The Precipice Part 56

CHAPTER x.x.x

Vera rose the next morning pale and exhausted, but without any fever.

She had wept out her malady on her grandmother's breast. The doctor professed himself satisfied, and said she should stay in her room for a few days. Everything in the house went on as before. There were no festivities in honour of Vera's name day, as she had expressed a wish that there should be none. Neither Marfinka nor the Vikentevs came; a messenger was sent to Kolchino with the announcement that Vera Va.s.silievna was unwell and was keeping her room. Tushin sent his congratulations in a respectful note, asking for permission to come and see her. Her reply was that he should wait a little until she was better.

Under the pretext of Vera's illness, callers who came from the town to present their congratulations were not admitted. Only the servants celebrated the occasion in their own way; the maids appeared in their gay dresses, and the coachmen and the lackeys got drunk.

Vera and her aunt developed a new relationship. Tatiana Markovna's consideration for Vera was by no means a.s.sumed, but her kindness did not make Vera's heart lighter. What she had expected and wished was severe judgment, a penance, perhaps exile for half a year or a year to Tatiana Markovna's distant estate, where she would gradually win back her peace of mind or at any rate forget, if it was true, as Raisky said, that time extinguishes all impressions. "I see," thought Vera, "that Grandmother suffers inexpressibly. Grief has changed her altogether; her figure is bowed and her face more deeply furrowed. Perhaps she is only sparing me now because her heart has opened itself to pity. She cannot bear to punish me, now that I am ill and repentant." Vera had lost her pride, her self-respect and her dignity, and if once these flowers are taken out of the crown which adorns the head of man, his doom is at hand. She tried to pray and could not, for she had nothing to pray for, and could only bow her head in humility.

Raisky came into much closer relation with his aunt and Vera. His naturalness and genuine affection, the friendly intimacy of his conversation, his straightforwardness, his talkative humour, and the gleaming play of his fancy were a distraction and a consolation to both of them. He often drew a laugh from them, but he tried in vain to distract them from the grief which hung like a cloud over them both and over the whole house. He himself was sad when he saw that neither his esteem nor Tatiana Markovna's kindness could give back to poor Vera her courage, her pride, her confidence and her strength of will.

Tatiana Markovna spent the nights in the old house on the divan opposite Vera's bed and watched her sleep. But it nearly always happened that they were both observing one another, so that neither of them found refreshing sleep. On the morning after a sleepless night of this kind, Tatiana Markovna sent for Tiet Nikonich. He came gladly, plainly delighted that the illness which threatened Vera Va.s.silievna had blown over, and bringing with him a water melon of extraordinary size and a pineapple for a present. But a glance at his old friend was enough to make him change colour. Tatiana Markovna hastily put on her fur-trimmed cloak, threw a scarf over her head, and signed to him to follow her as she led the way into the garden. They sat for two hours on Vera's bench.

Then she went back to the house with bowed head, while he drove home, overcome with grief, ordered his servants to pack, sent for post horses, and drove to his estate, to which he had not been for many years.

Raisky, who had gone to see him, heard the news with astonishment. He questioned his aunt, who told him that some disturbance had broken out on Tiet Nikonich's estate. Vera was sadder than ever. Lines began to appear on her forehead, which would one day become furrows. Sometimes she would approach the table on which the unopened blue letter lay and then turn away. Where should she flee, where conceal herself from the world? When night fell, she lay down, put out the light, and stared wide-eyed in front of her. She wanted to forget, to sleep, but sleep would not come. Dark spots, blacker than night, danced before her eyes, shadows moved up and down with a wave-like motion in the glimmer of light that lay around the window. But she felt no fear, she would not have died of terror if there had risen suddenly out of the corner a ghost, a thief or a murderer; she would not have felt any fear if she had been told that her last hour was come. She looked out unceasingly into the darkness, at the waving shadows, at the flitting specks which stood out the more clearly in the blackness of the night, at the rings of changing colour which whirled shimmering round her.

Slowly and quietly the door opened. Vera propped herself on her elbow and saw a hand carrying a lamp carefully shaded. Tatiana Markovna dropped her cloak from her shoulder on to a chair and approached the bed, looking not unlike a ghost in her white dressing-gown. Vera had laid her head back on the pillow and pretended to sleep. Tatiana Markovna put the lamp on the table behind the bed-head, and sat down carefully and quietly on the divan with her head leaning on her hand. She did not take her eyes from Vera, and when Vera opened her own an hour later Tatiana Markovna was still looking fixedly at her. "Can't you sleep, Vera?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Why do you punish me in the night too, Grandmother?" asked Vera in a low tone. The two women looked at one another and both seemed to understand the speech in their eyes. "You are killing me with sympathy, Grandmother," Vera went on. "It would be better to drive me from your sight. But it is very hard for me to bear when you measure out your scorn drop by drop. Either forgive me or, if that is impossible, bury me alive. Why are you silent? What is in your mind? Your silence tortures me; it seems to say something, and yet never says it."

"It is so hard, Vera, to speak. Pray, and understand your Grandmother even when she is silent."

"I have tried to pray, and cannot. What have I to pray for, except that I should die the sooner. I shall die I know; only let it come quickly, for like this it is impossible to live."

"It is possible," said Tatiana Markovna, drawing a deep sigh.

"After ... that?"

"After _that_," replied her grandmother.

"You don't know, Grandmother," said Vera with a hopeless sigh. "You have not been a woman like me."

Tatiana Markovna stooped down to Vera, and whispered in a hardy audible voice, "A woman like you."

Vera looked at her in amazement, then let her head fall back on the pillow and said wearily, "You were never in my position. You are a saint."

"A sinner," rejoined Tatiana Markovna.

"We are all sinners, but not a sinner of that kind."

"Of that kind."

Vera seized Tatiana Markovna's dress with both hands, and pressed her face to hers. The words that came from her troubled breast sounded like hisses. "Why do you slander yourself? Is it in order to calm and help me?

Grandmother, do not lie!"

"I never lie and you know it, and how should I begin to do so now. I am a sinner, and myself need forgiveness," she said, throwing herself on her knees and bowing her grey head.

"Why do you say these things to me?" said Vera, staring at the kneeling woman, and pressing her head to her breast. "Take your words back again.

I have not heard them or will forget them; will regard them as the product of a dream. Do not torture yourself for my sake. Rise, Grandmother." Tatiana Markovna lay on her breast, sobbing like a child.

"Why did you tell me this?" said Vera.

"It was G.o.d's wish that I should humble myself to ask you, my child, for forgiveness. If you grant me your forgiveness, Vera, I, too, can forgive you. I had hoped to keep my secret until I died, and now my sin has plunged you into ruin."

"You rescue me, Grandmother, from despair."

"And myself, Vera. G.o.d forgives, but he demands cleansing. I thought my sin was forgotten and forgiven. Because of my silence I seemed to men to be virtuous, but my virtue was a lie. G.o.d has punished my sin. Forgive me from your heart."

"Does one forgive one's Mother? You are a saint, a Mother without a peer in the whole wide world. If I had known you, as you really are, how could I have acted contrary to your will?"

"That is my second terrible sin. I was silent, and did not tell you to beware of the precipice. Your dead Mother will call me to account for my failure, I know. She comes to me in my dreams, and is now here between us. Do you also forgive me, Departed One," she cried wildly, stretching out her arms in supplication.

Vera shuddered.

"Forgive me, Vera. I ask forgiveness of you both. We will pray."

Vera tried to raise her to her feet, and Tatiana Markovna raised herself with difficulty, and sat down on the divan.

Vera bathed her temples with eau de Cologne, and gave her a sedative; then she kneeled down before her and covered her hand with kisses.

"What is hidden must be revealed," began Tatiana Markovna, when she had recovered a little. "For forty-five years only two human beings beside myself have known it, _he_ and Va.s.silissa, and I thought the secret would die with me. And now it is made public. My G.o.d!" she cried, wildly, stretching her folded arms to the picture of the Christ. "Had I known that this stroke would ever fall on another, on _my_ child, I would have confessed my sin there and then to the all world in the Cathedral square."

Vera still hesitated to believe what she heard. Was it a heroic measure, a generous invention to rescue and restore her own self-respect? But her aunt's prayers, her tears, her appeal to Vera's dead mother, no actress would have dared to use such devices, and her aunt was the soul of truth and honour.

Warm life pulsed in Vera's heart, and her heart was lightened. She felt as if life was streaming through her veins after an evil dream. Peace tapped at the door of her soul, the dark forsaken temple, which was now gaily lighted once more and a home of prayer. She felt that Tatiana Markovna and she were inseparable sisters, and she even began involuntarily to address her as "thou," as she had done Raisky when her heart responded to his kindness. As these thoughts whirled in her head, she had a sensation of lightness and freedom, like a prisoner whose fetters have been removed.

"Grandmother," she said, rising, "you have forgiven me, and you love me more than you do any of the others, more than Marfinka, that I realise.

But do you know and understand my love for you? I should not have suffered as I did, but for my love for you. How long we have been strangers!"

"I will tell you all, Vera, and you must hear my confession. Judge me severely, but pardon me, and G.o.d will pardon us both."

"I will not, I ought not, I may not," cried Vera. "To what end should I hear it?"

"So that I may suffer once more, as I suffered five-and-forty years ago.

You know my sin, and Boris shall know it. He may laugh at the grey hairs of old Kunigunde."

As she strode up and down, shaking her head in her fanatical seriousness, with sorrow and triumphant dignity in her face, her resemblance to the old family portrait in the gallery was very marked.

Beside her Vera felt like a small and pitiful child as she gazed timidly into her aunt's eyes; she measured her own young strength by the strength of this old woman who had ripened and remained unbroken in the long struggle of life.

"My whole life can never repay what you have done for me, Grandmother.

Let this be the end of your penance, and tell me no more. If you are determined that Boris shall know, I will whisper a word about your past to him. Since I have seen your anguish, why should you suffer a longer martyrdom? I will not listen. It is not my place to sit in judgment on you. Let me hold your grey hairs sacred."

Tatiana Markovna sighed, and embraced Vera.

"As you will. Your will is like G.o.d's forgiveness to me, and I am grateful to you for sparing my grey hairs."