fall a French phrase, the latter remarked that he did not understand Greek. Do you think that possible?"
"It may be," says Mr. Merryfield, with an uneasy glance at the door. "I do not understand what keeps my daughter so long; she promised to only dance one waltz. Permit me to go and look after her a little."
"But, Mr. Merryfield, I promised Countess d'Olbreuse to wait here for her," says Maschenka, very excited, and catching him by the sleeve.
The American looks helplessly at Bärenburg. "You see that you must put up with my protection, Fräulein," says the latter, whereupon the two men bow formally, and Mr. Merryfield withdraws.
Then she is alone with him in the green twilight of the winter garden,--as good as alone. Truly, from time to time people pass by the young couple, men with ladies and alone, but they are people who know neither him nor her.
Here, in the pale pseudo-moonshine of the electric lights, her beauty has a quite magical effect. The mixture of pride and sadness in her manner, the poetic unusualness of the arrangement of her hair, the pink wreath, on whose bloom lies already a touch of sad weariness, the dark green background, against which her white child's face stands out--all unite in heightening the charm of her fantastic, peculiar loveliness.
For a while both are silent, he and she. At length he begins: "In my whole life, a week has never passed so slowly as the last."
"Indeed! I find it, on the contrary, very short. In my monotonous life one day follows the other before one perceives it."
"Do you not go out at all?" asks he.
"No; my aunt says I am too young to go out in society; my cousin says I have too bad manners; in consequence of which I stay at home," says she, to a certain extent dropping the superiorrôlewhich she childishly and defiantly has planned for herself.
"Your cousin speaks nonsense, and if your aunt really thinks you too young to go out, she should not send you to such a ball as this one."
"Is it an unsuitable ball?" asks Mascha, quickly.
"No; but it is a ball which such a young girl as you does not visit with a superficial chaperon like Countess d'Olbreuse. If one of the patronesses had taken you with her, it would be quite different."
"The patronesses?" Mascha shrugs her shoulders. "The patronesses are great ladies, with whom I have nothing to do; I am no one, only papa's daughter." Her voice trembles a little. "That does not count here in foreign parts; Anna tells me so every day. I did not know it; it was certainly very necessary, but it pained me." She fans herself with her large fan, and smiles as one smiles to keep from weeping.
Bärenburg pulls his mustache.
"And except your cousin, have you no one in Paris who is near to you?" he begins anew.
"Yes, one--one person whom I love with my whole heart," says Mascha, with the exaggeration to which hurt and vexed people are always inclined. "She is sweet to me. It is your cousin, Fräulein von Sankjéwitch."
"Do you ever go to the studio?"
"Yes," says Mascha, shortly.
"H-m! Will you be there to-morrow morning?"
She throws back her little head, looks at him from her dark eyes with unspeakable, reproving pride, and says: "No!"
A longer silence follows. He knows that she was justified in repelling him; knows that he acts unresponsibly to her. This consciousness only assists in robbing him of his self-control. He loves her passionately, unspeakably. He must have her, only her. More and more the recollection of his betrothal shrinks to a purely theoretical hinderance which can and shall be removed.
Then a large, bearded man comes up to Mascha, a man with round shoulders and the insolently careless manner of men of good family who have long moved in dubious circles of society. His eyes are watery, his lips twitch, while bowing to Mascha, he says in French: "Do you remember me, Miss Marie?"
"Prince Orbanoff," replies Mascha, affirmatively, nodding cordially, "from Nice."
Behind the Russians stand two young men who have admired Mascha with unconcealed boldness, and watch the scene.
"May I ask for this waltz?" stammers the Russian.
With the greatest readiness Mascha rises.
"You forget that you are already engaged to me," Bärenburg interposes.
"You are entirely mistaken, Count," replies Mascha arrogantly, and takes a step toward the Russian.
"For Nikolai's sake, listen to me, do not dance," Bärenburg whispers in her ear.
Softly, hastily, and in a strange language as the words were whispered, the prince still has heard them.
"May I ask who the young man is who so insolently wishes to influence your resolve?" he asks Mascha, with still more difficult utterance, and his red face becomes yet redder.
Bärenburg draws out his card and hands it to him; at the same moment the Countess d'Olbreuse comes up to her.
The Russian has disappeared. "Have you entertained yourself well, my child?" says she. "I have dancedcomme une perdue; it is not suitable for a woman of my age. Now we can go, the ball begins to be too amusing."
Silently, laying the extreme tips of her fingers in Bärenburg's offered arm, Mascha follows the Countess and her cavalier into the ante-room.
Suddenly she raises her head. "Why did you prevent me from dancing with the Prince?" she asks in an angry tone.
"First, he was intoxicated; secondly--but that you do not understand-- secondly, he has such a horrible reputation that I would rather see my sister dance with a clown from the circus ring, for example, than with him. To dance with Orbanoff at a public ball when you had not moved your foot before, and at two o'clock in the morning, would be something so fearful, so ambiguous, so--well, I would rather have my right arm cut off than let you do it."
They now stand in the ante-room. Bärenburg takes Mascha's wrap from the servant and lays it about her shoulders. But Mascha's rage flames stronger than ever. More than before she feels the need to pain him, to injure him, to insult him.
"So you would let your right arm be cut off for me! How easily that is said," mocks she. Then looking him full in the face:
"I am very much obliged to you for your good intentions, but I should have preferred that you had not further troubled yourself with my affairs. I have known the Prince longer than you."
Scarcely has she said these impolite words when she would give everything in the world to recall them. It is too late.
"I was wrong; pardon me," says he, shortly. And taking leave with a deep bow, first of her and then of Countess d'Olbreuse, he retires without another word.
"Now,ma petite, come!" says the Countess, looking for herprotégée. Mascha stands there, pale, petrified, and looks at the crowd in which he has disappeared. He did not once notice that, repenting her rudeness, she had stretched her hand out shyly to him; he did not even look at it.
Yes, she has shown him how little she thinks of him, how arrogant she can be. But now that it is over, she has little pleasure in her heroic achievement; on the contrary, torments herself over it, and would take it back at any price. She suddenly knows that she loves him with all her heart; loves him so that she would die to spare him one pang. And this poor, physically mature, mentally still childish little being suddenly longs for one thing only; namely, to see him very, very soon again in order to expiate her harshness and intolerance.
But how should she see him again? she thought, as in the early morning hours she sleeplessly tossed her curly head here and there on the pillow. After her repellant manner, he would scarcely wish to come to the Avenue Wagram. Ah! why had she not simply rejoiced in him, and let herself be so happy and confidential with him!