"_Tres bien_, mademoiselle!"

And Mascha goes. On the stairs she suddenly feels a burning thirst.

She goes into the dining-room, takes a _carafe_ of water from the side-board, and drinks with a kind of eagerness. A red pyramid of fine, fresh raspberries, Mascha's favorite fruit, is piled up on a gla.s.s dish. She reaches for the inviting fruit, takes two, three. Suddenly something chokes her, a kind of spasm overcomes her; she hurries out.

She has already reached the house-door, she hesitates. It must be! But must it be now? To live one more week, a fortnight; to enjoy the sunshine; to be indulged by her father; to forget all; to be happy!

Fourteen happy days are long!

A clock in the house strikes the quarter past six. In a few minutes her aunt will return. She goes.

Now she is on the street. The Avenue Wagram lies behind her. She is in the Champs Elysees. She beckons to an empty cab. "To the nearest landing of the _Swallow_," she says.

The _Swallow_, the pleasure steamer which daily runs between Paris and St. Cloud, is about to start when Mascha reaches the landing. She will wait for the next boat. "_Mais non, ma bonne fille_," says a coal-blackened fireman. "_Montez toujours_," and he helps her on board.

Klip, klap, plash the waves on the ship's wooden sides. Maschenka watches everything very calmly. At times she forgets why she is here, but for not a moment is she free from a hateful cold weight on her mind. Occasionally she involuntarily makes plans for the morrow; then she shudders. To-morrow at this time--where will she be?

On glides the ship.

"Meudon--Meudon!" A little gray city nestling against a green hill.

Every time that the steamer stops, she says: "It must be now."

Each time she will land, seek some place between the green, drooping willows, in order undisturbed to carry out what she has undertaken--once more kneel down in the tender spring gra.s.s, between the dear young blossoms, confide her weak, child-soul to her dead mother, and then-- Yes; at each station she wishes to land, and yet cannot, and remains sitting as if paralyzed with boundless anxiety of the fearful deed to which she would force herself, and against which every fibre of her warm young life rebels.

"Sepres!"

All the beauty in this laughing, sunny world pa.s.ses through her mind.

In vain does she try to fix her mind on a glorified eternity, and with all her tormenting thoughts mingles a cowardly fear, not only of death, but of the physical torment which precedes death, of the horrible gasping for breath in the water.

"St. Cloud!" It is the last station. Some one of the ship officials asks her if she wishes to land. She rises. It grows black before her eyes. A cold sweat is on her forehead, dizzily she sinks back on the seat.

Slowly the boat works up the stream to Paris. Around its plump wooden body the waves plash sweetly and soothingly; between the whisper of the trees on the banks one hears the jubilant twittering of the birds who rejoice in the last sunbeams.

Weary, as after a severe illness, Mascha sits there. She no longer comprehends the situation. Why should she kill herself? Her father will pardon, his love is inexhaustible, that she knows; and the others--with something of her old childish defiance, she shrugs her shoulders. Ah!

what does she care about the others?

Then, quite suddenly, a sharp wind springs up.

The people leave the deck, flee to the cabin. Only some young men who, smoking and talking, do not care about the storm, have remained above.

Mascha observes that they notice her. One of them makes a jest, the others laugh.

Heaven knows what they are laughing at! Mascha imagines they have guessed----

Like a leaping flame she feels permeated from head to foot with newly awakened, consuming, despairing shame. She springs up, bursts open the door of the little gate in the ship's railing. She holds both hands to her eyes. "Mother!" she cries in her death agony.

It is done.

XXVI.

The evening was already far advanced. Lensky sat alone in his sitting-room, a prey to all sorts of feelings. A kind of rage chokes him. "Why did I tell him all that?" he asked himself. Yes, why? Because he has a hatred for all falseness, which amounts to exaggeration; because it seemed to him as if he expiated some of the disgracefulness of his behavior to Nita by the exposure of his own shame.

When he had so suddenly looked into Nita's pure eyes, it had seemed to him as if it had all at once grown unbearably light around him. He saw his whole life so plainly as he had never before seen it, and it was repulsive to him. A short time ago he had sent the waiter to announce to Nikolai that dinner was served. Nikolai had excused himself.

Then Lensky had not even taken his place at the table. As if he were capable of forcing down anything!

The waiter had asked if he should light the lamps, but Lensky had only impatiently motioned him away. What need had he of more light? He saw plainly enough.

A great uneasiness overcame him. If Nikolai should really leave, there was not much more time to delay. He heard Nikolai's trunk carried downstairs. "He will not even come to take leave of me! But I cannot let him go thus," he cried out, "not thus!" He went up to Nikolai's room. Nikolai stood before the fire-place and busied himself with tearing and burning some letters. A new, harsh, stiff expression hardens his features. When he perceives his father, his face expresses uneasiness and astonishment, so that Lensky's heart grows cold. For one moment they stand silently opposite each other. "Colia!" Lensky at length manages to say in an unrecognizable, half-suffocated voice: "You--surely would not leave without having said farewell to me!"

"No; naturally not," replies Colia, mechanically, while he continues to tear up letters.

"Colia!" The artist's voice trembles, he lays his hand on his son's sleeve, he notices that he shrinks at his touch. Then he clutches his temples and stamps on the ground. "That is not to be borne," cries he.

"Have you, then, no penetration? Do you not understand how all this torments me--me, who would have brought down the stars from heaven for you? And now that I should be the obstacle to your happiness! What, obstacle! Be sensible, there is no obstacle at all. Nothing has happened. You need not give her up. And if she is at all afraid of meeting me again, I swear to you that she shall never meet me, that I will never burden you with my presence. I will bear everything, only not the thought of having disturbed your existence. Colia--do you not hear me, then?--Colia!" He shakes his son's shoulder; Nikolai turns toward him. His father is frightened at the dull, uninterested glance which falls on him from the eyes formerly so brilliant with enthusiasm of his child.

The waiter enters to announce that the carriage has arrived. Nikolai takes his hat, Lensky holds him back, and at the same time motions to the waiter to leave the room.

"You will write when you have arrived there?" he says.

"As soon as I am settled," replies Nikolai, with the same weary, dull voice.

"Why was not the boy angry, rough even to rudeness, repellent to him?"

Lensky asked himself. A violent feeling would have yielded to time, but for what he saw before him there was no more cure. He understood that something in this young man was dead forever; the elasticity of his nature was gone, the sacred fire was extinguished.

"Farewell, Colia!" murmured Lensky, hoa.r.s.ely. He took his son in his arms, held him convulsively to his breast, kissed him three times in accordance with the Russian custom. He might as well have embraced a corpse, so perfectly irresponsive did Colia remain to his tenderness.

Only once before had his lips touched anything so cold, stiff, and that was--when he kissed Natalie in her coffin.

Then Nikolai went down-stairs. Lensky slunk after him to the house door, looked after the carriage which rolled away with him until it was lost in the crowd, whereupon he turned, and with heavy steps returned to his sitting-room.

Perhaps an hour had pa.s.sed since Nikolai's departure, when there was a knock at Lensky's door. At first he did not hear it; the knocks grew louder, more urgent. Angrily he raised his head; he had left word down-stairs that he wished to receive no one.

"What is it?" he called out, angrily.

"A messenger from Madame Jeliagin."

"Come in! What is it?"

"He left this note for monsieur," said the waiter.

Lensky tore it open.

"A carriage!" he called out to the waiter, who had waited for an answer. "But quickly!"

The waiter left the room; Lensky once more glanced at the note.

"Come at once. Barbara."