It was growing dark. Ostrov was approaching Trirodov’s gates. His face betrayed agitation. It was even more clear now than by daylight that life had used him hardly. He felt painfully timid in going to Trirodov, in whom he evidently had certain hopes. Before Ostrov could make up his mind to ring the bell at the gates he walked the entire length of the stone wall that surrounded Trirodov’s house and garden and examined it attentively, without learning anything. Only the entire length of the tall wall was before his eyes.
It was already quite dark when Ostrov stopped at last at the main gate. The half-effaced figures and old heraldic emblems held his attention for a moment only. He had already taken hold of the brass bell-handle and paused cautiously, as if it were his habit to reconsider at the last moment; he gave a sudden shiver. A clear, childish voice behind his back uttered quietly:
“Not here.”
Ostrov looked on both sides timidly, half stealthily, bending his head low and letting it sink between his shoulders. Quite close by a pale, blue-eyed boy dressed in white was standing and eyeing him with intent scrutiny.
“They won’t hear you here. Every one has left,” he said.
“Where is one to ring?” Ostrov asked harshly.
The boy pointed his finger to the left; it was a slow, graceful gesture.
“Ring at the small gate there.”
He ran off so quickly and quietly it seemed as if he had not been there. Ostrov went in the direction indicated. He came to a high, narrow gate. A white electric bell-button shone in a round wooden recess. Ostrov rang and listened. He could hear somewhere the rapid shivering tones of a tiny bell. Ostrov waited. The door did not open. Ostrov rang once more. It was quiet behind the door.
“I wonder how long there’s to wait?” he grumbled, then gave a shout: “Hey, you in there!”
A faint, muffled sound vibrated in the damp air, as if some one had tittered lightly. Ostrov caught hold of the brass handle of the gate. The gate opened towards him easily and without a sound. Ostrov looked round cautiously as he entered, and purposely left the gate open.
He found himself in a small court on either side of which was a low wall. The gate swung to behind him with a metallic click. Had he himself pulled it to rather quickly? He could not recall now. He walked forward about ten paces, when he came upon a wall twice as high as the side walls. It had a massive oak door; an electric bell-button shone very white on one side. Ostrov rang once more. The bell-button was very cold, almost icy, to the touch. A sensation of chill passed down his whole body.
A round window, like a dim, motionless, observing eye, was visible high above the door.
Ostrov could not say whether he waited there a long or a short time. He experienced a strange feeling of having become congealed and of having lost all sense of time. Whole days seemed to pass before him like a single minute. Rays of bright light fell on his face and disappeared. Ostrov thought that some one flashed this light on his face by means of a lantern from the window over the door—a light so intense that his eyes felt uncomfortable. He turned his face aside in vexation. He did not wish to be recognized before he entered. That was why he came in the dark of the evening.
But evidently he had been recognized. This door swung open as soundlessly as the first. He entered a short, dark corridor in the thick wall; then another court. No one was there. The door closed noiselessly behind him.
“How many courts are there in this devilish hole?” growled Ostrov.
A narrow path paved with stone stretched before him. It was lit up by a lamp from a distance, the reflection of which was directed straight towards Ostrov, so that he could see only the smooth grey slabs of stone under his feet. It was altogether dark on either side of the path, and it was impossible to know whether a wall was there or trees. There was nothing for him to do but to walk straight on. Nevertheless he occasionally thrust his foot out to either side of him and felt there; he was convinced that thickly planted, prickly bushes grew there. He thought there was another hedge beyond that.
“Tricks!” he grumbled.
As he slowly moved forward he experienced a vague and growing fear. So as not to be caught off his guard, he put his left hand into the pocket of his dusty and greasy trousers and felt there the hard body of a revolver, which he then transferred to his right-hand pocket.
On the threshold of the house he was met by Trirodov. Trirodov’s face expressed nothing except an apparent effort to suppress his feelings. There was no warmth or welcome in his voice:
“I did not expect to see you.”
“I’ve come, all the same,” said Ostrov. “Whether you like it or not, you’ve got to receive your dear guest.”
There was contemptuous defiance in his voice. His eyes looked more insolent than ever. Trirodov frowned lightly and looked straight into Ostrov’s eyes, which were compelled to turn aside.
“Come in,” said Trirodov. “Why didn’t you write and tell me that you wished to see me?”
“How should I know that you were here?” growled Ostrov surlily.
“Nevertheless, you found out,” said Trirodov, with a vexed smile.
“Found out quite by accident on the float,” replied Ostrov. “Heard you mentioned in conversation. I don’t think you’ll care to know what they said.”
He gave an insinuating smile. Trirodov merely said: “Come in. Follow me.”
They ascended a narrow, very steep staircase with low, wide stairs; there were frequent turnings in various directions round all sorts of odd corners, interrupted by long landings between the climbs; each landing revealed a tightly shut door. The light was clear and unwavering. A cold gaiety and malice, a half-hidden, motionless irony, were in the gleam of the incandescent wires bent inside the glass pears.
Some one walked behind with a light, cautious step. There were the clicking sounds of lights being extinguished; the passages they had just passed through were plunged in darkness.
At last they reached the top of the stairway. They walked through a long corridor and found themselves in a large gloomy room. There was a sideboard against one of the walls and a table in the middle; cut-glass dishes rested along shelves around the room. It was to all appearances a dining-room.
“It’s quite the proper thing to do,” grumbled Ostrov. “A meal would do me no harm.”
The light was strangely distributed. Half of the room and half of the table were in the shadow. Two boys dressed in white waited at the table. Ostrov winked at them insolently.
But they looked on calmly and departed quite simply. Trirodov settled himself in the dark part of the room. Ostrov sat down at the table. Trirodov began:
“Well, what do you want of me?”
“Now that’s a businesslike question,” answered Ostrov, with a hoarse laugh, “very much a business question, not so much a gracious as a businesslike question. What do I want? In the first place, I am delighted to see you. There is a certain bond between us—our childhood and all the rest of it.”
“I’m very glad,” said Trirodov dryly.
“I doubt it,” responded Ostrov impudently. “Then again, my dear chap, I’ve come for something else. In fact, you’ve guessed what I’ve come for. You’ve been a psychologist ever since I can remember.”
“What is it you want?” asked Trirodov.
“Can’t you guess?” said Ostrov, winking his eye.
“No,” replied Trirodov dryly.
“In that case there’s nothing left for me to do but to tell you straight: I need money.”
He laughed hoarsely, unnaturally; then, pouring out a glass of wine, mumbled as he gulped it down:
“Good wine.”
“Every one needs money,” answered Trirodov coldly. “Where do you intend to get it?”
Ostrov turned in his chair. He chuckled nervously and said:
“I’ve come to you, as you see. You evidently have lots of money, and I have little. Comment is needless, as the newspapers would say.”
“So that’s it! And suppose I refuse?” asked Trirodov.
Ostrov whistled sharply and looked insolently at Trirodov.
“Well, old chap,” he said rudely, “I don’t count on your permitting yourself such a stupid mistake.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” repeated Ostrov after him. “I think the facts must be as clear to you as to me, if not more so—and there’s nothing to be gained by the world getting wind of them.”
“I owe you nothing,” said Trirodov quietly. “I don’t understand why I should give you money. You’d only spend it recklessly—squander it most likely.”
“And do you spend it any more sensibly?” asked Ostrov with a malicious smile.
“If not more sensibly, at least with more reckoning,” retorted Trirodov. “In any case, I’m prepared to help you. Only I may as well tell you that I have little spare cash and that even if I had it I’d not give you much.”
Ostrov gave a short, abrupt laugh and said with decision:
“A little is of no use to me. I need a lot of money. But perhaps you’ll not think it much.”
“How much do you want?” asked Trirodov abruptly.
“Twenty thousand roubles,” replied Ostrov, making a determined effort to brazen it out.
“I’ll not give you so much,” said Trirodov, “and I couldn’t even if I wished to.”
Ostrov drew nearer to Trirodov and whispered:
“I’ll inform against you.”
“What then?” asked Trirodov, untouched by the threat.
“It will be bad for you. It’s a capital crime, as you know, my dear chap, and of a no mean order,” said Ostrov in a menacing tone.
“Yours, my good fellow,” said Trirodov in his usual calm voice.
“I’ll manage to wriggle out of it somehow, but will see that you get your due,” said Ostrov with a laugh.
“You’re making a sad mistake if you think that I have anything to fear,” observed Trirodov, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Ostrov seemed to grow more insolent every minute. He whistled and said banteringly:
“Tell me now, if you please! Didn’t you kill him?”
“I? No, I didn’t kill him,” answered Trirodov.
“Who then?” asked Ostrov in his derisive voice.
“He’s alive,” said Trirodov.
“Fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Ostrov.
And he burst out into a loud, insolent, hoarse laugh, though he seemed panic-stricken at the same time. He asked:
“What of those little prisms which you’ve manufactured? I’ve heard that even now they are lying on the table in your study.”
“That’s true,” said Trirodov dryly.
“And I’m told that your present is not absolutely clean either,” observed Ostrov.
“Yes?” asked Trirodov derisively.
“Yes-s,” continued Ostrov jeeringly. “The first business in your colony is conspiracy, the second corruption, the third cruelty.”
Trirodov gave a stern frown and asked scornfully:
“You’ve had enough time to gather a bouquet of slanders.”
“Yes-s, I’ve managed, as you see. Whether they are slanders is quite another matter. I can only say that they fit you somehow. Take, for instance, those perverse habits of yours; need I recall them to you? I could remind you, if I wished, of certain facts from your early life.”
“You know you are talking nonsense,” said Trirodov.
“It is reported,” went on Ostrov, “that all this is being repeated in the quiet of your asylum.”
“Even if it were all true,” said Trirodov, “I do not see that you have anything to gain by it.”
Trirodov’s eyes had a tranquil look. He seemed remote. His voice had a calm, hollow sound. Ostrov exclaimed vehemently:
“Don’t imagine for a moment that I have fallen into a trap. If I don’t leave this place, I have prepared something that will send you to gaol.”
“Nonsense,” said Trirodov as quietly as before. “I’m not afraid. In the last resort I can emigrate.”
“I suppose you’ll put on the mantle of a political exile,” laughed Ostrov. “It’s useless! Our police, they’ll keep a sharp look-out for you, clever fellows that they are. Never fear, they’ll get you. They’ll get you anywhere. You may be sure of that.”
“They’ll not give me up where I’m going,” said Trirodov. “It’s a safe place, and you’ll not be able to reach me there.”
“What sort of place have you prepared for yourself?” asked Ostrov, smiling malignantly. “Or is it a secret?”
“It is the moon,” was Trirodov’s simple and tranquil answer.
Ostrov laughed boisterously. Trirodov added:
“Moreover, the moon has been created by me. She is before my window, ready to take me.”
Ostrov jumped up in great rage from his place, stamped violently with his feet, and shouted:
“You are laughing at me! It is useless. You can’t fool me with those stupid fairy-tales of yours. Tell those sweet little stories to the silly little girls of the provinces. I’m an old sparrow. You can’t feed me on chaff.”
Trirodov remained unruffled.
“You’re fuming all for nothing. I’ll help you with money on a condition.”
“What sort of condition?” asked Ostrov with restrained anger.
“You’ll have to go from here—very far—for always,” answered Trirodov.
“I’ll have to think that over,” said Ostrov.
“I give you a week. Come to me exactly within a week, and you’ll receive the money.”
Ostrov suddenly felt an incomprehensible fear. He experienced the feeling of having passed into another’s power. He felt oppressed. A stern smile marked Trirodov’s face. He said quietly:
“You are of such little value that I could kill you without scruple—like a snake. But I am tired even of other people’s murders.”
“My value?” Ostrov muttered hoarsely and absurdly.
“What is your value?” went on Trirodov. “You are a hired murderer, a spy, a traitor.”
Ostrov said in a meek voice:
“Nevertheless, I’ve not betrayed you so far.”
“Because it wouldn’t pay, that’s why you’ve not betrayed me. Again, you dare not.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Ostrov humbly. “What is your condition? Where do you want me to go?”
Trirodov left a pleasant impression on Rameyev. Rameyev made haste to return his visit: he went together with Piotr. Piotr did not wish to go to Trirodov’s, but could not make up his mind to refuse. He kept frowning on the way, but once in Trirodov’s house he tried to be courteous. This he did constrainedly.
Misha soon made friends with Kirsha and with some of the boys. An intimacy sprang up between the Rameyevs and Trirodov—that is, to the extent that Trirodov’s unsociableness and love of a solitary life permitted him to become intimate.
It once happened that Trirodov took Kirsha with him to the Rameyevs and remained to dinner. Several other close acquaintances of the Rameyevs came to dinner. The older of the visitors were the Cadets, the younger were the Es-Deks11and the Es-Ers.12
At the beginning there was a long agitated discussion in connexion with the news brought by one of the younger guests, a public school instructor named Voronok, an Es-Er. The Chief of Police had been killed that day near his house. The culprits managed to escape.
Trirodov took almost no part in the conversation. Elisaveta looked at him with anxious eyes, and the yellow of her dress appeared like the colour of sadness. It had been remarked by all that Trirodov was thoughtful and gloomy; he seemed to be tormented by some secret agitation, which he made obvious efforts to control. At last the attention of all was turned upon him. This happened after he had answered one of the girls’ questions.
Trirodov noticed that they were looking at him. He felt uneasy and vexed with himself. This vexation, however, helped him to control his agitation. He became more animated, threw off, as it were, some weight, and began to talk. The glance of Elisaveta’s deep blue eyes grew joyous at this.
Piotr put in a remark just then, in his usual parochial, self-confident manner:
“If it were not for the wild changes in Peter’s time, everything would have gone differently.”
There was a tinge of derision in Trirodov’s smile.
“A mistake, wasn’t it?” he observed. “But if you are going to look for mistakes in Russian history, why not start earlier?”
“You mean at the beginning of creation?” said Piotr.
“Precisely then. But without going so far back, let us pause at the Mongolian period,” replied Trirodov. “The historical error was that Russia did not amalgamate with the Tartars.”
“As if there were not enough Tartars in Russia now!” said Piotr, provoked.
“That’s precisely why there are many—because they didn’t amalgamate,” observed Trirodov. “They should have had the sense to establish a Russo-Mongolian empire.”
“And become Mohammedans?” asked Dr. Svetilovitch, a very agreeable person but very confident of all that was obvious.
“Not at all!” answered Trirodov. “Wasn’t Boris Godunov a Christian? That’s not the point at issue. All the same, we and the Catholics of Western Europe have regarded each other as heretics; and our empire might have become a universal one. Even if they had counted us among the yellow race, it should be remembered that the yellow race might have been considered under the circumstances quite noble and the yellow skin a very elegant thing.”
“You are developing a strange Mongolian paradox,” said Piotr contemptuously.
“Even now,” retorted Trirodov, “we are looked upon by the rest of Europe as almost Mongols, as a race mixed with Mongolian elements. You know the saying: ‘Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar.’”
A discussion arose which continued until they left the table.
Piotr Matov was very much out of sorts during the entire dinner. He found almost nothing to say to his neighbour, a young girl, a dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty, an Es-Dek. And the handsome Es-Dek began to turn more and more towards the diner on the other side of her, the priest Zakrasin. He belonged to the Cadets, but was nearer to her in his convictions than the Octobrist13Matov.
Piotr was displeased because Elisaveta paid no attention to him and appeared to be absorbed in Trirodov and in what he was saying; and it vexed him because Elena also now and then let her softened gaze rest upon Trirodov. He felt he wanted to say provoking things to Trirodov.
“Yet he is a guest,” reflected Piotr to himself, but at last he could hold out no longer; he felt that he must in one way or another shake Trirodov’s self-assurance. Piotr walked up to him and, swaying before him on his long thin legs, remarked, without almost the slightest effort to conceal his animosity:
“Some days ago on the pier a stranger made inquiries about you. Kerbakh and Zherbenev were talking nonsense, and he sat down near them and seemed very interested in you.”
“Rather flattering,” said Trirodov unwillingly.
“I cannot say to what an extent it is flattering,” said Piotr maliciously. “In my opinion there was little to recommend him. His appearance was rather suspicious—that of a ragamuffin, in fact. Though he insists he’s an actor, I have my doubts. He says you are old friends. A most insolent fellow.”
Trirodov smiled. Elisaveta remarked with some agitation:
“We met him some days ago not far from your house.”
“It’s quite a lonely place,” observed Trirodov in an uncertain voice.
Piotr went on to describe him.
“Yes, that’s the actor Ostrov,” assented Trirodov.
Elisaveta, feeling a strange unrest, put in:
“He seemed to have gone around the neighbourhood looking about and asking questions. I wonder what he can be up to.”
“Evidently a spy,” said the young Es-Dek contemptuously.
Trirodov, without expressing the slightest astonishment, remarked:
“Do you think so? It’s possible. I really don’t know. I haven’t seen him for five years now.”
The young Es-Dek, thinking that Trirodov felt offended at her reference to his acquaintance, added affectedly:
“You know him well; then please pardon me.”
“I don’t know his present condition,” put in Trirodov. “Everything is possible.”
“It’s impossible to be responsible for all chance acquaintances!” interpolated Rameyev.
Trirodov turned to Piotr:
“And what did he say about me?”
But his voice did not express any especial curiosity. Piotr replied with a sarcastic smile:
“He said very little, but asked a great deal. He said that you knew him very well. In any case, I soon left.”
“Yes, I have known him a long time,” was Trirodov’s calm answer. “Perhaps not too well, yet I know him. I had some dealings with him.”
“I think he paid you a visit yesterday?”
“Yes,” said Trirodov in reply to Elisaveta’s question, “he came to see me last evening, quite late. I don’t know why he chose such a late hour. He asked assistance. His demands were large. I will give him what I can. He’s going away from here.”
All this was said in jerks, unwillingly. No one seemed to care to continue the subject further, but at this moment, quite unexpectedly to all, Kirsha entered into the conversation. He went up to his father and said in a quiet but audible voice:
“He purposely came late, while I slept, so that I shouldn’t see him. But I remember him. When I was very little he used to show me dreadful tricks. I don’t remember them now. I can only remember that I used to get frightened and that I cried.”
All looked in astonishment at Kirsha, exchanged glances and smiled.
“You must have seen it in a dream, Kirsha,” said Trirodov—quietly. Then, turning to the older people: “Boys of his age love fantastic tales. Even we love Utopia and read Wells. The very life which we are now creating is a joining, as it were, of real existence with fantastic and Utopian elements. Take, for example, this affair of....”
In this manner Trirodov interrupted the conversation about Ostrov and changed it to another subject that was agitating all circles at the time. He left very soon after that. The others also stayed but a short time.
There was an atmosphere of irritation and hostility after the guests had gone. Rameyev reproached Piotr.
“My dear Petya, you shouldn’t have done that. It isn’t hospitable. You were looking all the time at Trirodov as if you were getting ready to send him to all the devils.”
Piotr replied with a controlled gruffness:
“Yes, precisely, to all the devils. You have guessed my feelings, uncle.”
Rameyev eyed him incredulously and said:
“Why, my dear fellow?”
“Why?” repeated Piotr, giving free rein to his irritation. “What is he? A charlatan? A visionary? A magician? Is he in partnership with some unclean power? What do you think of it? Or is it the devil himself come in a human shape—a little grey, cloven-hoofed demon?”
“That’s enough, Petya; what are you saying?” said Rameyev with annoyance.
Elisaveta smiled an incredulous smile, full of gentle irony; a golden, saddened smile, set off by the melancholy yellow rose in her black hair. And Elena’s astonished eyes dilated widely.
“Think it over yourself, uncle,” went on Piotr, “and look around you. He has bewitched our little girls completely!”
“Well, if he has,” said Elena with a gay smile, “it’s only just a little as far as I am concerned.”
Elisaveta flushed but said with composure:
“Yes, he’s interesting to listen to; and it’s no use stuffing one’s ears.”
“There, she admits it!” exclaimed Piotr angrily.
“Admits what?” asked Elisaveta in astonishment.
“That for the sake of this cold, vain egoist you are ready to forget every one.”
“I’ve not noticed either his vanity or his egoism,” said Elisaveta coldly. “I wonder how you’ve managed to know him so well—or so ill.”
“All this is pitiful and absurd nonsense, only an excuse for starting a quarrel,” said Piotr angrily.
“Petya, you envy him,” retorted Elisaveta with unaccustomed sharpness. Then, feeling that she had overstepped the mark, she added:
“Do forgive me, Petya, but really you are exasperating sometimes with your personal attacks.”
“Envy him? Why should I?” he said hotly. “Tell me, what useful thing has he done? To be sure, he has published a few tales, a volume of verses—but name me even a single work of his prose or verse that contains the slightest sense or beauty.”
“His verses....” began Elisaveta.
But Piotr would not let her continue.
“Tell me, where is his talent? What is he famous for? All that he writes only seems like poetry. If you look at it closely you will see that it is bookish, forced, dry—it is diabolically suggestive without being talented.”
Rameyev interrupted in a conciliatory tone:
“You’re unjust. You can’t deny him everything.”
“Let us admit, then, that there’s something in his work not altogether bad,” continued Piotr. “Who is there nowadays who cannot put together some nice-sounding versicles! Yet what is there really I should respect in him? He’s nothing but a corrupt, bald-headed, ridiculous, and dull-sighted person—yet Elisaveta considers him a handsome man!”
“I never said anything about his being handsome,” protested Elisaveta. “As for his corruption, isn’t it purely town tattle?”
She frowned and grew red. Her blue eyes flared up with small greenish flames. Piotr walked angrily out of the room.
“Why is he so annoyed?” asked Rameyev in astonishment.
Elisaveta lowered her head and said with childish bashfulness:
“I don’t know.”
She could not repress an ashamed smile at her timid words, because she felt like a little girl who was concealing something. At last she overcame her shame and said:
“He’s jealous!”
Trirodov loved to be alone. Solitude and silence were a holiday to him. How significant seemed his lonely experiences to him, how delicious his devotion to his visions. Some one came to him, something appeared before him, wonderful apparitions visited him, now in dream, now in his waking hours, and they consumed his sadness.
Sadness was Trirodov’s habitual state. Only while writing his poems and his prose did he find self-oblivion—an astonishing state, in which time is shrivelled up and consumed, in which great inspiration consoles her chosen ones with divine exultation for all burdens, for all annoyances in life.
He wrote much, published little. His fame was very limited—there were few who read his verses and prose, and even among these but a few who acknowledged his talent. His stories and lyrical poems were not distinguished by any especial obscurity or any especial decadent mannerisms. They bore the imprint of something strange and exquisite. It needed an especial kind of soul to appreciate this poetry which seemed so simple at the first glance, yet actually so out of the ordinary.
To others, from among those who knew him, the public’s ignorance of him appeared inexplicable. His capabilities seemed sufficiently great to awaken the attention and admiration of the crowd. But he, to some extent, detested people—perhaps because he was too confident of his own genius—and he never made a definite effort to gratify them. And that was why his works were only rarely published.
In general, Trirodov did not encourage intimacies with people. He found it painful to look with involuntary penetration into the confusion of their dark, foggy souls.
He found himself at ease only in the company of his wife. Love makes kin of souls. But his wife had died a few years ago, when Kirsha was six years old. Kirsha remembered her; he could not forget her, and kept on recalling her. Trirodov for some reason associated his wife’s death with the birth of his son, though there was no obvious connexion: his wife died from a casual, sharp illness. Trirodov thought:
“She bore, and therefore had to die. Life is only for the innocent.”
After her death he always awaited her; there was for him the consoling thought:
“She will come. She will not deceive me. She will give a sign. She will take me with her.”
And life became as easy to bear as a vacillant vision seen in dream.
He loved to look at his wife’s portrait. It was painted by a celebrated English artist and hung in his study. There were also many photographic reproductions of her. It was his joy to muse of her and, musing, to delight in images of her handsome face and her lovely body.
Sometimes his solitude was broken by the intrusion of external life and external, unemotional love. A woman used to come in to him sometimes—a strange, undemanding woman who seemed to come from nowhere and to lead to nowhere. Trirodov had had relations with her for several months. She was an instructress in the local girls’ school, Ekaterina Nikolayevna Alkina—a quiet, tranquil, cold creature with dark red hair and a thin face, the dull pallor of which emphasized the impressively vivid lips of her large mouth; it seemed as if all the sensuality and colour of the face had poured themselves into the lips and made them startlingly and painfully vivid and suggestive of sin. She had married and had parted from her husband. She had a son, who lived with her. She was an S.D.14and worked in the organization, but all this was merely incidental in her life. She met Trirodov in party work. Her comrades understood as by some intuition that in order to carry on negotiations with Trirodov, who did not permit himself any intimacy with them, it was necessary to choose this woman.
And now Alkina had come again, and began as always:
“I’ve come on business.”
Trirodov regarded her with a deep, tranquil glance and answered her with the usual commonplaces of welcome.
Slightly agitated by hidden desires, Alkina spoke of the “business” in hand.
It had already been decided that the party orator who was to come to speak at the projected mass meeting would be quartered at Trirodov’s: this was thought to be the least dangerous place. Alkina came to say that the orator was expected that evening. It was necessary to bring him to Trirodov’s house in such a way that the town should not know anything about it. As soon as they had decided at what entrance he should be received Trirodov went out of the room to make the necessary arrangements. The agreeable consciousness of creative mystery filled him with joy.
When Trirodov returned Alkina was standing at the table and turning over the pages of a new book. Her hands trembled slightly. She glanced expectantly at Trirodov. She appeared to wish to say something meaningful and tender—but instead she resumed her remarks on business. She told him what was new in town, in her school, in the organization—about the confiscation of the local newspaper, about personalities ordered to leave town by the police, about the factory ferment.
“Who will be our own speakers at the mass meeting?” asked Trirodov.
“Bodeyev, from the school, for one.”
“I do not like his manner of speaking,”, said Trirodov.
“He’s a good party workman,” observed Alkina with a timid smile. “He’s to be valued for that.”
“You know, of course, that I am not much of a party man,” said Trirodov.
Alkina was silent. She trembled lightly as she rose from her seat, then suddenly ceased to be agitated. Only her vivid lips, speaking slowly, seemed to be alive in her pale face.
“Giorgiy Sergeyevitch, will you love me a little?”
Trirodov smiled. He sat quietly in his chair and looked at her simply and dispassionately. He did not answer at once. Alkina asked again with her sad and gentle humility:
“Perhaps you haven’t the time, nor the desire?”
“No, Katya, I shall be glad,” answered Trirodov calmly. “You’ll find it convenient in there,” and he signified with his eyes the little neighbouring room which had no other exit.
Alkina flushed lightly and said:
“If you will permit me, I’d rather undress here. It would give me joy to have you look at me a long time.”
Trirodov helped her to undo the clasps of her skirt. Alkina sat down on a chair, bent over, and began to undo the buttons of her boots. Then, with evident enjoyment at having freed her feet, she walked slowly across the floor towards the door and turned the key in the lock.
“As you know, I have but one joy,” she said.
She gracefully threw off her clothes and stood before Trirodov with uplifted arms. She was sinuously slender, like a white serpent. Crossing the fingers of her upraised hands, she bent her whole body forward, so that she appeared more sinuously slender than ever, and the curve of her body almost resembled a white ring. Then she relaxed her arms, stood up erect, all tranquil and self-possessed, and said:
“I want you to take a good look at me. I haven’t grown old yet, have I? And not altogether faded?”
Trirodov surveyed her with admiration and said quietly:
“Katya, you are as handsome as always.”
Alkina was mistrustful.
“It’s true, isn’t it, that clothes have too long cramped my body and injured the skin. How can my body be handsome?”
“You are graceful and flexible,” answered Trirodov. “The lines of your body are somewhat elongated but wholly elastic. If any one were to measure your body he would find no error in its proportions.”
Alkina scrutinized herself attentively and went on incredulously:
“The lines are good—but the colour? I believe you once said that Russians often have unpleasant complexions. When I look on the whiteness of my body I am reminded of plaster of paris, and I begin to weep because I am so ugly.”
“No, Katya,” asserted Trirodov. “The whiteness of your body is not like plaster of paris. It is marble, slightly rose-tinged. It is milk poured into a pink crystal vase. It is mountain snow lit up with the last glow of sunset. It is a white reverie suffused with rose desire.”
Alkina smiled joyously and flushed lightly as she asked him:
“Will you take a few snapshots of me to-day? Otherwise I shall weep, because I am so ugly and so meagre that you do not wish to recall sometimes my face and my body.”
“Yes,” answered Trirodov, “I have a few films ready.”
Alkina laughed gleefully and said:
“Now kiss me.”
She bent over Trirodov and almost fell into his arms. The kisses seemed tranquil and innocent; it might have been a sister kissing a brother. How gentle and elastic her skin was under his hands! Alkina pressed against him with a submissive, yielding movement. Trirodov carried her to the wide, soft couch. She lay in his arms timidly and quietly and looked straight into his eyes with a simple, innocent look.
When the sweet and deep minutes passed, followed by fatigue and shame, Alkina lay there motionlessly with half-closed eyes—and then said suddenly:
“I’ve been wanting to ask you, and somehow couldn’t decide to. Do you detest me? Perhaps you think me very shameless?”
She turned her face towards him and looked at him with frightened, ashamed eyes. And he answered her with his usual resolution:
“No, Katya. Shame is often needed, in order that we may gain control over it.”
Alkina once more lay back calmly, basking naked under his glances, as under the rays of the high Dragon. Trirodov was silent. Alkina laughed quietly and said:
“My husband used to be so respectable, mean and polite. He never beat me—he was not a cultured man for nothing—and he never even used coarse words. If he had but called me a fool! I sometimes think that I wouldn’t have left him if our quarrels hadn’t passed so quietly, if he had but beat me, pulled me by my hair, lashed me with something.”
“Sweet?” asked Trirodov.
“Life is so dull,” continued Alkina. “One struggles in the nets of petty annoyances. If one could but cry out, but give wail to one’s yearning, one’s woe, one’s unendurable pain!”
She said this with a passion unusual to her and grew silent.