The Torrents of Spring Part 25

His whole being was filled full of one thing ... one idea, one desire.

Maria Nikolaevna turned a keen look upon him.

'Come, now everything's as it should be,' she observed, putting on her hat. 'Won't you sit down? Here! No, wait a minute ... don't sit down!

What's that?'

Over the tree-tops, over the air of the forest, rolled a dull rumbling.

'Can it be thunder?'

'I think it really is thunder,' answered Sanin.

'Oh, this is a treat, a real treat! That was the only thing wanting!'

The dull rumble was heard a second time, rose, and fell in a crash.

'Bravo! Bis! Do you remember I spoke of the _aeneid_ yesterday? They too were overtaken by a storm in the forest, you know. We must be off, though.' She rose swiftly to her feet. 'Bring me my horse.... Give me your hand. There, so. I'm not heavy.'

She hopped like a bird into the saddle. Sanin too mounted his horse.

'Are you going home?' he asked in an unsteady voice.

'Home indeed!' she answered deliberately and picked up the reins.

'Follow me,' she commanded almost roughly. She came out on to the road and pa.s.sing the red cross, rode down into a hollow, clambered up again to a cross road, turned to the right and again up the mountainside....

She obviously knew where the path led, and the path led farther and farther into the heart of the forest. She said nothing and did not look round; she moved imperiously in front and humbly and submissively he followed without a spark of will in his sinking heart. Rain began to fall in spots. She quickened her horse's pace, and he did not linger behind her. At last through the dark green of the young firs under an overhanging grey rock, a tumbledown little hut peeped out at him, with a low door in its wattle wall.... Maria Nikolaevna made her mare push through the fir bushes, leaped off her, and appearing suddenly at the entrance to the hut, turned to Sanin, and whispered 'aeneas.'

Four hours later, Maria Nikolaevna and Sanin, accompanied by the groom, who was nodding in the saddle, returned to Wiesbaden, to the hotel. Polozov met his wife with the letter to the overseer in his hand. After staring rather intently at her, he showed signs of some displeasure on his face, and even muttered, 'You don't mean to say you've won your bet?'

Maria Nikolaevna simply shrugged her shoulders.

The same day, two hours later, Sanin was standing in his own room before her, like one distraught, ruined....

'Where are you going, dear?' she asked him. 'To Paris, or to Frankfort?'

'I am going where you will be, and will be with you till you drive me away,' he answered with despair and pressed close to him the hands of his sovereign. She freed her hands, laid them on his head, and clutched at his hair with her fingers. She slowly turned over and twisted the unresisting hair, drew herself up, her lips curled with triumph, while her eyes, wide and clear, almost white, expressed nothing but the ruthlessness and glutted joy of conquest. The hawk, as it clutches a captured bird, has eyes like that.

XLIII

This was what Dimitri Sanin remembered when in the stillness of his room turning over his old papers he found among them a garnet cross.

The events we have described rose clearly and consecutively before his mental vision.... But when he reached the moment when he addressed that humiliating prayer to Madame Polozov, when he grovelled at her feet, when his slavery began, he averted his gaze from the images he had evoked, he tried to recall no more. And not that his memory failed him, oh no! he knew only too well what followed upon that moment, but he was stifled by shame, even now, so many years after; he dreaded that feeling of self-contempt, which he knew for certain would overwhelm him, and like a torrent, flood all other feelings if he did not bid his memory be still. But try as he would to turn away from these memories, he could not stifle them entirely. He remembered the scoundrelly, tearful, lying, pitiful letter he had sent to Gemma, that never received an answer.... See her again, go back to her, after such falsehood, such treachery, no! no! he could not, so much conscience and honesty was left in him. Moreover, he had lost every trace of confidence in himself, every atom of self-respect; he dared not rely on himself for anything. Sanin recollected too how he had later on--oh, ignominy!--sent the Polozovs' footman to Frankfort for his things, what cowardly terror he had felt, how he had had one thought only, to get away as soon as might be to Paris--to Paris; how in obedience to Maria Nikolaevna, he had humoured and tried to please Ippolit Sidoritch and been amiable to Donhof, on whose finger he noticed just such an iron ring as Maria Nikolaevna had given him!!!

Then followed memories still worse, more ignominious ... the waiter hands him a visiting card, and on it is the name, 'Pantaleone Cippatola, court singer to His Highness the Duke of Modena!' He hides from the old man, but cannot escape meeting him in the corridor, and a face of exasperation rises before him under an upstanding topknot of grey hair; the old eyes blaze like red-hot coals, and he hears menacing cries and curses: '_Maledizione!_' hears even the terrible words: '_Codardo! Infame traditore!_' Sanin closes his eyes, shakes his head, turns away again and again, but still he sees himself sitting in a travelling carriage on the narrow front seat ... In the comfortable places facing the horses sit Maria Nikolaevna and Ippolit Sidoritch, the four horses trotting all together fly along the paved roads of Wiesbaden to Paris! to Paris! Ippolit Sidoritch is eating a pear which Sanin has peeled for him, while Maria Nikolaevna watches him and smiles at him, her bondslave, that smile he knows already, the smile of the proprietor, the slave-owner.... But, good G.o.d, out there at the corner of the street not far from the city walls, wasn't it Pantaleone again, and who with him? Can it be Emilio? Yes, it was he, the enthusiastic devoted boy! Not long since his young face had been full of reverence before his hero, his ideal, but now his pale handsome face, so handsome that Maria Nikolaevna noticed him and poked her head out of the carriage window, that n.o.ble face is glowing with anger and contempt; his eyes, so like _her_ eyes! are fastened upon Sanin, and the tightly compressed lips part to revile him....

And Pantaleone stretches out his hand and points Sanin out to Tartaglia standing near, and Tartaglia barks at Sanin, and the very bark of the faithful dog sounds like an unbearable reproach....

Hideous!

And then, the life in Paris, and all the humiliations, all the loathsome tortures of the slave, who dare not be jealous or complain, and who is cast aside at last, like a worn-out garment....

Then the going home to his own country, the poisoned, the devastated life, the petty interests and petty cares, bitter and fruitless regret, and as bitter and fruitless apathy, a punishment not apparent, but of every minute, continuous, like some trivial but incurable disease, the payment farthing by farthing of the debt, which can never be settled....

The cup was full enough.

How had the garnet cross given Sanin by Gemma existed till now, why had he not sent it back, how had it happened that he had never come across it till that day? A long, long while he sat deep in thought, and taught as he was by the experience of so many years, he still could not comprehend how he could have deserted Gemma, so tenderly and pa.s.sionately loved, for a woman he did not love at all.... Next day he surprised all his friends and acquaintances by announcing that he was going abroad.

The surprise was general in society. Sanin was leaving Petersburg, in the middle of the winter, after having only just taken and furnished a capital flat, and having even secured seats for all the performances of the Italian Opera, in which Madame Patti ... Patti, herself, herself, was to take part! His friends and acquaintances wondered; but it is not human nature as a rule to be interested long in other people's affairs, and when Sanin set off for abroad, none came to the railway station to see him off but a French tailor, and he only in the hope of securing an unpaid account '_pour un saute-en-barque en velours noir tout a fait chic_.'

XLIV

Sanin told his friends he was going abroad, but he did not say where exactly: the reader will readily conjecture that he made straight for Frankfort. Thanks to the general extension of railways, on the fourth day after leaving Petersburg he was there. He had not visited the place since 1840. The hotel, the White Swan, was standing in its old place and still flourishing, though no longer regarded as first cla.s.s.

The _Zeile_, the princ.i.p.al street of Frankfort was little changed, but there was not only no trace of Signora Roselli's house, the very street in which it stood had disappeared. Sanin wandered like a man in a dream about the places once so familiar, and recognised nothing; the old buildings had vanished; they were replaced by new streets of huge continuous houses and fine villas; even the public garden, where that last interview with Gemma had taken place, had so grown up and altered that Sanin wondered if it really were the same garden. What was he to do? How and where could he get information? Thirty years, no little thing! had pa.s.sed since those days. No one to whom he applied had even heard of the name Roselli; the hotel-keeper advised him to have recourse to the public library, there, he told him, he would find all the old newspapers, but what good he would get from that, the hotel-keeper owned he didn't see. Sanin in despair made inquiries about Herr Kluber. That name the hotel-keeper knew well, but there too no success awaited him. The elegant shop-manager, after making much noise in the world and rising to the position of a capitalist, had speculated, was made bankrupt, and died in prison.... This piece of news did not, however, occasion Sanin the slightest regret. He was beginning to feel that his journey had been rather precipitate....

But, behold, one day, as he was turning over a Frankfort directory, he came on the name: Von Donhof, retired major. He promptly took a carriage and drove to the address, though why was this Von Donhof certain to be that Donhof, and why even was the right Donhof likely to be able to tell him any news of the Roselli family? No matter, a drowning man catches at straws.

Sanin found the retired major von Donhof at home, and in the grey-haired gentleman who received him he recognised at once his adversary of bygone days. Donhof knew him too, and was positively delighted to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the escapades of his youth. Sanin heard from him that the Roselli family had long, long ago emigrated to America, to New York; that Gemma had married a merchant; that he, Donhof, had an acquaintance also a merchant, who would probably know her husband's address, as he did a great deal of business with America. Sanin begged Donhof to consult this friend, and, to his delight, Donhof brought him the address of Gemma's husband, Mr. Jeremy Sloc.u.m, New York, Broadway, No. 501. Only this address dated from the year 1863.

'Let us hope,' cried Donhof, 'that our Frankfort belle is still alive and has not left New York! By the way,' he added, dropping his voice, 'what about that Russian lady, who was staying, do you remember, about that time at Wiesbaden--Madame von Bo ... von Bolozov, is she still living?'

'No,' answered Sanin, 'she died long ago.' Donhof looked up, but observing that Sanin had turned away and was frowning, he did not say another word, but took his leave.

That same day Sanin sent a letter to Madame Gemma Sloc.u.m, at New York.

In the letter he told her he was writing to her from Frankfort, where he had come solely with the object of finding traces of her, that he was very well aware that he was absolutely without a right to expect that she would answer his appeal; that he had not deserved her forgiveness, and could only hope that among happy surroundings she had long ago forgotten his existence. He added that he had made up his mind to recall himself to her memory in consequence of a chance circ.u.mstance which had too vividly brought back to him the images of the past; he described his life, solitary, childless, joyless; he implored her to understand the grounds that had induced him to address her, not to let him carry to the grave the bitter sense of his own wrongdoing, expiated long since by suffering, but never forgiven, and to make him happy with even the briefest news of her life in the new world to which she had gone away. 'In writing one word to me,'

so Sanin ended his letter, 'you will be doing a good action worthy of your n.o.ble soul, and I shall thank you to my last breath. I am stopping here at the _White Swan_ (he underlined those words) and shall wait, wait till spring, for your answer.'

He despatched this letter, and proceeded to wait. For six whole weeks he lived in the hotel, scarcely leaving his room, and resolutely seeing no one. No one could write to him from Russia nor from anywhere; and that just suited his mood; if a letter came addressed to him he would know at once that it was the one he was waiting for.

He read from morning till evening, and not journals, but serious books--historical works. These prolonged studies, this stillness, this hidden life, like a snail in its sh.e.l.l, suited his spiritual condition to perfection; and for this, if nothing more, thanks to Gemma! But was she alive? Would she answer?

At last a letter came, with an American postmark, from New York, addressed to him. The handwriting of the address on the envelope was English.... He did not recognise it, and there was a pang at his heart. He could not at once bring himself to break open the envelope.

He glanced at the signature--Gemma! The tears positively gushed from his eyes: the mere fact that she signed her name, without a surname, was a pledge to him of reconciliation, of forgiveness! He unfolded the thin sheet of blue notepaper: a photograph slipped out. He made haste to pick it up--and was struck dumb with amazement: Gemma, Gemma living, young as he had known her thirty years ago! The same eyes, the same lips, the same form of the whole face! On the back of the photograph was written, 'My daughter Mariana.' The whole letter was very kind and simple. Gemma thanked Sanin for not having hesitated to write to her, for having confidence in her; she did not conceal from him that she had pa.s.sed some painful moments after his disappearance, but she added at once that for all that she considered--and had always considered--her meeting him as a happy thing, seeing that it was that meeting which had prevented her from becoming the wife of Mr. Kluber, and in that way, though indirectly, had led to her marriage with her husband, with whom she had now lived twenty-eight years, in perfect happiness, comfort, and prosperity; their house was known to every one in New York. Gemma informed Sanin that she was the mother of five children, four sons and one daughter, a girl of eighteen, engaged to be married, and her photograph she enclosed as she was generally considered very like her mother. The sorrowful news Gemma kept for the end of the letter. Frau Lenore had died in New York, where she had followed her daughter and son-in-law, but she had lived long enough to rejoice in her children's happiness and to nurse her grandchildren.

Pantaleone, too, had meant to come out to America, but he had died on the very eve of leaving Frankfort. 'Emilio, our beloved, incomparable Emilio, died a glorious death for the freedom of his country in Sicily, where he was one of the "Thousand" under the leadership of the great Garibaldi; we all bitterly lamented the loss of our priceless brother, but, even in the midst of our tears, we were proud of him--and shall always be proud of him--and hold his memory sacred!

His lofty, disinterested soul was worthy of a martyr's crown!' Then Gemma expressed her regret that Sanin's life had apparently been so unsuccessful, wished him before everything peace and a tranquil spirit, and said that she would be very glad to see him again, though she realised how unlikely such a meeting was....

We will not attempt to describe the feelings Sanin experienced as he read this letter. For such feelings there is no satisfactory expression; they are too deep and too strong and too vague for any word. Only music could reproduce them.

Sanin answered at once; and as a wedding gift to the young girl, sent to 'Mariana Sloc.u.m, from an unknown friend,' a garnet cross, set in a magnificent pearl necklace. This present, costly as it was, did not ruin him; during the thirty years that had elapsed since his first visit to Frankfort, he had succeeded in acc.u.mulating a considerable fortune. Early in May he went back to Petersburg, but hardly for long.

It is rumoured that he is selling all his lands and preparing to go to America.