The Precipice Part 21

It must be easy for you to begin a romance with her."

Raisky made an angry gesture, to which Mark replied by a burst of laughter.

"Call the ancient wisdom to your help," he said. "Show outward coldness when you are inwardly consumed, indifference of manner, pride, contempt--every little helps. Parade yourself before her as suits your calling."

"My calling?"

"Isn't it your calling to be eccentric?"

"Perhaps," remarked Raisky indifferently.

"I, for instance," said Mark, "should make direct for my goal, and should be sure of victory. You may do the same, but you would do so penetrated by the conviction that you stood on the heights and had drawn her up to you, you idealist. Show that you understand your calling, and you may succeed. It's no use to wear yourself out with sighs, to be sleepless, to watch for the raising of the lilac curtain by a white hand, to wait a week for a kindly glance."

Raisky rose, furious.

"Ah, I have hit the bull's eye."

Raisky put compulsion on himself to restrain his rage, for every involuntary expression or gesture of anger would have meant nothing less than acquiescence.

"I should very well like to fall in love, but I cannot," he yawned, counterfeiting indifference. "It is unsuited to my years and doesn't cure my boredom."

"Try it," teased Mark. "Let us have a wager that in a week you will be as enamoured as a young cat. And within two months, or perhaps one, you will have perpetrated so many follies that you will not know how to get away from here."

"If I am, with what will you pay?" asked Raisky in a tone bordering on contempt.

"I will give you my trousers or my gun. I possess only two pairs of trousers. The tailor has recovered a third pair for debt. Wait, I will try on your coat. Why, it fits as if I were poured into a mould. Try mine."

"Why?"

"I should like to see whether it suits you. Please try it on, do."

Raisky was indulgent enough to allow himself to be persuaded, and put on Mark's worn, dirty coat.

"Well, does it suit?"

"It fits!"

"Wear it then. You don't wear a coat long, while for me it lasts for two years. Besides, whether you are contented or not I shan't take yours off my shoulders. You would have to steal it from me."

Raisky shrugged his shoulders.

"Does the wager hold!" asked Mark.

"What put you on to that--you will excuse me--ridiculous idea?"

"Don't excuse yourself. Does it hold?"

"The wager is not equal. You have no possessions."

"Don't be disturbed on that account. I shall not have to pay. If my prophecy comes true, then you will pay me three hundred roubles, which would come in very conveniently."

"What nonsense," said Raisky, as he stood up and reached for his cap and stick.

"At the latest you will be in love in a fortnight. In a month you will be groaning, wandering about like a ghost, playing your part in a drama, or possibly in a tragedy, and ending, as all your like do, with some piece of folly. I know you, I can see through you."

"But if, instead my falling in love with her, she were to fall in love with me...."

"Vera! with you!"

"Yes, Vera, with me."

"Then I will find a double pledge, and bring it to you."

"You are a madman!" said Raisky, and went without bestowing a further glance on Mark.

"In one month's time I shall have won three hundred roubles," Mark cried after him.

Raisky walked angrily home. "I wonder where our charmer is now," he wondered gloomily. "Probably sitting on her favourite bench, admiring the view. I will see." As he knew Vera's habits, he could say with nearly complete certainty where she would be at any hour of the day. He went over to the precipice, and saw her, as he had thought, sitting on the bench with a book in her hand. Instead of reading she looked out, now over the Volga, now into the bushes. When she saw Raisky, she rose slowly and walked over to the old house. He signed to her to wait for him, but she either did not perceive the sign, or did not wish to do so.

When she reached the courtyard she quickened her steps, and disappeared within the door of the old house.

Raisky could hardly control his rage. "And a stupid girl like that thinks that I am in love with her," he thought. "She has not the remotest conception of manners." In offering the wager, Mark had stirred up all the bitterness latent in him. He hardly looked at Vera when he sat opposite her at dinner. If he happened to raise his eyes, it was as if he were dazed by a flash of lightning. Once or twice she had looked at him in a kind, almost affectionate way, but his wild glance betrayed to her the agitation, of which she deemed herself to be the cause, and to avoid meeting his eyes she bent her head over her empty plate.

"After dinner, I shall drive with Marfinka to the hay harvest," said Tatiana Markovna to Raisky. "Will you bestow on your meadows the honour of your presence, Sir?"

"I have no inclination to go," he murmured.

"Does the world go so hard with you?" asked Tatiana Markovna. "You are indeed weighed down with work."

He looked at Vera, who was mixing red wine with water. She emptied her gla.s.s, rose, kissed her aunt's hand, and went out.

Raisky too rose, and went to his room. His aunt, Marfinka, and Vikentev, who had just happened to turn up, drove to the hay harvest, and the afternoon peace soon reigned over the house. One man crawled into the hayrick, another in the outhouse, another slept in the family carriage itself, while others took advantage of the mistress's absence to go into the outskirts of the town.

Raisky's thoughts were filled with Vera. Although he had sworn to himself to think of her no more, he could not conquer his thoughts.

Where was she? He would go to her and talk it all over. He was inspired only with curiosity, he a.s.sured himself. He took his cap and hurried out.

Vera was neither in the room nor in the old house; he searched for her in vain on the field, in the vegetable garden, in the thicket on the cliff, and went to look for her down along the bank of the Volga. When he found no one he turned homewards, and suddenly came across her a few steps from him, not far from the house.

"Ah!" he cried, "there you are. I have been hunting for you everywhere."

"And I have been waiting for you here," she returned.

He felt as if he were suddenly enveloped in winter in the soft airs of the South.

"You--waiting for me," he said in a strange voice, and looked at her in astonishment.

"I wanted to ask you why you pursue me?"

Raisky looked at her fixedly.

"I hardly ever speak to you."