The Precipice Part 51

"All that Grandmother has, and she has many things, will be divided between you and Veroshka. Now make haste."

"How lovely you are to-day, Grandmother. Cousin is right. Tiet Nikonich will fall in love with you."

"Nonsense, chatterbox. Go to Veroshka, and tell her not to be late for Ma.s.s. I would have gone myself, but am afraid of the steps."

"Directly, Grandmother," cried Marfinka, and hastened to change her dress.

Vera lay unconscious for half an hour before she came to herself. The cold wind that streamed through the open window fell on her face, and she sat up to look around her. Then she rose, shut the window, walked unsteadily to the bed, sank down on it, and drawing the cover over herself, lay motionless.

Overpowered with weakness she fell into a deep sleep, with her hair loose over the pillow. She slept heavily for about three hours until she was awakened by the noise in the courtyard, the many voices, the creaking of wheels and the sound of bells. She opened her eyes, looked round, and listened.

There was a light knock at the door, but Vera did not stir. There was a louder knock, but she remained motionless. At the third she got up, glanced in the gla.s.s, and was terrified by the sight of her own face.

She pushed her hair into order, threw a shawl over her shoulders, picked up Marfinka's bouquet from the floor, and laid it on the table. There was another knock and she opened the door. Marfinka, gay and lovely, gleaming like a rainbow in her pretty clothes, flew into the room. When she saw her sister she stood still in amazement.

"What is the matter with you, Veroshka? Aren't you well?"

"Not quite. I offer you my congratulations."

The sisters kissed one another.

"How lovely you are, and how beautifully dressed!" said Vera, making a faint attempt to smile. Her lips framed one, but her eyes were like the eyes of a corpse that no one has remembered to close. But she felt she must control herself, and hastened to present Marfinka with the bouquet.

"What a lovely bouquet! And what is this?" asked Marfinka as she felt a hard substance, and discovered the holder set with her name and the pearls. "You, too, Veroshka! How is it you all love me so? I love you all, how I love you! But how and when you found out that I did, I cannot think."

Vera was not capable of answering, but she caressed Marfinka's shoulder affectionately.

"I must sit down," she said. "I have slept badly through the night."

"Grandmother calls you to Ma.s.s."

"I cannot, darling. Tell her I am unwell, and cannot leave the house to-day."

"What! you are not coming?"

"I shall stay in bed. Perhaps I caught cold yesterday. Tell Grandmother."

"We will come to you."

"You would only disturb me."

"Then we shall send everything over. Ah, Veroshka, people have sent me so many presents, and flowers and bonbons. I must show them to you," and she ran over a list of them.

"Yes, show me everything; perhaps I will come later," said Vera absently.

"Another bouquet?" asked Marfinka, pointing to the one that lay on the floor. "For whom? How lovely!"

"For you too," said Vera, turning paler. She picked a ribbon hastily from a drawer and fastened the bouquet with it. Then she kissed her sister, and sank down on the divan.

"You are really ill. How pale you are! Shall I tell Grandmother, and let her send for the doctor? How sad that it should be on my birthday. The day is spoiled for me!"

"It will pa.s.s. Don't say a word to Grandmother. Don't frighten her.

Leave me now, for I must rest."

At last Marfinka went. Vera shut the door after her, and lay down on the divan.

CHAPTER XXVI

When Raisky returned to his room at daybreak and looked in the mirror, he hardly recognised himself. He felt chilly, and sent Marina for a gla.s.s of wine which he drank before he threw himself on his bed.

Overcome by moral and physical exhaustion he slept as if he had thrown himself into the arms of a friend and had confided his trouble to him.

Sleep did him the service of a friend, for it carried him far from Vera, from Malinovka, from the precipice, from the fantastic vision of last night. When the ringing of many bells awoke him he lay for several minutes under the soothing influence of the physical rest, which built a rampart between him and yesterday. There was no agony in his awakening moments. But soon memory revived, and his face wore an expression more terrible than in the worst moments of yesterday. A pain different from yesterday's, a new devil had hurled itself upon him. He seized one piece of clothing after another and dressed as hastily and nervously as Vera had done as she prepared to go to the precipice.

He rang for Egorka, from whom he learnt that everybody except Vera, who was not well, had driven to Ma.s.s. In wild agitation he dashed across to the old house. There was no response when he knocked at Vera's door. He opened it cautiously, and stole in like a man with murderous intent, with horror imprinted on his features, and advanced on tiptoe, trembling, deadly pale, with swaying steps as if he might fall at any minute.

Vera lay on the divan, with her face turned away, her hair falling down almost to the floor, and her slipper-clad feet hardly covered by her grey skirt. She tried to turn round when she heard the noise of the opening door, but could not.

He approached, knelt at her feet, and pressed his lips to the slipper she wore. Suddenly she turned, and stared at him in astonishment. "Is it comedy or romance, Boris Pavlovich," she asked brusquely, turned in annoyance, and hid her foot under the skirt which she straightened quickly.

"No, Vera, tragedy," he whispered in a lifeless voice, and sat down on the chair near the divan.

The tone of his voice moved her to turn and look keenly at him, and her eyes opened wide with astonishment. She threw aside her shawl, and rose, she had divined in Raisky's face the presence of the same deadly suffering that she herself endured.

"What is your trouble? Are _you_ unhappy?" she said, laying her hand on his shoulder. In the simple word and in the tone of her voice there were revealed the generous qualities of a woman, sympathy, selflessness, and love.

Keenly touched by the kindness and tenderness in her voice he looked at her with the same rapturous grat.i.tude which she had worn on her face yesterday when in self-forgetfulness he had helped her down the precipice. She returned generosity with generosity, just as yesterday there had streamed from him a gleam of one of the highest qualities of the human mind. He was all the more in despair over what he had done, and wept hot tears. He hid his face in his hands like a man for whom all is lost.

"What have I done? I have insulted you, woman and sister."

"Do not make us both suffer," she said in a gentle, friendly tone.

"Spare me; you see how I am."

He tried not to meet her eyes, and she again lay down on the divan.

"What a blow I dealt you," he whispered in horror. "You see my punishment, Vera!"

"Your blow gave me a minute's pain, and then I understood that it was not delivered with an indifferent hand, that you loved me. And it became clear to me how you must have suffered ... yesterday."

"Don't justify my crime, Vera. A knife is a knife, and I aimed a knife at you."

"You brought me to myself. I was as if I slept, and you, Grandmother, Marfinka and the whole house I saw as if in a dream."

"What am I to do, Vera? Fly from here? In what a state of mind I should leave! Let me endure my penance here, and be reconciled, as far as is possible, with myself, with all that has happened here."

"Your imagination paints what was only a fault as a crime. Remember your condition when you did it, your agitation!" She gave him her hand, and continued, "I know now what one is capable of doing in the fever of emotion."

She set herself to calm him in spite of her own weariness.