CHAPTER XVIII
The weather was gloomy. Rain fell unintermittently, the sky wasenshrouded in a thick cloud of fog, and on the ground lay banks of mist.No one had ventured out all day, and the family had already gone earlyto bed, when about ten o'clock the rain ceased, Raisky put on hisovercoat to get a breath of air in the garden. The rustle of the bushesand the plants from which the rain was still dripping, alone broke thestillness of the night. After a few turns up and down he turned hissteps to the vegetable garden, through which his way to the fields lay.Here and there a glimmering star hung above in the dense darkness, andbefore him the village lay like a dark spot on the dark background ofthe indistinguishable fields beyond. Suddenly he heard a slight noisefrom the old house, and saw that a window on the ground floor had beenopened. Since the window looked out not into the garden, but on to thefield, he hastened to reach the grove of acacias, leapt the fence andlanded in a puddle of water, where he stood motionless.
"Is it you?" said a low voice from the window. It was Vera's voice.
Though his knees trembled under him, he was just able to answer in thesame low tone, "Yes."
"The rain has kept me in all day, but to-morrow morning at ten. Goquickly; some one is coming."
The window was closed quietly, and Raisky cursed the approachingfootsteps that had interrupted the conversation. It was then true, andthe letter written on blue paper not a dream. Was there a rendezvous? Hewent in the direction of the steps.
"Who is there?" cried a voice, and Raisky was seized from behind.
"The devil," cried Raisky, pushing Savili away, "since when have youtaken upon yourself to guard the house?"
"I have the Mistress's orders. There are so many thieves and vagabondsin the neighbourhood, and the sailors from the Volga do a lot ofmischief."
"That is a lie. You are out after Marina, and you ought to be ashamed ofyourself."
He would have gone, but Savili detained him.
"Allow me, Sir, to say a word or two about Marina. Exercise yourmerciful powers, and send the woman to Siberia."
"Are you out of your senses?"
"Or into a house of detention for the rest of her life."
"I'm much more likely to send you, so that you cease to beat her. Whatare you doing, spying here in this abominable way?" said Raisky betweenhis teeth, as he cast a glance at Vera's window. In another moment hewas gone.
Raisky hardly slept at all that night, and he appeared next morning inhis aunt's sitting-room with dry, weary eyes. The whole family hadassembled for tea on this particular bright morning. Vera greeted himgaily, as he pressed her hand feverishly and looked straight into hereyes. She returned his gaze calmly and quietly.
"How elegant you are this morning," he said.
"Do you call a simple straw-coloured blouse elegant?" she asked.
"But the scarlet band on your hair, with the coils of hair drawn acrossit, the belt with the beautiful clasp, and the scarlet-embroideredshoes.... You have excellent taste, and I congratulate you."
"I am glad that I meet with your approval, but your enthusiasm is ratherstrange. Tell me the reason of this extraordinary tone."
"Good, I will tell you. Let us go for a stroll."
He saw that she gave him a quick glance of suspicion as he proposed anappointment with her for ten o'clock. After a moment's thought sheagreed, sat down in a corner, and was silent. About ten o'clock shepicked up her work and her parasol, and signed to him to follow her asshe left the house. She walked in silence through the garden, and theysat down on a bench at the top of the cliff.
"It was by chance," said Raisky, who was hardly able to restrain hisemotion, "that I have learnt a part of your secret."
"So it seems," she answered coldly. "You were listening yesterday."
"Accidentally, I swear."
"I believe you."
"Vera, there is no longer any doubt that you have a lover. Who is he?"
"Don't ask."
"Who is there in the world who could desire your happiness more ardentlythan I do? Why have you confidence in him and not in me?"
"Because I love him."
"The man you love is to be envied, but how is he going to repay you forthe supreme happiness that you bring him? Be careful, my friend. To whomdo you give your confidence?"
"To myself."
"Who is the man?"
Instead of answering him she looked full in his face, and he thoughtthat her eyes were as colourless as those of a watersprite, and therelay hidden in them a maddening riddle. From below in the bushes therecame the sound of a shot. Vera rose immediately from the bench, andRaisky also rose.
"HE?" he asked in a dull voice. "It is ten o'clock."
She approached the precipice, Raisky following close at her heels. Shemotioned him to come no farther.
"What is the meaning of the shot?"
"He calls."
"Who?"
"The writer of the blue letter. Not a step further unless you wish thatI leave here for ever."
She rapidly descended the precipice, and in a few moments had vanishedbehind the brushwood and the trees. He called after her to take care,but in reply heard only the crackling of the dry twigs beneath her feet.Then all was still. He was left to torment himself with wondering whothe object of her passion could be.
It was none other than Mark Volokov, pariah, cynic, gipsy, who would askthe first likely man he met for money, who levelled his gun on hisfellow-men, and, like Karl Moor, had declared war on mankind--MarkVolokov, the man under police supervision.
It was to meet this dangerous and suspicious character that Vera stoleto the rendezvous--Vera, the pearl of beauty in the whole neighbourhood,whose beauty made strong men weak; Vera, who had mastered even thetyrannical Tatiana Markovna; Vera, the pure maiden sheltered from allthe winds of heaven. It would have seemed impossible for her to meet aman against whom all houses were barred. It had happened so simply, soeasily, towards the end of the last summer, at the time that the appleswere ripe. She was sitting one evening in the little acacia arbour bythe fence near the old house, looking absently out into the field, andaway to the Volga and the hills beyond, when she became aware that a fewpaces away the branches of the apple tree were swaying unnaturally overthe fence. When she looked more closely she saw that a man was sittingcomfortably on the top rail. He appeared by his face and dress to belongto the lower class; he was not a schoolboy, but he held in his handsseveral apples.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, just as he was about to springdown from the fence.
"I am eating," he said, after taking a look at her. "Will you try one?"he added, hitching himself along the fence towards her.
She looked at him curiously, but without fear, as she drew back a little.
"Who are you?" she said severely. "And why do you climb on to otherpeople's fences."
"What can it matter to you who I am. I can easily tell you why I climbon other people's fences. It is to eat apples."
"Aren't you ashamed to take other people's apples?" she asked.
"They are my apples, not theirs; they have been stolen from me. Youcertainly have not read Proudhon. But how beautiful you are!" he addedin amazement. "Do you know what Proudhon says?" he concluded.
"_La propriete c'est le vol_."
"Ah, you have read Proudhon." He stared at her, and as she shook herhead, he continued, "Anyway, you have heard it. Indeed, this divinetruth has gone all round the world nowadays. I have a copy of Proudhon,and will bring it to you."
"You are not a boy, and yet you steal apples. You think it is not theftto do so because of that saying of Proudhon's."
"You believe, then, everything that was told you at school? But pleasetell me who you are. This is the Berezhkovs' garden. They tell me theold lady has two beautiful nieces."
"I too say what can it matter to you who I am?"
"Then you believe what your Grandmother tells you?"
"I believe in what convinces me."
"Exactly like me," he said
, taking off his cap. "Is it criminal in youreyes to take apples?"
"Not criminal, perhaps, but not good manners."
"I make you a present of them," he said, handing her the remaining fourapples and taking another bite out of his own.
He raised his cap once more and bid her an ironic good-day.
"You have a double beauty, you are beautiful to look at and sensibleinto the bargain. It is a pity that you are destined to adorn the lifeof an idiot. You will be given away, poor girl."
"No pity, if you please. I shall not be given away like an apple."
"You remember the apples; many thanks for the gift. I will bring youbooks in exchange, as you like books."
"Proudhon?"
"Yes, Proudhon and others. I have all the new ones. Only you must nottell your Grandmother and her stupid visitors, for although I do notknow who they are, I don't think they would have anything to do withme."
"How do you know? You have only seen me for five minutes."
"The stag's breed is never hidden, one sees at once that you belong tothe living, not to the dead-alive, and that is the main point. The restcomes with opportunity...."
"I have a free mind, as you yourself say, and you immediately want tooverpower it. Who are you that you should take upon yourself to instructme?"
He looked at her in amazement.
"You are neither to bring me books, nor to come here again yourself,"she said, rising to go. "There is a watchman here, and he will seizeyou."
"That is like the Grandmother again. It smells of the town and theLenten oil, and I thought that you loved the wide world and freedom. Areyou afraid of me, and who do you think I am?"
"A seminarist, perhaps," she said laconically.
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, seminarists are unconventional, badly dressed, and always hungry.Go into the kitchen, and I will tell them to give you something to eat."
"That's very kind. Did anything else about the seminarists strike you?"
"I am not acquainted with any of them, and have seen very little of themat all; they are so unpolished, and talk so queerly...."
"They are our real missionaries, and what does it matter if they talkqueerly? While we laugh at them they attack the enemy, blindly perhaps,but at any rate with enthusiasm."
"What enemy?"
"The world; they fight for the new knowledge, the new life. Healthy,virile youth needs air and food, and we need such men."
"We? Who?"
"The new-born strength of the world."
"Do you then represent the 'new-born strength of the world,'" she said,looking at him with observant, curious eyes, but without irony, "or isyour name a secret?"
"Would it frighten you if I named it?"
"What could it mean to me if you did disclose it? What is it?"
"Mark Volokov. In this silly place my name is heard with nearly as muchterror as if it were Pugachev or Stenka Razin."
"You are that man?" she said, looking at him with rising curiosity. "Youboast of your name, which I have heard before. You shot at NielAndreevich, and let a couple of dogs loose on an old lady. There are themanifestations of your 'new strength.' Go, and don't be seen hereagain."
"Otherwise you will complain to Grandmama?"
"I certainly shall. Good-bye."
She left the arbour and walked away without listening to his rejoinder.He followed her covetously with his eyes, murmuring as he sprang to theground a wish that those apples also could be stolen. Vera, for her part,said not a word to her aunt of this meeting, but she confidednevertheless in her friend Natalie Ivanovna after exacting a promise ofsecrecy.