Virgin Soil Part 54

"Why... what nonsense I'm talking! You'll be back in half an hour, won't you, eh?"

"Of course--"

"Never mind; forgive me, dear. My brain is in a whirl from lack of sleep. I must begin... packing, too."

Mariana went out of the room and Solomin was about to follow her when Nejdanov stopped him.

"Solomin!"

"What is it?"

"Give me your hand. I must thank you for your kindness and hospitality."

Solomin smiled.

"What an idea!" He extended his hand.

"There's another thing I wished to say," Nejdanov continued. "Supposing anything were to happen to me, may I hope that you won't abandon Mariana?"

"Your future wife?

"Yes... Mariana!"

"I don't think anything is likely to happen to you, but you may set your mind at rest. Mariana is just as dear to me as she is to you."

"Oh, I knew it... knew it, knew it! I'm so glad! thanks. So in an hour?"

"In an hour."

"I shall be ready. Goodbye, my friend!"

Solomin went out and caught Mariana up on the staircase. He had intended saying something to her about Nejdanov, but refrained from doing so. And Mariana guessed that he wished to say something about him and that he could not. She, too, was silent.

x.x.xVII

DIRECTLY Solomin had gone, Nejdanov jumped up from the couch, walked up and down the room several times, then stood still in the middle in a sort of stony indecision. Suddenly he threw off his "masquerade"

costume, kicked it into a corner of the room, and put on his own clothes. He then went up to the little three-legged table, pulled out of a drawer two sealed letters and some other object which he thrust into his pocket; the letters he left on the table. Then he crouched down before the stove and opened the little door. A whole heap of ashes lay inside. This was all that remained of Nejdanov's papers, of his sacred book of verses ... He had burned them all in the night. Leaning against one side of the stove was Mariana's portrait that Markelov had given him. He had evidently not had the heart to burn that too! He took it out carefully and put in on the table beside the two letters.

Then, with a quick resolute movement, he put on his cap and walked towards the door. But suddenly he stopped, turned back, and went into Mariana's room. There, he stood still for a moment, gazed round, then approaching her narrow little bed, bent down and with one stifled sob pressed his lips to the foot of the bed. He then jumped up, thrust his cap over his forehead, and rushed out. Without meeting anyone in the corridor, on the stairs, or down below, he darted out into the garden.

It was a grey day, with a low-hanging sky and a damp breeze that blew in waves over the tops of the gra.s.s and made the trees rustle. A whiff of coal, tar, and tallow was borne along from the yard, but the noise and rattling in the factory was fainter than usual at that time of day.

Nejdanov looked round sharply to see if anyone was about and made straight for the old apple tree that had first attracted his attention when he had looked out of the little window of his room on the day of his arrival. The whole of its trunk was evergrown with dry moss, its bare, rugged branches, spa.r.s.ely covered with reddish leaves, rose crookedly, like some old arms held up in supplication. Nejdanov stepped firmly on to the dark soil beneath the tree and pulled out the object he had taken from the table drawer. He looked up intently at the windows of the little house. "If somebody were to see me now, perhaps I wouldn't do it," he thought. But no human being was to be seen anywhere--everyone seemed dead or turned away from him, leaving him to the mercy of fate.

Only the m.u.f.fled hum and roar of the factory betrayed any signs of life; and overhead a fine, keen, chilly rain began falling.

Nejdanov gazed up through the crooked branches of the tree under which he was standing at the grey, cloudy sky looking down upon him so unfeelingly. He yawned and lay down. "There's nothing else to be done.

I can't go back to St. Petersburg, to prison," he thought. A kind of pleasant heaviness spread all over his body. .. He threw away his cap, took up the revolver, and pulled the trigger.

Something struck him instantly, but with no very great violence. .. He was lying on his back trying to make out what had happened to him and how it was that he had just seen Tatiana. He tried to call her... but a peculiar numbness had taken possession of him and curious dark green spots were whirling about all over him--in his eyes, over his head, in his brain--and some frightfully heavy, dull weight seemed to press him to the earth forever.

Nejdanov did really get a glimpse of Tatiana. At the moment when he pulled the trigger she had looked out of a window and caught sight of him standing under the tree. She had hardly time to ask herself what he was doing there in the rain without a hat, when he rolled to the ground like a sheaf of corn. She did not hear the shot--it was very faint--but instantly felt that something was amiss and rushed out into the garden.

She came up to Nejdanov, breathless.

"Alexai Dmitritch! What is the matter with you?"

But a darkness had already descended upon him. Tatiana bent over and noticed blood...

"Pavel!" she shouted at the top of her voice, "Pavel!"

A minute or two later, Mariana, Solomin, Pavel, and two workmen were in the garden. They lifted him instantly, carried him into the house, and laid him on the same couch on which he had pa.s.sed his last night.

He lay on his back with half-closed eyes, his face blue all over. There was a rattling in his throat, and every now and again he gave a choking sob. Life had not yet left him. Mariana and Solomin were standing on either side of him, almost as pale as he was himself. They both felt crushed, stunned, especially Mariana--but they were not surprised. "How did we not foresee this?" they asked themselves, but it seemed to them that they had foreseen it all along. When he said to Mariana, "Whatever I do, I tell you beforehand, nothing will really surprise you," and when he had spoken of the two men in him that would not let each other live, had she not felt a kind of vague presentiment? Then why had she ignored it? Why was it she did not now dare to look at Solomin, as though he were her accomplice...as though he, too, were conscience-stricken? Why was it that her unutterable, despairing pity for Nejdanov was mixed with a feeling of horror, dread, and shame? Perhaps she could have saved him?

Why are they both standing there, not daring to p.r.o.nounce a word, hardly daring to breathe-waiting... for what? "Oh, G.o.d!"

Solomin sent for a doctor, though there was no hope. Tatiana bathed Nejdanov's head with cold water and vinegar and laid a cold sponge on the small, dark wound, now free from blood. Suddenly the rattling in Nejdanov's throat ceased and he stirred a little.

"He is coming to himself," Solomin whispered. Mariana dropped down on her knees before him. Nejdanov glanced at her.. up until then his eyes had borne that fixed, far-away look of the dying.

"I am... still alive," he p.r.o.nounced scarcely audible. "I couldn't even do this properly... I am detaining you."

"Aliosha!" Mariana sobbed out.

"It won't... be long.... Do you... remember... Mariana ... my poem?...

Surround me with flowers... But where... are the... flowers? Never mind... so long as you... are here...There in... my letter..."

He suddenly shuddered.

"Ah! here it comes... Take... each other's hands... before me...

quickly... take..."

Solomin seized Mariana's hand. Her head lay on the couch, face downwards, close to the wound. Solomin, dark as night, held himself severely erect.

"That's right... that's..."

Nejdanov broke out into sobs again--strange unusual sobs... His breast rose, his sides heaved.

He tried to lay his hand on their united ones, but it fell back dead.

"He is pa.s.sing away," Tatiana whispered as she stood at the door, and began crossing herself.

His sobs grew briefer, fewer... He still searched around for Mariana with his eyes, but a menacing white film was spreading over them.

"That's right," were his last words.

He had breathed his last... and the clasped hands of Mariana and Solomin still lay upon his breast.