Asbein Part 14

Resistingly the little fellow freed himself from his mother, then he brought the doc.u.ment, which was concealed behind a vase, and carried it, with importance as well as embarra.s.sment, to his father. On the already extensively sealed envelope, between three lines, stood the unformed, but neatly and industriously written letters:

MONSIEUR BORIS LENSKY, EN AMRIQUE.

"The letter is to be sent to you when you are over there," explained Natalie.

"How nicely the wight writes for his five years," said Lensky touched, looking at the envelope. "You guided his hand, Natascha?"

"Oh, no!" declared Natalie.

"But you prompted him?"

"Certainly not; he thought it out all by himself; did you not, Nikolinka?" said Natalie.

The little one nodded earnestly; he was quite crimson with pride and embarra.s.sment. His father took him between his knees, called him "Umnitza," which in Russian means paragon of wisdom, kissed and caressed him, then rang the bell for Palagea, and told him he must go now and wash his hands, and have his curls brushed smooth, and then he should take dinner with his parents, because he had been so clever.

When the child had tripped out at the nurse's hand, Lensky threw himself down on the stool at his wife's feet. It had now become quite dark. The heavy, regular-falling rain still rustled in the foliage without, in a dreamy, melancholy cadence.

"Listen; how sweet, how sad!" said Natalie, turning her head to the window, through which the landscape, behind its double veil of rain and twilight, looked to one like a greenish-gray chaos only, without any distinct outlines.

"The D-flat major prelude of Chopin," said Lensky.

She shook her head. "No, I did not think of that," whispered she. "But see! Sometimes it seems to me that the ghost of the poor young wife who died here creeps around the Hermitage, and sighs for the happiness which she might not finish enjoying. She died after the first year, while I, Boris--I was happy six years. It is too much for one human life. Sometimes--it is a sin; I know it--and still, sometimes I quite wished I might die, but I dare not; Kolia still needs me."

Soon after this she brought a little girl into the world, who was baptized Marie, after the grandmother and the little dead sister.

A few weeks pa.s.sed, she convalesced rapidly. The day of farewell came, on which everyone hastened, with everything overhurried, incessantly imagined there was too much to do in preparing for the journey, and finally had nothing more to do. The day on which all the usual occupations were sacrificed in honor of the pain of parting, when one aimlessly trifled away the hours, tormented by nervous unrest, which finally expressed itself in the dullest _ennui_.

They sat together; now here, now there, and did not know what to do.

Lensky was to take the six o'clock train to Paris; from there, the same evening, he would travel with Morinsky's troupe to Boulogne, for they would take ship in Liverpool for America.

The dinner-hour was changed from seven to four, lunch and breakfast were combined at ten o'clock. These irregular hours took away one's appet.i.te, accustomed to regular hours, and increased the general discomfort.

In order to kill the last half-hour before dinner they took a walk through the immense, solitary park. Kolia went with them.

It was a beautiful October day, with a blue heaven over which only filmy white clouds spread themselves, and from which the sun looked down so sadly and mildly as only the October sun looks down on the dying beauty of the year. Ma.s.ses of foliage still hung on the trees, but it was already withered--it no longer lived. And in the midst of the windless peace, one heard, again and again, the gentle sighing of a dead leaf that fell on the turf.

Both the parents were silent, only the little boy asked, from time to time, tender, important questions of his father, whom he loved very much, although he felt a kind of shyness of him. At first Lensky led the child by the hand, then he took him in his arms, in order to have the pleasure of holding the supple little body quite closely to him and feel the soft, warm little arms round his neck.

They hurried back to the house so as not to delay dinner, and naturally arrived much too early.

"Play me something for a farewell," begged Natalie.

"One of the Chopin nocturnes which I transposed for your sake?" asked he.

"No, just what you have in your heart," replied Natalie.

He took up his violin. It was the same violin which he had tried in the Palazzo Morsini, the Amati which Natalie had given him when they were betrothed. He was very excited, and became paler with every stroke.

The whole desperation of a great nature which feels an unavoidable degradation approaching, spoke from his improvisation, and in the midst of the pa.s.sionate and painful madness rose melodies so pure, so beautifully holy, like the resting in heart-felt prayer of a nature all in uproar.

When he had finished and wished to put the violin back in the case in which he should take it with him to America, Natalie took it from his hand.

"What do you wish with it?" he asked.

She kissed the violin and then handed it to him. "Here you have it,"

said she, very softly. "It will never sing so again until you return."

At last the servant announced that dinner was served. They sat down to the executioner meal, the executioner meal for which all his little favorite dishes had been prepared, at which everything was so abundant and so good, only the appet.i.te was lacking.

It was still light when they went to dinner. The light slowly died in the course of the meal. The words fell seldomer and more seldom from Lensky's lips; there was a leaden silence; the brook sobbed without.

Lensky held his wine-gla.s.s toward Natalie. "To a happy meeting!" said he; "to a happy meeting!" She repeated, dully: "I will await you here next year when the roses bloom." He pressed her hand; he could not contain himself during the whole meal, but got up before the dessert and began to walk up and down restlessly.

"You have still time," Natalie a.s.sured him; "the coffee will come immediately."

"Thanks; is baby asleep? I would like to give her a kiss before I go."

They brought little Maschenka. He kissed and blessed the tiny, rosy child, bundled up in lace and muslin. He has kissed Kolia, loudly crying from excitement, and commissioned him to be brave and not to grieve his mother.

Now he goes up to his wife. They have brought the lamps; he wishes to see her distinctly before he goes. She tries to smile; she raises her arms to stretch them out to him--the arms sink.

"My heart, be reasonable," says he, and draws her to him. A fearful groan comes from her lips; she presses her mouth against his shoulder so as not to scream aloud; her form shook.

He held her to him so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. For one moment he is all hers--it is the last in her life! She knows it! The happiness of her love rallies once more in a feeling of awful, delirious happiness, and dies in a kiss!

Now he has gone! She accompanied him to the house-door. There she now stands and gazes along the street, through the twilight, where he has disappeared between the trees. It did not seem to her that she had parted from a dear man who was about to make a journey. No; as if they had carried a corpse out of the house. It is all over--all! Whatever further comes is only more dry bitterness and inconsolable torment of the heart. She sees his footprints in the half darkness. Why had she not accompanied him to the railway? she asks herself, why--why? From stupid anxiety, from pride of giving the few loafers at the station the sight of her despair had she renounced the pleasure of enjoying his presence until the last moment? She steps outdoors, hurries her steps, wishes to hurry after him, to see him once more, only one moment--then the loud voice of the railroad bell breaks the universal silence--a shrill whistle--it is over! She falls down, buries her face in the cool autumn gra.s.s at the edge of the garden path, and sobs as one sobs over a fresh grave.

About three hours later, Lensky, with his colleagues and Morinsky, sat penned up in a coup of the first cla.s.s. The train was over-full, there were eight of them in the small compartment.

In one corner slept Morinsky, his fur collar drawn up over his ears, his head covered with a fez, whose blue ta.s.sel waved to and fro over his left ear, which lent his sharp yellow face a diabolical expression.

Opposite him sat an old woman with a copper colored skin, and held a basket of lunch on her knees. At first she had uninterruptedly chewed and smacked her lips, now she snored. She was the mother of a famous staccato singer, who, large and blond, with her head and shoulders prudently wrapped in a red fascinator, embroidered with gold, and painted, and smelling of cosmetics, coquetted with the 'cellist, a very effeminate young man who looked like an actor. They had spread a shawl over their knees, and the diva laid the cards for him, which gave occasion for the most entertaining allusions.

The accompanist of the troupe, a pedantic young pianist, afflicted with a chronic hoa.r.s.eness, which alone prevented him from becoming a tenor of the first rank, formed the public to the beautiful duet, while he laughed loudly at every particularly poor witticism.

The 'cellist and the diva were very familiar with each other, and both constantly made use of expressions of the commonest kind.

The laughter of the diva became ever shriller, while that of the 'cellist sounded ever deeper from his boots.