Trirodov had found this place for himself and Elisaveta. More than once they came here together—to read, to talk, and to sit a while at the moss-covered stone, out of which, like a strange corporeal ghost, grew up all awry a slender quaking ash. Elisaveta, dressed in her simple short skirt, her long sunburnt arms and part of her legs showing, seemed so tall, so erect, and so graceful at this moss-covered stone.

Elisaveta was reading aloud—poems! How golden her voice sounded with its seductive, sun-like sonorousness! Trirodov listened with a slightly ironical smile to these familiar, infinitely deep and lovely words, so seemingly meaningless in life. When she finished Trirodov said:

"A man's whole life is barely enough to think out a single idea properly."

"You mean to say that each should choose for himself but a single idea."

"Yes. If people could but grasp this fact human knowledge would take an unprecedented step forward. But we are afraid to venture."

And coarse life already hovered near them behind their backs, and was about to intrude upon them. Elisaveta gave a sudden faint outcry at the unexpectedness of an unseemly apparition. A dirty, rough-looking man, all in tatters, was almost upon them; he had approached them upon the mossy ground as softly as a wood fairy. He stretched out a dirty, horny hand, and asked, not at all in a begging voice:

"Give a hungry man something to buy bread with."

Trirodov frowned in annoyance, and without looking at the beggar took a silver coin out of the pocket of his waistcoat. He always kept a trifle about him to provide for unexpected meetings. The ragged one smiled, turned the coin, threw it upward, caught it, and hid it adroitly in his pocket.

"I thank your illustrious Honour most humbly," he said. "May God give you good health, a rich wife, and assured success. Only I want to say something to you."

He grew silent, and assumed a grave, important air. Trirodov frowned even more intensely than before, and asked stiffly:

"What is it you wish to tell me?"

The ragged one said with frank derision in his voice:

"It's this. You were reading a book, my good people, but not the right one."

He laughed a pathetic, insolent laugh. It was as if a timorous dog suddenly began to whine hoarsely, insolently, and cautiously.

Trirodov asked again in astonishment:

"Not the right one, why not?"

The ragged one began to speak with awkward gestures, and he gave the impression that he was able to speak well and eloquently, and that he merely assumed his stupid, unpolished manner of speaking.

"I had been listening to you a long time. I was behind the bush there. I was asleep, I must confess—then you came—chattered away, and waked me. The young lady read well. Clearly and sympathetically. One could see at once that it was from the heart. Only I don't like the contents, and all that's in this book."

"Why don't you like it?" asked Elisaveta quietly.

"In my opinion," said the ragged one, "it isn't your style. It doesn't fit you somehow."

"What sort of book ought we to read?" asked Elisaveta.

She gave a light, forced smile. The ragged one sat down on a near-by stump, and answered in no undue haste:

"I am not thinking of you alone, honourable folk, but of all those who parade in fancy gaiters and in velvet dresses, and look scornfully at our brothers."

"What book?" again asked Elisaveta.

"It's the gospels that you ought to read," he replied, as he looked attentively and austerely at Elisaveta, his glance taking in her entire figure from her flushed face down to her feet.

"Why the gospels?" asked Trirodov, who suddenly grew morose. He appeared to be pondering over something, and unable to decide; his indecision seemed to torment him.

The ragged one replied slowly:

"I will tell you why; you'll find the true facts there. We will take it easy in paradise, while the devils will be pulling the veins out of you in hell. And we shall look on coolly, and applaud gaily with our hands. It ought to prove entertaining."

He burst out into loud, hoarse laughter—but it seemed more assumed than joyous, and rather abject and hideous. Elisaveta shivered.

"What a wicked person you are! Why do you think that?" said Elisaveta reproachfully.

The ragged one glanced at her crossly, and looked fixedly into her deep blue eyes; then he said with a broad smile:

"Why am I wicked? And are you two good? Wicked or not, the thing is to be just. But I may tell you, sir, that I like you," he said as he turned suddenly to Trirodov.

"Thank you for your good opinion," said Trirodov with a slightly ironical smile, "but why should you like me?"

He looked attentively at the ragged one. Then suddenly he felt depressed and apprehensive, and he lowered his eyes. The other slowly lit his foul-smelling pipe, stretched himself, and began after a brief silence:

"Other gentlemen's mugs are mostly gay, as if they had gorged themselves on a pancake with cream, or had successfully forged their uncle's will. But you, sir, seem to have the same lean mug always. I have been observing you some time now. It's evident that you have something on your soul. At least a capital crime."

Trirodov was silent. He lifted himself on his elbow and looked straight into the man's eyes with such a fixed, strange expression in his unblinking, commanding, wilful eyes.

The ragged one grew silent, as if he had been congealed for a moment. Then, as if frightened, he suddenly shook himself. He shrank and stooped, and as he took his cap off he revealed an unkempt, tousled head of hair; he mumbled something, slipped away among the bushes, and disappeared quietly—like a fairy of the wood.

Trirodov looked gloomily after him—and was silent. Elisaveta thought that he deliberately avoided looking at her. She was intensely embarrassed, but made an effort to control herself. She laughed, and said with assumed gaiety:

"What a strange creature!"

Trirodov turned upon her his melancholy glances and said quietly:

"He talks like one who knows. He talks like one who sees. But no one can know what happened."

Oh, if one could only know! If one could only change that which once had happened!

Trirodov recalled again during these days the dark history of Piotr Matov's father. Trirodov had carelessly entangled himself in this affair, and now it compelled him to have dealings with the blackmailer Ostrov.

Piotr's father, Dmitry Matov, had fallen into a trap which he had set for others. He had joined a secret revolutionary circle. There they soon discovered his relations with the police, and they decided to detect him and kill him.

One of the members of the circle, the young physician Lunitsin, took the role of betrayer upon himself. He promised to obtain for Dmitry Matov important documents involving many of the members. They made a bargain at a moderate figure. The meeting at which the documents were to be exchanged for the money was designated to take place in a small borough close to the town in which Trirodov then lived.

At the appointed hour Dmitry Matov got out of his train at a little station. It was late in the evening. Matov wore blue spectacles and a false beard, as was agreed upon. Lunitsin waited for him a few yards from the station, and led him to a very solitary spot where was situated the house hired for the purpose.

A supper had been prepared there. Matov ate heartily and drank much wine. His companion began to invent stories about certain suspicious movements he had heard of lately. Little by little Matov grew candid, and began to boast of his connexions with the police, and of the great number of people he had skilfully betrayed.

The door leading to the next room was hung with draperies. Three people were hiding in that room—Trirodov, Ostrov, and the young working man Krovlin. They were listening. Krovlin was intensely excited. He kept on repeating in indignant whispers:

"Oh, the scoundrel! The wretch!"

Ostrov and Trirodov managed to restrain him with great difficulty.

"Be silent. Let him babble out everything," they said to him.

At last Matov's impudent boastfulness was too much for Krovlin, who jumped out from his hiding-place, and shouted:

"So that's how it is! You've betrayed our men to the police! And you have the face to confess it!"

Dmitry Matov grew green with fear. He shouted to his companion:

"Kill him! He has been listening to us! Shoot quick! He mustn't live. He will give us both up!"

At this moment two other men appeared from the same place. Lunitsin aimed his revolver straight at Matov's forehead, and asked:

"Who ought to be killed, traitor?"

Matov then understood that he had been caught in a trap. But he still made efforts to wriggle out of it, and called all his skill and his insolence to his assistance. They tried him for treachery. At first he defended himself. He said that he had deceived the police, and that he had entered into relations with them merely to get important information for his comrades. But his protestations soon grew weaker. Then he began to beg for mercy. He spoke of his wife and of his children.

Matov's entreaties failed to impress any one. His judges were adamant. His fate was decided. The sentence of hanging was passed unanimously.

Matov was bound. The noose was already thrown about his neck. Then Trirodov intervened:

"What are you going to do with him? It will be difficult to take him away, and it is dangerous to leave him here."

"Who will come here?" said Lunitsin. "At best only by chance. Let him hang here until he's found."

"Let us bury him here in the garden, like a dog," suggested Krovlin.

"Give him to me," said Trirodov. "I will dispose his body in such a way that no one will find it."

The others assented eagerly. Ostrov said with a scornful smile:

"Will you try your chemistry on him, Giorgiy Sergeyevitch? Well, it's all the same to us. A bad man ought to be punished—make even a skeleton of him for your use if you like."

Trirodov drew a flagon containing a colourless liquid from his pocket.

"Now this will put him to sleep," he said.

He injected with a small syringe several drops of the liquid under Dmitry Matov's skin. Matov gave a feeble cry and fell heavily to the floor. In a few moments the body lay before them, blue and apparently lifeless. Lunitsin examined Matov and said:

"He's done for."

The men left one by one. Trirodov alone remained with Matov's body. Trirodov took off Matov's clothes and burned them in the stove. He made several more injections of the same colourless liquid.

The night passed slowly. Trirodov lay on the sofa without taking his clothes off. He slept badly, tormented by oppressive dreams. He awoke several times.

Dmitry Matov lay in the next room on the floor. The liquid, injected into his blood, acted strangely. The body contracted in proper proportion, and wasted very quickly. Within several hours it lost more than half of its weight, and assumed very small dimensions; it became very soft and pliant. But all its proportions were faithfully preserved.

Trirodov made up the body into a large parcel, covered it over with plaid, and bound it with straps. It resembled a pillow wrapped up in plaid. Trirodov left by the morning train for home, carrying with him Dmitry Matov's body.

At home Trirodov put the body into a vessel containing a greenish liquid compounded by himself. Matov's body shrunk in it even more. It had become barely more than seven inches long. But as before all its proportions remained inviolate.

Then Trirodov prepared a special plastic substance, in which he wrapped Matov's body. He pressed it compactly into the form of a cube, and placed it on his writing-table. And thus a thing that once had been a man remained there a thing among other things.

Nevertheless Trirodov was right when he told Ostrov that Matov had not been killed. Yes, notwithstanding his strange form and his distressing immobility, Dmitry Matov was not dead. The potentiality of life slept dormant in that solid object. Trirodov thought more than once as to whether the time had not come to rehabilitate Matov and return him to the world of the living.

He had not decided upon this before. But he was confident that he would succeed in doing this without hindrance. The process of rehabilitation required a tranquil and isolated place.

In a little more than a year at the beginning of the summer Trirodov decided to begin the process of rehabilitation. He prepared a large vat over six feet in length. He filled it with a colourless liquid, and lowered into it the cube containing Matov's body.

The slow process of rehabilitation began. Unperceived by the eye, the cube began to thaw and to swell. It needed a half-year before it would thaw out sufficiently to permit the body to peer through.



CHAPTER XXII

Sonya Svetilovitch was badly shaken by the hard, cruel events of that night in the woods. She fell ill, and remained two weeks in an unconscious state. It was feared that she would die. But she was a strong girl and conquered her illness.

Scenes from that nightmarish occasion passed before the poor girl in her heavy delirium. Grey, ferocious demons, with dim, tinny eyes, came to her, taunted her, and acted without reason. There was no place in which to hide from the hideous frenzy.

Deep oppression reigned in the Svetilovitch house. Sonya's mother wept, and bewailed her lot. Sonya's father spoke of the matter warmly and eloquently, with gesticulations, to his friends in his study—and inevitably got into a state of indignation. Sonya's little brothers discussed plans of vengeance. Fraulein Berta, the governess of Sonya's younger sister, made censorious remarks about barbarous Russia.

All the acquaintances of the Svetilovitches were also indignant. But their indignation assumed only platonic forms. Perhaps it was impossible for it to have been otherwise. To be sure, all the more or less independent people in town paid the Svetilovitches visits of sympathy. Even the liberal Inspector of Taxes came. He was a patient of Doctor Svetilovitch's, and came during the reception hour to express his interest; incidentally he asked advice about his physical indispositions and paid no fee—in view of its being a visit of sympathy.

Sonya's father, Doctor Sergey Lvovitch Svetilovitch, was a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party; among his own he was regarded as belonging to the extreme left wing. Like his friend Rameyev, who was a Cadet of more moderate views, he was a member of the local committee.

Doctor Svetilovitch thought he ought to protest against the improper actions of the police. He lodged complaints with the Governor and the District Attorney, and wrote circumstantial petitions to both—his chief concern being that no offending expression of any sort should enter into them.

Doctor Svetilovitch was an extremely correct and loyal man. Other people around him, if placed in unusual circumstances, might lose their presence of mind and forget their principles; others around him, friends or enemies, might act incorrectly and illegally; but Doctor Svetilovitch always remained faithful to himself. No circumstance, no earthly or heavenly power, could swerve him from the path which he acknowledged as the only true one, in so far as it conformed to Constitutional Democratic principles. The problem of expedience of conduct concerned Doctor Svetilovitch but little. The important thing was to be correct in principle. He always placed, however, the responsibility for the result this procedure achieved upon the shoulders of those who wished to follow along other lines. That was why Doctor Svetilovitch enjoyed extraordinary respect in his own party. Great weight was attached to his opinions, and in the matter of tactics his declarations were indisputable.

Several days after Doctor Svetilovitch presented his petition he had a call from an inspector of the police, who handed him, with a request for a receipt, a grey, rough paper impressed at the upper left-hand corner with the stamp of the Skorodozh governing authorities, together with a packet from the District Attorney. This last contained a white solid-looking page of foolscap folded in four, handsomely engraved with the District Attorney's seal. Both the grey rough paper and the solid-looking page of foolscap contained approximately in the same words the answers to the complaints of Doctor Svetilovitch. These informed Doctor Svetilovitch that a very careful investigation had been made in connexion with his complaints; in conclusion, it was affirmed that Doctor Svetilovitch's evidence as to the illegal actions of the police, and as to the subjection of the girls caught in the woods to blows, was not borne out by facts.

At last Sonya began to improve. The members of the family and acquaintances tried not to recall the sad incident of that night before Sonya. Only indifferent and pleasant matters were mentioned in the poor girl's presence in order to divert her. A number of visitors were invited one evening for this purpose. Some were asked by letter, others by Doctor Svetilovitch in person. He visited the Rameyevs and Trirodov in his carriage, which was harnessed to a pair of stout ponies.

In inviting Trirodov, Doctor Svetilovitch asked him to read something from his own work at the gathering, something that would not make Sonya unpleasantly reminiscent. Trirodov agreed to this quite heartily, although he usually avoided reading his own work anywhere.

As Trirodov was preparing to leave his house that evening and was putting on a coloured tie, Kirsha said to him with his usual gravity:

"I should not go to the Svetilovitches' to-night if I were you. It would be much wiser to remain at home."

Trirodov, not all astonished by this unexpected advice, smiled and asked:

"Why shouldn't I go?"

Kirsha held his father's hand and said sadly:

"There have been many detectives of late poking their noses about here. What can they want here? It's almost certain they will make a search of Svetilovitch's house to-night—I have a presentiment."

"That's nothing," said Trirodov with a smile, "we have got used to everything. But, dear Kirsha, you are very inquisitive—you look in everywhere, even where you shouldn't."

"My eyes see, and my ears hear," replied Kirsha, "is that my fault?"

In the pleasant, well-appointed drawing-room of the Svetilovitches, in the lifeless light of three electric globes with lustrous bronze fittings, the green-blue upholsterings of the Empire furniture seemed illusively beautiful. The dark curves of the grand piano were gleaming. Albums were lying on a little table under the leaves of a palm. The portrait of an old man with a long, white moustache smiled down youthfully and cheerfully from its place on the wall above the sofa. The visitors gathered in the midst of these attractive surroundings, as if there were nothing to mar them. They spoke a great deal, with much heat and eloquence.

Most of the visitors were local Cadets. Among those present were three physicians, one engineer, two legal advocates, the editor of a local progressive newspaper, a justice of the peace, a notary, three gymnasia instructors, and a priest. Nearly all came accompanied by women and girls. There were also several students, college girls, and grownup schoolboys from the higher gymnasia classes.

The young priest, Nikolai Matveyevitch Zakrasin, who sympathized with the Cadets, gave lessons in Trirodov's school. He was considered a great freethinker among his colleagues, the priests. The town clergy looked askance at him. And the Diocesan Bishop was not well disposed towards him.

Father Zakrasin had completed a course in the ecclesiastical academy. He spoke rather well, wrote something, and collaborated not only in religious but also in worldly periodicals. He had wavy, dense, not over-long hair. His grey eyes smiled amiably and cheerfully. His priestly attire always appeared new and neat. His manners were restrained and gentle. He did not at all resemble the average Russian priest; Father Zakrasin seemed more like a Catholic prelate who had let his beard grow and had put on a golden pectoral cross. Father Zakrasin's house was bright, neat, and cheerful. The walls were decorated with engravings, scenes from sacred history. His study contained several cases of books. It was evident from their selection that Father Zakrasin's interests were very broad. In general he liked that which was certain, convincing, and rational.

His wife, Susanna Kirillovna, a good-looking, plump, and calm woman, who was wholly convinced of the justice of the Cadets' cause, was now sitting quietly on the sofa in the Svetilovitch drawing-room, and expounding truths. Notwithstanding her Constitutional Democratic convictions, she was a real priest's spouse, a housewifely, loquacious, timorous creature.

Priest Zakrasin's sister, Irina Matveyevna, or Irinushka as every one called her, was a parish-school girl who had been won over to the cause by the priest's wife; she was young, rosy, and slender, and greatly resembled her brother. She got excited so often and so intensely that she constantly had to be appeased by the elders, who regarded her youthful impetuosity with benevolent amusement.

Rameyev was there with both his daughters, the Matov brothers, and Miss Harrison. Trirodov was there also.

There was almost a spirit of gaiety. They talked on various subjects—on politics, on literature, on local matters, etc. Sonya's mother sat in the drawing-room and discussed women's rights and the works of Knut Hamsun. Sonya's mother liked this writer intensely, and loved to tell about her meeting with him abroad. There was an autographed portrait of Knut Hamsun upon her table and it was the object of much pride for the whole Svetilovitch family.

At the tea-table in the small neighbouring room, which was called the "buffet," Sonya—surrounded by young people—was pouring out tea. In Doctor Svetilovitch's study they spoke of the recent unrest in near-by villages. There were incendiary fires on various estates and farms belonging to the landed gentry. There were several cases in which the bread granaries belonging to certain hoarders were broken into.

Sonya's mother was asked to play something. She refused a long time, but finally, with evident pleasure, went to the grand piano, and played a selection from Grieg. Then the notary took his turn at the instrument. Irinushka, blushing furiously, sang with much expression the new popular song to his accompaniment:

_Once I loved a learned student, I admit I wasn't prudent; On the day I married him The village feasted to the brim.

Vodka every one was drinking, All were doing loud thinking— How to make the masters toil, And amongst us share their soil.

Suddenly there came a copper Right into our hut a-flopper! "I'll send you both to Sakhalin[22] For raising this rebellious din."

"Well, my dear one, quick, get ready, Mind that you walk 'long there steady, For your charming words, my sweet, A gaol is waiting you to greet."

Do you think I was agitated? No, not me—I was most elated. Then the muzhiks stepped right in And chucked him out on the green._

[Footnote 22: Siberian island famous for its prison.]

This song was an illustration appropriate to the discussions on village tendencies. It achieved a great success. Irinushka was profusely praised and thanked for it. Irinushka blushed, and regretted that she knew no other songs of the same kind.

Then Trirodov read his story of a beautiful and exultant love. He read simply and calmly, not as actors read. He finished reading and in the cold polite praises he felt how remote he was from all these people. Once more, as it frequently had happened before, there stirred in his soul the thought: "Why do I come to see these people?"

"There is so little in common between them and me," thought Trirodov. Only Elisaveta's smile and word consoled him.

Afterwards there was dancing—then card-playing. It was as always, as everywhere.



CHAPTER XXIII

No one else was expected. The dining-room table was being set for supper. Suddenly there was a loud, violent bell-ring. The housemaid ran quickly to answer it. Some one in the drawing-room remarked in astonishment:

"A rather late visitor."

Every one suddenly felt depressed for some reason. There was an air of ominous expectancy. Were robbers about to break in? Was it a telegram containing an unpleasant announcement? Or would some one come in panting and exhausted and divulge a piece of terrible news? But the words they addressed to each other were of quite a different nature.

"But who can it be at such a late hour?" said one woman to another.

"Who else can it be but Piotr Ivanitch!"

"That's so; he likes coming late."

"Do you remember—once at the Taranovs?"

Piotr Ivanitch, approaching at that moment, overheard the remark.

"You are unfair to me, Marya Ivanovna! I've been here a long time," said he.

"Forgive me, but who, then, can it be?" said Marya Ivanovna in confusion.

"We'll soon know. Let's take a look."

The inquisitive engineer put his head out into the hall and stumbled upon some one in a grey uniform who was walking impetuously towards the drawing-room. Some one whispered in suppressed horror:

"The police!"

When the maid, in response to the ring, opened the door, several men filed into the hall, awkwardly jostling one another—house-porters,[23] gendarmes, detectives, an Inspector of the police, an officer of the gendarmerie, two petty constables. The maid stood speechless with fright. The police inspector shouted at her:

"Get back to the kitchen!"

[Footnote 23: Usually brought along as witnesses.]

A detachment of policemen and porters remained outside under the command of the Inspector of the constabulary. They watched to see that no one entered or left the Svetilovitch house.

Altogether about twenty policemen entered the house. For some unknown reason they were armed with rifles with fixed bayonets. Three hideous-looking men in civilian clothes kept close to the policemen. These were the detectives. Two policemen stationed themselves at the entrance, two others ran to the telephone, which was attached to a wall in the hall. It was evident that everything had been arranged beforehand by a manager expert in such matters. The rest of the men tumbled into the drawing-room. The Inspector of the police stretched his neck and, assuming a tense red expression and bulging his eyes, shouted very loudly.

"Don't any one dare to move from his place!"

And he looked round in self-satisfaction at the officer of the gendarmerie.

The men and the women remained transfixed in their places, as if they were acting a tableau. They were looking silently at the new-comers.

The policemen, awkwardly holding their rifles, tramped with their ponderous boots on the parquet-floor and made their way about the rooms. They paused at all the doors, looked at the visitors timorously and savagely, uneasily pressed the barrels of their rifles, and tried to look like real soldiers. It was evident that these zealous people were ready to fire at any one whomsoever at the first suspicious movement: they thought that a band of conspirators had gathered here.

All the rooms were overrun with these strangers. It began to smell of bad tobacco, sweat, and vodka. Many of them drank to keep their courage up: they were afraid of a possible armed resistance.

A gendarme placed his Colonel's voluminous portfolio on the grand piano in the drawing-room. The Colonel, stepping forward to the middle of the room, so that the light of the centre cluster of lamps fell almost directly upon his bald forehead and upon his bushy, sandy-haired moustache, pronounced in an official tone:

"Where's the master of this house?"

He made a determined effort to give the impression that he did not know Doctor Svetilovitch or the others. Actually he knew nearly all of them personally. Doctor Svetilovitch walked up to him.

"I am the master of this house. I am Doctor Svetilovitch," he said in a no less official tone.

The Colonel in the blue uniform then announced:

"M. Svetilovitch, it is my duty to make a search of your house."

Doctor Svetilovitch asked:

"Under whose authority are you doing this? And where is your warrant for carrying out the search?"

The Colonel of the gendarmerie turned towards the piano and rummaged in his portfolio, but produced nothing. He said:

"I assure you I have an order. If you have any doubts you can call up on the telephone."

Then the Colonel turned to the Inspector of the police and said:

"Please collect them all in one room."

All, except Doctor Svetilovitch, were compelled to go into the dining-room, which now became crowded and uncomfortable. Armed constables were placed at both doors—the one entering the hall and the other the dining-room—as well as in all the corners. Their faces were dull, and their guns seemed unnecessary and absurd in these peaceful surroundings—but then the guests felt even more uncomfortable.

A detective looked out from time to time from the drawing-room door. He looked searchingly into the faces. The look he had on his disagreeable face with its white eyebrows and eyelashes gave the impression that he was sniffing the air.

In the drawing-room the Colonel of the gendarmerie was saying to Doctor Svetilovitch:

"And now, M. Svetilovitch, will you be so good as to tell me with what object you have arranged this gathering?"

Doctor Svetilovitch replied with an ironic smile:

"With the object of dancing and dining, nothing more. You can see for yourself that we are all peaceable folk."

"Very well," said the Colonel in an authoritative, rude tone. "Are the names and families of all gathered here with the object you state known to you?"

Doctor Svetilovitch shrugged his shoulders in astonishment and replied:

"Of course they are known to me! Why shouldn't I know my own guests? I believe you know many of them yourself."

"Be so good," requested the Colonel, "as to give me the names of all your guests."

He produced a sheet of paper from his portfolio and placed it on the piano. The Colonel wrote the names down as Doctor Svetilovitch gave them. When the doctor stopped short the Colonel asked laconically:

"All?"

"Doctor Svetilovitch answered as briefly:

"All."

"Show us into your study," said the Colonel.

They went into the study and rummaged among everything there. They turned over all the books and disarranged the writing-table. They looked through the letters. The Colonel demanded:

"Open the bookcases, the bureau drawers."

Doctor Svetilovitch answered: "The keys, as you see, are in their places in the locks."

He put his hands into his pockets and stood by the window.

"Will you be good enough to open them?" said the Colonel.

"I can't do this," replied Doctor Svetilovitch. "I do not consider it obligatory to help you in your searches."

Pride filled his Cadet's soul. He felt that he was behaving correctly and valiantly. What was the consequence? The uninvited guests opened everything themselves and rummaged where they pleased. A constable put aside all those books which looked suspicious. Several of these books had been published in Russia quite openly and sold no less openly. They took several books wholly innocent in their contents, simply because they thought they detected a rebellious note in their titles.

The Colonel of the gendarmerie announced:

"We will take the correspondence and the manuscripts with us."

Doctor Svetilovitch said in vexation:

"I assure you there's nothing criminal there. The manuscripts are very necessary to my work."

"We'll have a look at them," said the Colonel dryly. "Don't be concerned about them, they will be kept in safety."

Then they rummaged the other rooms. They searched the beds to see if there were any concealed fire-arms.

When he returned into the study the Colonel of the gendarmerie said to Doctor Svetilovitch:

"Well, try and see if you can find the papers of the strike committee."

"I have no such papers," replied Doctor Svetilovitch.

"S-so! Now," said the Colonel very significantly, "tell us frankly where you keep the weapons concealed."

"What weapons?" asked Doctor Svetilovitch in astonishment.

The Colonel replied with an ironic smile:

"Any sort that you may have about—revolvers, bombs, or machine-guns."

"I haven't any kind of weapons," said Doctor Svetilovitch with an amused laugh. "I haven't even a gun for hunting. What kind of weapon can I possibly have?"

"We'll have a look!" said the Colonel in a meaningful voice.

They turned the whole house upside down. Of course they found no weapons of any kind.

While all this was going on Trirodov was reading in the dining-room his own verses and some which were not his. The constables listened in a dull way. They did not understand anything, but waited patiently to see if any rebellious words were mentioned, but their waiting remained unrewarded.

The Inspector of the police then entered the dining-room. Every one looked guardedly at him. He said solemnly, as if he were announcing the beginning of an important and useful work:

"Gentlemen, now we must subject all those present to a personal examination. One at a time, please. Suppose we begin with you," said he, turning to the engineer.

The face of the Inspector of the police expressed a consciousness of his personal dignity. His movements were sure and significant. It was evident that he not only was not ashamed of what he was saying and doing, but that he had not the slightest comprehension that there was anything in this to be ashamed of. The engineer, a young and handsome man, shrugged his shoulders, smiled contemptuously and went into the study, being directed there by an awkward motion of the red-palmed paw of the Commissary of the rural police.

The priest's wife found herself an arm-chair in the dining-room, but she was not any more comfortable in it. Terrified in her arm-chair, she trembled like jelly. With pale lips she whispered to the parish-school girl she had won over to the cause:

"Irinushka, dearest, think of it—they are going to search us!"

The parish-school girl, Irinushka, looking slender, fresh, and red, like a newly washed carrot, moved her ears in her fright—a faculty which her companions envied her intensely—and whispered something to the priest's wife.

The constable looked savagely at the priest's wife and at the parish-school girl, and cried out in a shrill, somewhat hoarse voice, which resembled the crowing of a cock:

"I must very humbly ask you not to whisper."

The constables with the guns pricked up their ears. Their sudden zeal made them perspire. The priest's wife and the parish-school girl almost fainted from fright, but the girl at once recovered herself and began to get angry; she was now even more angry than she had been frightened a little while ago. Small tears gleamed in her eyes; small drops of perspiration appeared on her cheeks and on her forehead. The angry girl's face grew even redder, so that now she resembled no longer a carrot but a wet beetroot. The only person in the room to be refreshingly and youthfully indignant, and all aflame with a deep anger, she looked truly beautiful in her ingenuous exasperation.

"Here is something new!" she cried. "Whispering is forbidden! Are you afraid that we will say something against you, that we will hurt you?"

At this moment all the Cadets and their wives and daughters, who were sitting around the table and against the walls, turned their horrified faces at the parish-school girl, and all together hissed at her. They would have laid hands on her, some one would have gagged her mouth—but not one of them dared to make a move. They sat motionless, looked at the parish-school girl with eyes dilated with fear, and hissed.

The parish-school girl, overcome with fright, grew silent. Only the hissing could be heard in the dining-room. Even the constables began to smile at the friendly hissing of the Cadets of both sexes.

When they had finished hissing, Irinushka said almost tranquilly:

"We didn't whisper anything criminal. I only said about you, Mr. Constable, that you were fascinatingly handsome with your dark hair."

When she saw that the Rameyev sisters were laughing, Irinushka turned to Elisaveta:

"You do agree with me, Vetochka, that the constable is a fascinatingly handsome man?"

The constable flushed. He was not sure whether the blushing girl was laughing at him or in earnest. In any case he frowned, vigorously twirled his dark moustache, and exclaimed:

"I must humbly ask you not to express yourself."

Later, at home, Irinushka was scolded for her behaviour, regarded as untactful by Priest Zakrasin. The priest's wife was especially angry. Poor Irinushka even cried several times.

But this was later. At this particular instant the Inspector of the police and the Colonel of the gendarmerie were sitting in Doctor Svetilovitch's study and were examining the guests one by one; they turned their pockets inside out and, for some unknown reason, deprived their owners of letters, notes, and notebooks.

Rameyev was in a quiet, genial mood. He laughed on being searched. Trirodov made an effort to be calm and was a little sharper than he wished to be.

The women were searched in one of the bedrooms. A police-matron was brought for this purpose. She was a dirty, cunning sycophant. The contact of her coarse hands was repulsive. Elisaveta felt uncomfortably unclean after she had passed through the policewoman's paws. Elena shivered with fear and nausea.

Those who had been searched were not permitted to enter the dining-room but were led into the drawing-room. Nearly all the searched ones were proud of this. They looked as if they were celebrating a birthday.

No one was arrested. They began to draw up the official report. Trirodov quietly addressed a gendarme, but the latter replied in a whisper:

"We are not permitted to enter into conversation with any one. Those scoundrelly spies are watching us, so that we shouldn't speak with liberals. They are quick to inform against us."

"You are in an unfortunate business," said Trirodov.

The Inspector of the police read the official report aloud. It was signed by Doctor Svetilovitch, the Inspector, and the witnesses.

When the uninvited guests left, the hosts and the invited guests sat down to supper.

It was presently discovered that the beer prepared for the occasion had been consumed. At the same time the cap of one of the guests had disappeared. Its owner was very much disturbed. The cap became almost the sole topic of conversation.

On the next day there was much talk in town about the search at the Svetilovitches, the consumed beer, and especially about the lost cap.

Not a little was said in the newspapers about the beer and the cap. One newspaper in St. Petersburg devoted a very heated article to the stolen cap. The author of the article made very broad generalizations. He asked:

"Is it not one of those caps with which we were preparing to throw back the foreign enemy? Is not all Russia seeking now its lost cap and cannot be consoled?"[24]

[Footnote 24: I have it on the authority of one who was of the party that it actually took place at the house of a celebrated living poet in St. Petersburg. The lost cap belonged to Dmitry Merezhkovsky, who immediately wrote a much-discussed article in an important newspaper under the title of "What has become of our Cap?" The above is an actual quotation from it. The sarcastic remark about "throwing back the enemy" is aimed at those "patriots" who used to say that all Russians had to do to repel foreign enemies was to throw their caps at them.—Translator.]

Much less was said and written about the consumed beer. For some reason or other it did not offend people so much. In accordance with our general custom of placing substance above the form, it was found that the stealing of the cap deserved the greater protest, inasmuch as it is more difficult to get along without a cap than without beer.



CHAPTER XXIV

Once more alone! He sat in his room, musing of her, recalling her dear features.

There was an album before him—portrait after portrait of her—naked, beautiful, calling to love, to the sweet solace of love. Would this white breast cease heaving? Would these clear eyes grow dim?

She died.

Trirodov closed the album. For a long time he remained immersed in thought. Suddenly there was a rustling behind the wall, which gradually grew louder—it seemed as if the whole house were alive with the movements of the quiet children. Some one knocked on the door; Kirsha entered, distraught. He said:

"Father, let us go into the wood as fast as we can."

Trirodov looked at him in silence. Kirsha went on:

"Something terrible is happening. There, near the hollow, by the spring."

Elisaveta's blue eyes appeared to him suddenly as in a flame. Where was she? Was she in a difficulty? And his heart fell into the dark abyss of fear.

Kirsha made haste. He almost cried in his agitation.

They went on horseback. They whipped up their horses. They feared they might be too late.

Again the quiet, dark, intensely pensive wood. Elisaveta walked alone—tranquil, blue-eyed, simple in her dress, harmonious in the graceful harmony of her deep experiences. She fell into thought—she recalled things and mused upon them. Her dreams were revealed in the gleam of her blue eyes. Dreams of happiness and of passionate love were interwoven with a different, greater love; and these melted into one another in the fiery longing for noble activity and sacrifice.

What did she not recall? What did she not dream of?

Sharp swords were being forged. To whose lot would they fall?

The high standard of solitary freedom was fluttering.

Youths and maidens!

There, in the dark halls of his house, proud plans were being made.

What a beautiful environment of naked beauty!

There were the children—happy and beautiful—in the wood.

There were the quiet children in his house—radiant and lovable and touched with such sadness.

There was the strange Kirsha.

Portraits of his first wife—naked and beautiful.

Elisaveta's blue eyes gleamed dreamily.

She recalled the details of the previous evening—the remote room in Trirodov's house, the small gathering in it, the long discussions, the subsequent labours, the measured knock of the typing-machine, the damp pages put into portfolios.

Then she thought how she, Stchemilov, Voronok and some one else walked out into the various streets of the town to paste up the bills. They put the paste on while still walking. They always took a look round first to see that no one was in sight. Then they would pause and quickly stick the bill on the fence. They would go on farther.... The effort had been successful.

Elisaveta did not think where she was going; she had walked quite far out of her way, to a place that she had not been to before. She imagined that the quiet children were keeping guard over her. She walked trustfully in the forest silence, yielding her bare feet to the caresses of the moist forest grasses, and now listened, now ceased listening, in delicious drowsiness.

Something rustled behind the bushes, some one's nimble feet were running behind the light undergrowth.

Suddenly she heard a loud laugh—almost at her ears; it broke into her sweet reverie with such a violent suddenness—like the trumpet of an archangel calling to wake the dear dead on Judgment Day. Elisaveta felt some one's hot breath on her neck. A rough, perspiring hand caught her by her bared forearm.

It was as if Elisaveta had suddenly awakened from a pleasant dream. She raised her frightened eyes and paused like one bewitched. Two vigorous ragged men stood before her. They were both handsome young fellows; one of them was astonishingly handsome, swarthy, black-eyed. Both were barely covered by their dirty rags, the openings in which showed their dirty, perspiring, powerful bodies.

The men were laughing and crying insolently:

"We've caught you this time, pretty one!"

"We'll fondle you to your heart's content—you shan't forget us so soon!"

They drew closer and closer to her and blew their hot breath upon her. Elisaveta suddenly came to herself, tore herself away with a quick movement and began to run. A horror akin to wonder swung the resounding bell in her breast—her heavily beating heart. It hindered her running, and there was a beating of sharp little hammers under her knees.

The two men quickly overtook her, and as they obstructed her passage they laughed insolently and said:

"Ah, my beauty! Don't make a fuss!"

"You won't get away anyway."

They jostled one another as they pulled Elisaveta about, each towards himself; and acted altogether awkwardly, as if they did not know who should begin and how. Their sensual panting bared their white teeth, vigorous as those of a wild beast. The beauty of the half-naked, swarthy man tempted Elisaveta—it was a sudden piquant temptation acting like a poison.

The handsome man, his voice hoarse with agitation, shouted:

"Tear her clothes! Let her dance naked before us, and make our eyes glad."

"She hasn't much on!" the other responded with a gay laugh.

He caught the broad collar of Elisaveta's dress with one hand and jerked it forward; he thrust the other hand, large, hot, and perspiring, under her chemise and pressed and squeezed her taut young breast.

"Two men against one woman—aren't you ashamed?" said Elisaveta.

"Don't be ashamed, my lass, and lie down on the grass," exclaimed the handsome, swarthy one, with a laugh very much like a horse's neigh. His white teeth gleamed, his eyes flamed with desire, as he tore Elisaveta's clothes with his hands and his teeth. The red and the white roses of her body were soon bared.

The sensual breathing of the assailants was horrible and repugnant to her, and she found it no less horrible and repugnant to look at their perspiring faces, at the gleaming of their enkindled eyes. But their beauty was tempting. In the dark depths of her consciousness a thought struggled—to yield herself, to yield willingly.

Her dress and chemise, flimsy of texture, ripped with a barely audible noise. Elisaveta struggled desperately, and shouted something—she did not remember what.

All her clothes were already torn, and soon the last shreds of her very light garments fell from her naked body. And in the struggle the rags of the two clumsily moving men ripped with a loud, splitting sound, their sudden nakedness rousing them even more.

There was seductiveness for Elisaveta in the nakedness of these impetuous bodies. She taunted them:

"The two of you can't manage one girl."

She was strong and agile. It was difficult for them to conquer her. Her naked body struggled and wriggled itself out of their arms. The blue arch of her teeth on the naked shoulder of the handsome, swarthy man grew red quickly. Drops of dark blood spurted on to his naked torso.

"Wait, you carrion-flesh," he cried in a hoarse voice, "I will...."

The powerful but awkward pair grew more and more exasperated. They were enraged and intoxicated by her extraordinary resistance, by the falling away of their rags and their sudden nakedness. They beat Elisaveta, in the beginning with their fists, later with quickly severed branches, or with those which already lay on the ground. The sharp fires of pain stung her naked body and tempted her with a burning temptation to yield herself willingly. But she did not yield herself. Her loud sobs resounded for some distance around her.

The struggle continued for a long time. Elisaveta already began to weaken, and the raging passions of the two men had not yet exhausted themselves. Naked and savage, the lips of their wry mouths grown blue, their blood-inflamed eyes gleaming dimly, they were on the point of drawing her down to the ground.

Suddenly the white, quiet boys came running in a swarm into the glade, lightly and noiselessly, like a rapid, light summer shower. They appeared so quickly from among the bushes and threw themselves on the savage pair; they surrounded them, cast themselves upon them, threw them down, cast a sleeping spell upon them, and dragged them away into the depth of the dark hollow. And they left the naked bodies sprawling helplessly on the rough grasses.

The rapid, noiseless movements of the quiet boys put Elisaveta into a mood verging on oblivion, half painful and half sweet.

What happened in that thicket seemed like a heavy and incredible dream to Elisaveta—a sudden and cruel whim of the undependable Aisa. And for a long time a dark horror nestled in her soul, merging with senseless laughter—the exulting smile of pitiless irony....

Elisaveta came to herself. She saw above her the green branches of the birches and the lovely pale faces. She lay in the refreshing grass encircled by quiet children. She could not recall at once what had happened to her. Her nakedness was incomprehensible to her—but she felt no shame.

Her eyes paused for a moment on some one's neatly combed fair hair. She recognized Klavdia, the dissembling instructress. She stood under the tree, her arms folded, and looked with her grey eyes gleaming with envy at Elisaveta's naked body; it was as if a grey spider was spinning across her soul a grey web of dull oblivion and tedious indifference.

"Clothes will be here in a moment," said one of the boys quietly.

Elisaveta closed her eyes and lay tranquilly. Her head felt somewhat dizzy. Fatigue overcame her. Beautiful and graceful she lay there—as perfect as the dream of Don Quixote....

They were dark, long-drawn-out moments, and there fell in their midst from the gradually darkening sky a brief interval of great comprehension. And this brief interval became like an age—from birth until death. Early next morning Elisaveta clearly recalled the course of this strange, vivid life—the sad lofty road, the life of Queen Ortruda.[25]

[Footnote 25: The second of the novels under the general head of "The Created Legend" deals with the previous existence of Elisaveta when she was the Queen Ortruda of the United Isles in the Mediterranean, and her consort was Prince Tancred, now Trirodov. She died from suffocation in a volcanic eruption, after a vain effort to help her people. The author draws a curious parallel, not only with regard to these two characters, but has also a revolution as the background; it is a rather veiled effort to describe over again the events which took place in Russia in 1905.—Translator.]

And when, suffocating, Ortruda was dying....

The rush of light feet in the grass awakened Elisaveta. Light, adroit hands dressed her. The quiet boys helped her to rise. Elisaveta rose and looked around her: a light green Grecian tunic draped her tired body within its broad folds. Elisaveta thought:

"How shall I manage to walk so far?"

And as if in answer to her question, she suddenly caught sight of a light trap under the trees. Some one said:

"Kirsha will drive you home."

In her strange dress Elisaveta returned home. She sat silently in the trap. She did not even notice Trirodov. She was trying to recall something. Through the dark horror and senseless laughter there shone clearer and clearer the recollection of another life lived through momentarily—the life of Queen Ortruda.



CHAPTER XXV

The quiet boy Grisha stood within the enclosure of enchanted sadness and mystery. His face was pale and reposeful, and there was a keen, quiet sparkle in his cool, sky-blue eyes.

The early evening sky was growing bluer—a blue reposefulness was pouring itself out upon the earth and extinguishing the ruby-coloured flames of the sunset. And silhouetted against the blueness of the heights birds were flying about. Why should they have wings, these earthly, preoccupied creatures?

As he stood there in the quiet of the enclosure, Grisha felt himself drawn by the fragrance of the lilies of the valley, no less innocent than he, the quiet, blue-eyed Grisha. It was as if some one were calling him outside the enclosure, towards the poor life which tormented itself in the blue and mist-enveloped distance, calling him despairingly and agonizingly—and he both wished and did not wish to go. Some one's voice, full of distress, called him wearily to life outside.

How can calls of distress be resisted? When will the tranquil heart forget earthly travail wholly and for always?

At last Grisha walked out of the gate. He took a deep breath of the sharp but delicious outside air. He walked quietly upon the narrow, dusty path. His light footprints lay behind him, and his white clothes glimmered brightly, in quiet movement, against the dim verdure and the grey dust. Before him, barely visible, rose the white, lifeless, clear moon, powerless to enchant the tedious earthly spaces.

Then the town began—the grey, dull, tiresome town, with its dirty back yards, consumptive vegetable gardens, broken-down hedges, bathhouses, and sheds, and all manner of ugly projections and depressing amorphousness—all of it resembling a hopeless ruin.

Egorka, the eleven-year-old son of a local commoner, stood by the hedge of one of the vegetable gardens. What had been red calico once made up his torn shirt; but his face!—it was like that of an angel in a tawny mask covered with spots of dirt and dust. Wings are for light feet, but what can the earth do? Only dust and clay cling to light feet.

Egorka had come out to play. He waited for his companions, but for some reason none of them was to be seen. He stood alone there, now listening to this, now looking at that. He suddenly espied on the other side of the hedge an unknown quiet boy, who—all in white—was looking at him. Egorka asked in astonishment:

"Where do you come from?"

"You can never know," said Grisha.

"Don't be too sure of that!" shouted Egorka gaily. "Maybe I do know. Now tell me."

"Would you like to know?" asked Grisha with a smile.

It was a tranquil smile. Egorka was about to stick his tongue out in response, but changed his mind for some reason. They began to converse, to exchange whispers.

Everything around them lapsed into deep quiet, and nothing appeared to give heed to them—it was as if the two little ones went off into quite another world, behind a thin curtain which no one could rend. So motionless stood the birches bewitched mysteriously by three fallen spirits. Grisha asked again:

"Yes, you would like to know?"

"Honest to God, I'd like to; here's a cross to prove it," said Egorka rather quickly, and he crossed himself with an oblique movement of the joined fingers of his dirty hand.

"Then follow me," said Grisha.

He turned lightly homewards, and as he walked he did not stop to look round at the meagre, tiresome objects of this grey life. Egorka followed the white boy. He walked quietly and marvelled at the other. He thought for a while, then he asked:

"Are you not one of God's angels? Why are you so white?"

The quiet boy smiled at these words. He said with a light sigh:

"No, I am a human being."

"You don't mean it? An ordinary boy?"

"Just like you—almost like you."

"How clean you are! I should say you washed yourself seven times a day with egg-soap! You walk about barefoot, not at all like me, and the sunburn doesn't seem to stick to you—there's only a cover of dust on your feet."

The aroma of violets came from somewhere, and it mingled now with the dry smell of the flying dust, now with the sickly, half-sweet, half-bitter odour of the smoke of a forest fire.

The two boys avoided the tiresome monotony of the fields and the roads, and entered the dark silence of the wood. They passed by glades and copses and quietly purling streams. The boys strode along narrow footpaths, where the gentle dew clung to their feet. Everything appeared wonderful in Egorka's eyes, used only to the raging turbulence of a malignant yet dull and grey life. The time lingered on, running and consuming itself, wreathed in a circle of delicious moments, and it seemed to Egorka that he had come into some fabulous land. He slept somewhere at night, and he felt intensely happy on opening his eyes next morning, having been awakened by the twitter of birds which shook the dew from the pliant tree-limbs; then he played with the cheerful boys and listened to music.

Sometimes the white Grisha left Egorka all by himself. Then he again reappeared. Egorka noticed that Grisha kept apart from the others, the cheerful, noisy children; that he did not play with them, and that he spoke little—not that he was afraid, or deliberately turned aside, but simply because it seemed to arrange itself, and it was natural for him to be alone, radiant and sad.

Once Egorka and Grisha, on being left by themselves, went strolling together through a little wood which was all permeated with light. The wood grew denser and denser.

They came to two tall, straight trees. A bronze rod was suspended between them, and upon the rod, on rings, hung a dark red silk curtain. The light breeze caused the thin draperies to flutter. The quiet, blue-eyed Grisha drew the curtain aside. The red folds came together with a sharp rustle and with a sudden flare as of a flame. The opening revealed a wooded vista, all permeated with a strangely bright light, like a vision of a transfigured land. Grisha said:

"Go, Egorushka—it is good there."

Egorka looked into the clear wooded distance: fear beset his heart, and he said quietly:

"I am afraid."

"What are you afraid of, silly boy?" asked Grisha affectionately.

"I don't know. Something makes me afraid," said Egorka timidly.

Grisha felt aggrieved. He sighed quietly and then said:

"Well, go home, then, if you are afraid here."

Egorka recalled his home, his mother, the town he lived in. He did not have a very happy time of it at home—they lived poorly, and he was whipped often. Egorka suddenly threw himself at the quiet Grisha, caught him by his gentle, cool hands, and cried:

"Don't chase me away, dear Grisha, don't chase me from you."

"Am I chasing you away?" retorted Grisha. "You yourself don't want to come."

Egorka got down on his knees and whispered as he kissed Grisha's feet:

"I pray to you angels with all my strength."

"Then follow me," said Grisha.

Light hands descended on Egorka's shoulders and lifted him from the grass. Egorka followed Grisha obediently to the blue paradise of his quiet eyes. A peaceful valley opened before him and the quiet children played in it. The dew fell on Egorka's feet, and its kisses gave him joy. The quiet children surrounded Egorka and Grisha and, all joining hands in one broad ring, carried the two boys with them in a swiftly moving dance.

"My dear angels," shouted Egorka, twirling and rejoicing, "you have bright little faces, you have clean little eyes, you have white little hands, you have light little feet! Am I on earth or am I in Paradise? My dear ones, my little brothers and little sisters, where are your little wings?"

Some one's near, sweet-sounding voice answered him:

"You are upon the earth, not in Paradise, and we have no need of wings—we fly wingless."

They captivated, bewitched, and caressed him. They showed him all the wonders of the wood under the tree-stumps, the bushes, the dry leaves—little wood-sprites with rustling little voices, with spider-webby hair, straight ones and hunchbacked ones; little old men of the wood; the shadow-sprites and little companion spirits; bantering little sprites in green coats, midnight ones and daylight ones, grey ones and black ones; little jokers-pokers with shaggy little paws; fabulous birds and animals—everything that is not to be seen in the gloomy, everyday, earthly world.

Egorka had a splendid time with the quiet children. He did not notice how a whole week had passed by—from Friday to Friday. And suddenly he began to long for his mother. He heard her calling him at night, and as he woke in agitation he called:

"Mamma, where are you?"

There was stillness and silence all around him—it was an altogether unknown world. Egorka began to cry. The quiet children came to comfort him. They said to him:

"There's nothing to cry about. You will return to your mother. And she will be glad, and she will caress you."

"She may whip me," said Egorka, sobbing.

The quiet children smiled and said:

"Fathers and mothers whip their children."

"They like to do it."

"It seems wicked to beat any one."

"But they really mean well."

"They beat whom they love."

"People mix everything up shame, love, pain."

"Don't you be afraid, Egorushka—she's a mother."

"Very well, I'll not be afraid," said Egorka, comforted.

When Egorka took leave of the quiet children Grisha said to him:

"You had better not tell your mother where you have passed all this time."

"No, I won't tell," replied Egorka vigorously, "not for anything."

"You'll blab it out," said one of the girls.

She had dark, infinitely deep eyes; her thin, bare arms were always folded obstinately across her breast. She spoke even less than the other quiet children, and of all human words she liked "no" most.

"No, I shan't blab anything," asserted Egorka. "I shan't even tell any one where I have been; I shall put all these words under lock and key."

That same evening when Egorka left with Grisha, his mother suddenly missed him. She shouted a long time and cursed and threatened; but as there was no response she became frightened. "Perhaps he's been drowned," she thought. She ran among her neighbours, wailing and lamenting.

"My boy's gone. I can't find him anywhere. I simply don't know where else to look. He's either drowned in the river or fallen into a well—that's what comes of mischief-making."

One neighbour suggested:

"It's most likely the Jews have caught him and are keeping him in some out-of-the-way spot, and only waiting to let his Christian blood and then drink it."

This guess pleased them. They said with great assurance:

"It's Jews' work."

"They are again at it, that accursed breed."

"There's no getting rid of them."

"What a wretched affair!"

They all believed this. The disturbing rumour that the Jews had stolen a Christian boy spread about town. Ostrov took a most zealous share in disseminating the rumour. The markets were filled with noisy discussions. The tradesmen and dealers, instigated by Ostrov, bellowed loudly their denunciations. Why did Ostrov do this? He knew, of course, that it was a lie. But latterly, acting on the instructions of the local branch of the Black Hundred, he had been engaged in provocatory work. The new episode came in handily.

The police began an investigation. They looked for the boy, but without success. In any case, they found a Jew who had been seen by some one near Egorka's house. He was arrested.

It was evening again. Egorka's mother was at home when Egorka returned. There was a radiant sadness about him as he walked up to his mother, kissed her and said:

"Hello, mamma!"

Egorka's mother assailed him with questions:

"Oh, you little wretch! Where have you been? What have you been doing? What unclean demons have carried you away?"

Egorka remembered his promise. He stood before his mother in obstinate silence. His mother questioned him angrily:

"Where have you been? tell me! Did the Jews try to crucify you?"

"What Jews?" exclaimed Egorka. "No one has tried to crucify me."

"You just wait, you young brat," shouted his mother in a rage, "I'll make you talk."

She caught hold of the besom and began to tear off its twigs. Then she stripped the boy of his light clothes. Still wrapt in his radiant sadness, Egorka looked at his mother with astonished eyes. He cried plaintively:

"Mamma, what are you doing?"

But, already seized by the rough hand, the little body that had been washed by the still waters began to struggle on the knees of the harshly crying woman. It was painful, and Egorka sobbed in a shrill voice. His mother beat him long and painfully, and she accompanied each blow with an admonition:

"Tell me where you've been! Tell me! I won't stop until you tell me."

At last she stopped and burst out into violent crying:

"Why has God punished me so? But no, I'll yet beat a word out of you. I'll give it to you worse to-morrow."

Egorka was shaken less by the physical pain than by the unexpected harshness of his reception. He had been in touch with another world, and the quiet children in the enchanted valley had reconstructed his soul on another plane.

His mother, however, loved him. Of course, she loved him. That was why she beat him in her anger. Love and cruelty go always together among humankind. They like to torment, vengeance gives them pleasure. But later Egorka's mother took pity on him; she thought she had flogged him too hard. And now she walked up quietly to him.

Egorka lay on the bench and moaned softly, then he grew silent. His mother smoothed his back awkwardly with her rough hands and left him. She thought he had gone to sleep.

In the morning she went to wake him. She found him lying cold and motionless on the bench, his face downward. And his radiance was gone from him—he lay there a dark, cold corpse. The horrified mother began to wail:

"He's dead! Egorushka, are you really dead? Oh, God—and his little hands are quite cold!"

She dashed out to her neighbours, she aroused the whole neighbourhood with her shrill cries. Inquisitive women soon filled the house.

"I struck him ever so lightly with a thin twig," the mother wailed. "Then my angel lay down on the bench, cried a little, then grew quiet and went to sleep, and in the morning he gave up his soul to God."

Held by a heavy, death-like sleep, Egorka lay there motionless and to all appearances lifeless, and listened to his mother's wailing and to the discordant clamour of voices. And he heard his mother keening over him:

"Those accursed Jews have sucked out all his blood! It was not the first time that I beat my little darling! It used to be that I'd beat him and put a bit of salt on afterwards, and nothing would come of it—and here I've hit him with a little twig and he, my handsome darling, my little angel...."

Egorka heard her groans and wondered at his fettered helplessness and immobility. He seemed to hear the noise of some one else's body—he realized that it was his own as it was put on the floor to be washed. He had an intense longing to stir, to rise, but he could not. He thought:

"I have died: what are they going to do with me now?"

And again he thought:

"Why is it that my soul is not leaving my body? I do not feel that I have arms or legs, yet I can hear."

He wondered and waited. Then, with a sudden powerless exertion, he tried to wake from his death-like sleep, to return to himself, to run away from the dark grave—and again his helpless will drooped, and again he waited.

And he heard the sounds of the funeral chant, and noted the blueness of the little cloud of incense-smoke and the fragrance that was wafted by the quietly sounding swings of the smoky censer.



CHAPTER XXVI

Egorka was buried. His mother wept long over his grave in long-drawn-out wails, then went home. She was convinced that her boy would be far better off there than upon the earth, and was consoled. But such truly Russian people as Kerbakh, Ostrov, and others would not be consoled. They let loose evil rumours. The report spread:

"The Jews have tortured a Christian boy. They've cut him up with knives and used his blood in their matzoth."[26]

[Footnote 26: Unleavened bread of the Passover.]

The slanderers were not deterred by the consideration that the Jewish Passover had taken place very much earlier than the running away of Egorka from his mother.

The townsmen were agitated—those who believed as well as those who did not believe the tale. Demands were made for an investigation and the opening of the grave.

Elisaveta came to Trirodov's house early in the day and remained there long. Trirodov showed her his colony. The quiet boy Grisha accompanied them, and looked with the blue reposefulness of his impassionate eyes into the blue flames of her rapturous ones, soothing the sultriness and passion of her agitation.

Her light, ample dress seemed transparent—the perfect outlines of her body showed clearly; the red and white roses of her breast and shoulders were visible. Her sunburnt feet were bare—she loved the affectionate contact of the earth and the grass.

It was all like a paradise—the twittering of the birds, the hubbub of the children, the rustle of the wind in the grass and in the trees, the murmur of the brook in the wood. Everything was innocent, as in Paradise—girls, scantily dressed, came up, spoke to them, and were not ashamed. Everything was chaste, as in Paradise. And cloudless, the sky shone above the forest glades.

Towards evening Elisaveta sat at Trirodov's. They read poems. Elisaveta loved poems even before she met Trirodov. Who else should love them if not girls? Now she read poems avidly. Whole hours passed by quickly in reading, and the poems gave birth in her to sweet and bitter emotions and passionate dreams.

Perhaps this was so because she was in love; in love she had found a new sun for herself, and she led a new dance round it of dreams, hopes, sorrows, joys, enchantments, and raptures. And, flaunting a rainbow of radiance, this round dance, this naming circle of impetuous emotions, was full of a rich music and vivid colour.

Trirodov caused her to fall in love with the verses of the new poets. She found such enchantments and such disillusions in the fragile music of new poetry, written so happily and so elusively, with a lightness and transparency like those of the dresses that she now loved to wear.

With the harmony of their souls thus achieved, why should they not love one another?

Once, after they had read together some beautiful love-poems, Trirodov remarked:

"Love says 'No' to the world, the lyrical 'No'—marriage says 'Yes' to it, the ironic 'Yes.' To be in love, to strive, yet not to possess—that is the poetry of love, sweet but illusive. Externally love contradicts the world and conceals its fatal discord. To be together, to say 'Yes' to some one, to yield oneself—that is the way in which life reveals its irreconcilable contradictions. And how to be together when we are such solitary souls? And how to yield oneself? Mask after mask falls off, and it is terrible to see Janus-faced actuality. A weariness comes on—what has become of love, that love which had prided itself on being stronger than death?"

"You have had a wife," said Elisaveta. "You loved her. Everything here is reminiscent of her. She was beautiful."

Her voice became dark, and the blue flashes under the moist eyelids lit up with a jealous flame. Trirodov smiled and said sadly:

"She left life before the time had come for weariness to make its appearance. My Dulcinea did not want to become Aldonza."

"Dulcinea is loved," said Elisaveta, "but the fullness of life belongs to Aldonza becoming Dulcinea."

"But does Aldonza want that?" asked Trirodov.

"She wants it, but cannot realize it," said Elisaveta. "But we will help her, we will teach her."

Trirodov smiled affectionately—if sadly—and said:

"But he, like the eternal Don Juan, always seeks Dulcinea. And what is to him the poor earthly Aldonza, poisoned by the dream of beauty?"

"It is for that that he will love her," replied Elisaveta; "because she is poor and has been poisoned by the exultant dream of beauty. The basis for their union will be creative beauty."

The night came: a darkness settled outside the windows, full of the whisperings of sad, pellucid voices. Trirodov walked up to the window. Elisaveta soon stood beside him—and almost at the same instant their eyes fixed themselves upon the distant, dimly visible cemetery. Trirodov said quietly:

"He has been buried there. But he will rise from his grave."

Elisaveta looked at him in astonishment and asked:

"Who?"

Trirodov glanced at her like one suddenly awakened and said slowly:

"It is a boy who has not yet lived, and who is still chaste. His body contains all possibilities and not a single achievement. He is like one created to receive every energy directed at him. Now he is asleep in his tight coffin, in a grave. He will awake for a life free from passions and desires, for clear seeing and hearing, for the establishment of one will."

"When will he awake?" asked Elisaveta.

"When I wish it," said Trirodov, "I will wake him."

The sound of his voice was sad and insistent—like the sound of an invocation.

"To-night?" asked Elisaveta.

"If you wish it," answered Trirodov quietly.

"Must I leave?" she asked again.

"Yes," he answered, just as simply and as quietly as before.

She bid him good-bye and left. Trirodov again walked up to the window. He called some one in a voice of invocation and whispered:

"You will awake, dear one. Wake, rise, come to me. I will open your eyes, and you will see what you have not yet seen. I will open your ears, and you will hear what you have not yet heard. You are of the earth—I will not part you from the earth. You are from me, you are mine, you are I; come to me. Wake!"

He waited confidently. He knew that when the sleeper had awakened in his grave they would come to him—the wise, innocent ones—and would tell him.

Kirsha walked into the room quietly. He walked up to his father and asked:

"Are you looking at the cemetery?"

Trirodov laid his hand silently on the boy's head. Kirsha said:

"There is a boy in one of the graves who is not dead."

"How do you know?" asked Trirodov.

But he knew what Kirsha's answer would be. Kirsha said:

"Grisha told me that Egorka was not quite dead. He is asleep; but he will awake!"

"Yes," said Trirodov.

"And will he come to you?" asked Kirsha.

"Yes," was the answer.

"When will he come?" asked Kirsha again.

Trirodov said with a smile:

"Rouse Grisha and ask him whether the sleeper has yet begun to wake in his grave."

Kirsha walked away. Trirodov looked in silence at the distant cemetery, where the dark, bereaved night stooped sadly over the crosses.

"And where are you, my happy beloved?"

A quiet rustle made itself audible behind the doors: the little house-sprites moved quietly near the walls, and whispered and waited.

Awakened by a low sigh, Grisha arose. He walked out into the garden and stood listening with downcast eyes near the railing. He was smiling, but without joy. Who knew whether the other would rejoice?

Kirsha walked up to him and, indicating the cemetery with a movement of his head, asked:

"Is he alive? Has he awakened?"

"Yes," said Grisha. "Egorushka is sighing in his grave; he's just awakened."

Kirsha ran home to his father and repeated to him Grisha's words.

"We must make haste," said Trirodov.

He again experienced an agitation with which he had been long familiar. He felt in himself an ebb and flow as of some strange power. A kind of marvellous energy, gathered by some means known to himself alone, issued slowly from him. A mysterious current passed between himself and the grave where the boy who had departed from life lay in the throes of death-sleep; it cast a spell upon the sleeper and caused him to stir.

Trirodov quickly descended the stairway into the room where the quiet children slept. His light footsteps were barely audible, and his feet felt the cold that came from the planked floor. The quiet children lay upon their beds motionlessly, as if they did not breathe. It seemed as if there were many of them, and that they slept eternally in the endless darkness of that quiet bedchamber.

Trirodov paused seven times, and each time one of the sleepers awoke at his one glance. Three boys and four girls answered his call. They stood there tranquilly, looked at Trirodov and waited.

"Follow me!" said Trirodov.

They walked after him, the white quiet ones, and the rustle of their light footsteps was barely heard.

Kirsha waited in the garden—and he seemed earthly and dark among the white, quiet children.

They walked quickly upon the Navii path like gliding, nocturnal shadows, one after another, the whole ten of them, with Grisha leading. The dew fell upon their naked feet, and the ground under their feet was soft, warm, and sad.

Egorka awoke in his grave. It was dark and somewhat stuffy. His head felt oppressed as under a weight. There sounded in his ears the persistent call:

"Rise, come to me."

Fear assailed him. His eyes looked but did not see. It was hard to breathe. He recalled something, and all that he recalled was like a horrible delirium. Then came the sudden awful realization:

"I am in a grave, in a coffin."

He groaned, and his heart began to thump. His throat, as if clutched by some one's fingers, shivered convulsively. His eyes dilated widely, and the flaming darkness of the nailed-up coffin swept before them. As he tossed about in the tight coffin, tormented by his dread, Egorka moaned, and whispered in a dull voice:

"Three house-sprites, three wood-sprites, three fallen sprites!"

The gate to the burial-ground was open. Trirodov and the children entered. They were among the poor graves—simple little mounds and wooden crosses. It was gloomy, damp, and quiet. There was a smell of grass—a graveyard reverie. The crosses gleamed white in the mist. A poignant silence hovered there, and the whole cemetery seemed filled with the dark reverie of the dead. Poignant feelings were re-experienced deliciously and painfully.

Nowhere does the soil feel so near to one as in a graveyard—it is the sacred soil of repose. They walked quietly, the whole ten of them, one after another, and felt the coolness and the softness of the ground under their bare feet. They passed near a grave. The little mound was quiet and poor, and it seemed as if the earth were crying, wailing, and suffering.

The boys, dimly discernible in the darkness against the lumps of black earth, began to dig the grave. The little girls stood very quietly, one at each of the four sides, and seemed engrossed in the nocturnal silence. The watchmen slept like the dead, and the dead slept, keeping a powerless watch over their graves.

Slowly the little coffin began to show. The low moan became audible. The boys already jumped into the grave. They bent over the poor little coffin. Though it was half-covered with earth, the boys already felt the tremors of its cover under their feet.

The cover, hammered down with nails, yielded easily to the exertions of the small, childish hands, and fell to the side against the grave's earthen wall. The coffin opened as simply as the door of a room opens.

Egorka was already losing his consciousness. When the boys first looked at him he was lying on his side. He stirred faintly.

He breathed in the air as if with short, broken sighs. He shivered. He turned over on his back.

The fresh air blew into his face like a young rapture of deliverance. There was a sudden instant of joy—and it went out like a flame. Why indeed, should he rejoice? The tranquil, unjoyous ones bent over him.

Again to live? His soul felt strange, quiet, indifferent. Some one said affectionately over him:

"Rise, dear one, come to us; we will show you that which you have not seen and will teach you that which is secret."

The stars of the far sky looked into his eyes, and some one's near, affectionate eyes bent over him. Many, many gentle, cool hands stretched out to him; they took him, helped him up and lifted him out.

He stood in a circle. They looked at him. His arms again folded themselves across his breast, as in the grave—as, if the habit had been assimilated for ages. One of the little girls rearranged them and straightened them out.

Suddenly Egorka asked:

"What is this? A little grave?"

Grisha replied:

"This is your grave, but you will be with us and with our master."

"And the grave?" asked Egorka.

"We will fill it up again," replied Grisha.

The boys began to fill up the grave. Egorka looked on in quiet astonishment as lumps of earth fell into the grave and the little mound kept on growing. The ground was smoothed down and the cross placed as before. Egorka walked up to it and read the inscription:

"Boy Giorgiy Antipov."

Then the year, month, and date of his death.

He was faintly astonished, but an ominous indifference already made captive his soul.

Some one touched his shoulder and asked something. Egorka was silent. He looked as if he did not understand.

"Come to me," said Trirodov quietly to him.

The little girl who always said "No" took Egorka by the hand and led him away. They went back by the same road as they came. The darkness closed after them.

Egorka remained with the quiet children. He had no passport, and his life was different.



CHAPTER XXVII

Trirodov returned home. Like one returned from a grave, he felt happy and light-hearted. His heart was consumed with exultation and resolution. He recalled the talk he had had that day with Elisaveta. There rose before him the proud joyous vision of life transfigured by the force of creative art, of life created by the proud will.

If love, or what seemed like love, came to him, why should he resist it? Whether it was a true emotion, or an illusion, was it not all the same? The will, exulting above the world, would determine everything as it wanted. It would have the power to erect a beautiful love over the helplessness of the exhausted senses.

That which has so long weighed in the scales of consciousness, that which has so long and so desperately wrestled in the dark region of the unconscious now stood at a clear decision. Let the word "Yes" he said. Once more Yes. For a new grief? For a glorious triumph? It was all the same. If only he believed in her—and she in him. So much did one mean to the other now.

Trirodov sat down at the table. He smiled, and for a few moments seemed lost in thought. Then he wrote quickly upon a light blue sheet of paper:

"Elisaveta, I want your love. Love me, dear one, love me. I forget my knowledge, I reject my doubts, I become again as simple and as humble as a communicant of a radiant kingdom, like my dear children—and I only want your nearness and your kisses. Upon the earth, dear to our heart, I will pass by, in simple and joyous humility, with bare feet, like you—in order that I may come to you as you come to me. Love me.

"Your GIORGIY."

There was a slight rustle behind the door. It seemed as if the whole house were filled with the quiet children.

Trirodov sealed the letter. He wished to take it at once and leave it on the sill of her open window. He walked quietly, immersed in the wood's darkness—and his feet felt the contact of warm moss, the dew-wet grass, and the simple, rough, beloved earth. A refreshing breeze blew from the river in the night coolness, but now and then there came a sickly, pungent gust of the forest fire.

* * * * *

Elisaveta could not fall asleep. She rose from her bed. She stood by the window, and yielded her naked body to the transparent embraces of the nocturnal breeze. She thought of something, mused of something. And all her thoughts and musings joined in one dancing circle around Trirodov.

Should she wait? He was a weary, sad man, and he would not say the sweet words for fear of appearing ridiculous, and of receiving a cold answer.

"Why should I wait?" she thought. "Or don't I dare decide my fate like a queen, to call him to me, and to demand his love? Why should I remain silent?"

And she decided:

"I will tell him myself—I love you, I love you, come to me, love me."

Elisaveta whispered the delicious words, entrusting her passionate reveries to the nocturnal silence. The dark eyes of the nocturnal guest who brought tempting reveries were aflame. The quiet splashing laughter of the water-nymph behind the reeds under the moon mingled with the quiet, delicious laughter of the nocturnal enchantress who had flaming eyes, burning lips, and a naked body formed from the coils of white flame. Her flaming body was like Elisaveta's body, and the black lightnings of the invisible sorceress were like the blue lightnings of Elisaveta's eyes. She tempted Elisaveta, and called to her:

"Go to him, go. Fall naked at his feet, kiss his feet, laugh for him, dance for him, tire yourself out for his sake, be a slave to him, be a thing in his hands—cling to him, and kiss him, and look into his eyes, and yield yourself up to him. Go, go, hurry, run, he is approaching even now—do you see him? It is he who has just come out of the wood—do you see? It is his feet that show white in the grass. Fling the door wide open and run as you are to meet him."

Elisaveta saw Trirodov coming. Her heart began to beat with such pain and such delight. She walked away from the window. She waited. She heard his footsteps on the sand under the window. Something flashed through the window and fell on the floor. The footsteps retreated.

Elisaveta picked up the letter, lit a candle, and read the beloved blue sheet of paper. The nocturnal enchantress whispered to her:

"He's going away. Hurry. You will know how sweet are the first kisses of love. Go to him, run after him, don't look for tiresome robes."

Elisaveta impetuously flung the door open on the veranda, and ran down the broad steps into the garden. She ran after Trirodov and shouted:

"Giorgiy!"

It was like the outcry of passionate desire. Trirodov paused, saw her, impetuously white and clear in the moonlight. Elisaveta fell into his arms and kissed him and laughed, and kept on repeating without end:

"I love you, I love you, I love you."

And they kissed, and they laughed, and said something to one another. The red and white roses of her strong, graceful body were chaste and uncrumpled. The words they said to one another were chaste and sacred. The chaste moon looked down on them, and the stars also, as they spoke the words that bound them to one another. There were vows and rites not less durable than any other kind. There were smiles, kisses, tender words—in these consist the eternal rite and the eternal mystery.

The sky began to lighten and a new dew fell on a new dawn, and when the sunrise had extended its rapturous flames the sun rose—only then they parted.

Elisaveta returned to her room. But she could not sleep. She went into Elena's room. Elena had only just awakened. Elisaveta lay down at her side under the bed-cover, and told her about her great love, her great joy. Elena rejoiced and laughed and kissed her sister without end.

Then Elisaveta put on her morning dress, and went to her father—to tell him about her joy, her happiness.

As for Trirodov, oppressed by morning fatigue, he walked home across the moist grass—and his soul was filled with perplexity and dread.

Later in the day he drove to the Rameyevs. He brought as a gift to Elisaveta a photograph he had taken of his first wife—upon her nude body was a bronze belt, its ends coming down to the knees being joined up in the front; upon her dark hair was a narrow round strip of gold. A slender, graceful body—a melancholy smile—intense dark eyes.

"Father knows," said Elisaveta. "Father is glad. Let us go to him."

When Elisaveta and Trirodov were once more alone, a dark thought came into Elisaveta's mind. She became pensively sad, and asked:

"What of the sleeper in the grave?"

"He has awakened," replied Trirodov. "He's in my house. We've dug up his grave just in time to save his mother from having any qualms of conscience."

"What do you mean?"

Trirodov explained:

"Early this morning the coroner had the grave dug up. They found the empty coffin. Luckily, I found out about this in time, before new stupid talk might arise, and gave them the necessary explanation."

"What of the boy?" asked Elisaveta.

"He will remain with me. He does not wish to go to his mother, and he is not particularly necessary to her—she will receive money for him."

Trirodov said all this in a dry, cold voice.

The news that Elisaveta would become Trirodov's wife acted differently on her relatives. Rameyev liked Trirodov, and was glad because of the closer connexion; he was a little sorry for Piotr, but thought it was well that the matter had come to a decision, and Piotr would no longer torment himself by entertaining false hopes. Nevertheless Rameyev was disturbed for some unknown reason.

Elena loved Elisaveta and shared her joy. She loved Piotr, and was, therefore, even more glad; she pitied him—and, therefore, loved him even more. She loved him so deeply, and entertained such hopes of his love, that her pity for him became serene and radiant. She looked at Piotr with loving eyes.

Piotr was in a state of despair. But Elena's eyes aroused in him a sweet agitation for a new love. His wearied heart thirsted, and suffered intensely from deceived hopes.

Misha was strangely distraught. He flushed, and ran off more than usual with his fishing-rod to the river; there he wept. Now he impetuously embraced Elisaveta, now Trirodov. He felt ashamed and bitter. He knew that Elisaveta did not even suspect his love, and that she looked at him as at an infant. Sometimes in his helplessness he hated her. He said to Piotr:

"I shouldn't walk about with a long face if I were you. She is not worthy of your love. She puts on airs. Elena is much better. Elena is a dear, while the other fancies all sorts of things."

Piotr walked away from him in silence. And it was well that there was some one who did not scold, and with whom it was possible to ease his soul. Misha, too, wanted to be with Elisaveta, and it made him feel ashamed and depressed.

Miss Harrison did not express her opinion. Many things had already shocked her, and she grew accustomed to bear herself indifferently to everything that happened here. Trirodov, in her opinion, was an adventurer, a man with a doubtful reputation, and a dark past.

Elisaveta was the most tranquil of all.

Piotr's gloomy appearance disturbed Rameyev. He wanted to comfort him if only with words. Luckily, people believe even in words! They must believe in something.

Rameyev and Piotr happened to find themselves alone. Rameyev said:

"I must confess that I once thought Elisaveta loved you. Or that she might love you, if you wished it strongly."

Piotr said with a gloomy smile:

"I too may be pardoned for the error. All the more since M. Trirodov does not lack lovers."

"Any one may be pardoned for mistakes," answered Rameyev calmly, "though they may be painful enough sometimes."

Piotr grumbled something. Rameyev continued:

"I have been observing Elisaveta very attentively of late. And listen to what I say—pardon me for my frankness—I have come to the conclusion that you'd be better off with Elena. Perhaps you have also erred in your feelings."

Piotr replied with a bitter smile:

"Why, of course—Elena is more simple. She doesn't read philosophic books, she doesn't wear over-classical frocks; and doesn't detest any one."

"Why drag self-love into everything?" asked Rameyev. "Elena is not as simple as you think. She is a very intelligent girl, though without pretensions to a deep and broad outlook—and she is good, attractive, and cheerful."