"Well?"

"She is so strange. Heaven knows how any one would dare, how any man would woo her. He is splendid--well-established and rich. The wood alone yields thousands."

"Is the Forester young, educated, a man that counts?"

Va.s.silissa entered and announced Paulina Karpovna.

"The evil one himself has brought her," grumbled Tatiana Markovna. "Show her in, and be quick with breakfast."

CHAPTER XV

One evening a thunderstorm was brewing. The black clouds lay entrenched beyond the Volga, and the air was as hot and moist as in a bath-house.

Here and there over the fields and roads rose pillars of dust.

In the house Tatiana Markovna sent her household hurrying to close the stove pipes, the doors and the windows. She was not only afraid of a thunderstorm herself, but she was not pleased if her fear was not shared by everybody else--that would be freethinking. So at each flash of lightning everyone must make the sign of the Cross, on pain of being thought a blockhead. She chased Egorka from the ante-room into the servants' room, because during the approach of the storm he would not stop giggling with the maids.

The storm approached majestically, with the dull distant noise of the thunder, with a storm of sand, when suddenly there was a flash of lightning over the village and a sharp clap of thunder.

Disregarding the pa.s.sionate warnings of his aunt, Raisky took his cap and umbrella and hurried into the park, anxious to see the landscape under the shadow of the storm, to find new ideas for his drawings, and to observe his own emotions. He descended the cliff, and pa.s.sed through the undergrowth by a winding, hardly perceptible path. The rain fell by bucketfuls, one flash of lightning followed another, the thunder rolled, and the whole prospect was veiled in mist and cloud. He soon regretted his intention. His soaked umbrella did not protect him from the rain, which whipped his face and poured down on his clothes, and his feet sank ankle-deep in the muddy ground. He was continually knocking against and stumbling over unevennesses in the ground or tree stumps, treading in holes and pools. He was obliged to stand still until a flash of lightning lighted up a few yards of the path. He knew that not far away lay a ruined arbour, dating from the time when the precipice formed part of the garden. Not long before he had seen it in the thicket, but now it was indiscoverable, however much he would have preferred to observe the storm from its shelter. And since he did not wish to retrace the horrible path by which he had come, he resolved to make his way to the nearest carriage road, to climb over the twisted hedge and to reach the village.

He could hardly drag his soaked boots free of the mud and weeds, and he was dazzled by the lightning and nearly deafened by the noise. He confessed that he might as well have admired the storm from the shelter of the house. In the end he struck the fence, but when he tried to leap over it he slipped and fell in the ditch. With difficulty he dragged himself out and clambered over. There was little traffic on the steep and dangerous ridge, used for the most part as a short cut by empty one-horse carriages with their quiet beasts.

He closed his dripping umbrella, and put it under his arm. Dazzled by the lightning, slipping every minute, he toiled painfully up the slope, and when he reached the summit he heard close by the noise of wheels, the neighing of horses and the cry of the coachman. He stood on one side and pressed himself against the fence to allow the pa.s.sage of the carriage, since the road was very narrow. In a flash of lightning Raisky saw before him a char-a-banc with several persons in it, drawn by two well-kept, apparently magnificent horses. In the light of another flash he was amazed to recognise Vera.

"Vera," he cried loudly.

The carriage stood still.

"Who is there? Is it you, cousin, in this weather?"

"And you?"

"I am hurrying home."

"So do I want to. I came down the precipice, and lost my way in the bushes.

"Who is driving you? Is there room for me."

"Plenty of room," said a masculine voice. "Give me your hand to get up."

Raisky gave his hand, and was hauled up by a strong arm. Next to Vera sat Marina, and the two, huddled together like wet chickens, were trying to protect themselves from the drenching rain by the leather covering.

"Who is with you?" asked Raisky in a low voice. "Whose horses are these, and who is driving?"

"Ivan Ivanovich."

"I don't know him."

"The Forester," whispered Vera, and he would have repeated her words if she had not nudged him to keep silence. "Later," she said.

He remembered the talk with his aunt, her praises of the Forester, her hints of his being a good match. This then was the hero of the romance, the Forester. He tried to get a look at him, but only saw an ordinary hat with a wide brim, and a tall, broad-shouldered figure wrapped in a rain coat.

The Forester handled the reins skilfully as he drove up the steep hill, cracked his whip, whistled, held the horses' heads with a firm hand when they threatened to shy at a flash of lightning, and turned round to those sheltered in the body of the vehicle.

"How do you feel, Vera Va.s.silievna," he inquired anxiously. "Are you very cold and wet?"

"I am quite comfortable, Ivan Ivanovich; the rain does not catch me."

"You must take my raincoat. G.o.d forbid that you should take cold. I should never forgive myself all my life for having driven you."

"You weary me with your friendly anxiety. Don't bother about anything but your horses."

"As you please," replied Ivan Ivanovich with hasty obedience, turning to his horses, and he cast only an occasional anxious glance towards Vera.

They drove past the village to the door of the new house. Ivan Ivanovich jumped down and hammered on the door with his riding whip. Handing over the care of his horses to Prokor, Tara.s.ska and Egorka, who hurried up for the purpose, he stood by the steps, took Vera in his arms, and carried her carefully and respectfully, like a precious burden, through the ranks of wide-eyed lackeys and maid-servants bearing lights, to the divan in the hall.

Raisky followed, wet and dirty, without once removing his eyes from them.

The Forester went back into the ante-room, made himself as respectable as he could, shook himself, pushed his fingers through his hair, and demanded a brush.

Meanwhile Tatiana Markovna bade Vera welcome and reproached her for venturing on such a journey; she must change her clothes throughout and in a few moments the samovar would be brought in, and supper served.

"Quick, quick, Grandmother!" said Vera, rubbing herself affectionately against her. "Let us have tea, soup, roast and wine. Ivan Ivanovich is hungry." She knew how to quiet her aunt's anxiety.

"That's splendid. It shall be served in a minute. Where is Ivan Ivanovich?"

"I am making myself a bit decent," cried a voice from the ante-room.

Egor, Yakob and Stepan hummed round the Forester as if he had been a good horse. Then he entered the hall and respectfully kissed the hands of Tatiana Markovna, and of Marfinka, who had only just decided to get out of bed, where she had hidden herself for fear of the storm.

"It is not necessary, Marfinka," said her aunt, "to hide from the storm.

You should pray to G.o.d, and will not then be struck."

"I am not afraid of thunder and lightning, of which the peasants are usually the victims, but it makes me nervous," replied Marfinka.

Raisky, with the water still dripping off him, stood in the window watching the guest. Ivan Ivanovich Tushin was a tall, broad-shouldered man of thirty-eight, with strongly-marked features, a dark, thick beard, and large grey rather timid eyes, and hands disproportionately large, with broad nails. He wore a grey coat and a high-b.u.t.toned vest, with a broad turned-down home-spun collar. He was a fine man, but with marked simplicity, not to put a fine point on it in his glance and his manners.

Raisky wondered jealously whether he was Vera's hero. Why not? Women like these tall men with open faces and highly developed muscular strength. But Vera--

"And you, Borushka," cried Tatiana Markovna suddenly, clapping her hands.

"Look at your clothes. Egorka and the rest of you! Where are you? There is a pool on the floor round you, Borushka. You will be ill. Vera was driving home, but there was no reason for you to go out into the storm.

Go and change your clothes, Borushka, and have some rum in your tea.

Ivan Ivanovich, you ought to go with him. Are you acquainted? My nephew Boris Raisky--Ivan Ivanovich Tushin."

"We have already made acquaintance," said Tushin, with a bow. "We picked up your nephew on the way. Many thanks, I need nothing, but you, Boris Pavlovich, ought to change."

"You must forgive an old woman for telling you you are all half mad. No animal leaves his hole in weather like this. Yakob, shut the shutters closer. Fancy crossing the Volga in weather like this."