CHAPTER XIX
After leaving Raisky, Vera listened for a while to make sure he was notfollowing her, and then, pushing the branches of the undergrowth asidewith her parasol, made her way by the familiar path to the ruined arbour,whose battered doorway was almost barricaded by the fallen timbers. Thesteps of the arbour and the planks of the floor had sunk, and rottenplanks cracked under her feet. Of its original furniture there wasnothing left but two moss-grown benches and a crooked table.
Mark was already in the arbour, and his rifle and huntsman's bag lay onthe table. He held out his hand to Vera, and almost lifted her in overthe shattered steps. By way of welcome he merely commented on herlateness.
"The weather detained me," she said. "Have you any news?"
"Did you expect any?"
"I expect every day that you will be sent for by the military or thepolice."
"I have been more careful since Raisky played at magnanimity and tookupon himself the fuss about the books."
"I don't like that about you, Mark, your callousness and malice towardseveryone except yourself. My cousin made no parade of what he had done;he did not even mention it to me. You are incapable of appreciating akindness."
"I do appreciate it in my own way."
"Just as the wolf in the fable appreciated the kindness of the crane.Why not thank him with the same simplicity with which he served you. Youare a real wolf; you are for ever disparaging, detracting, or blamingsomeone, either from pride or...."
"Or what?"
"Or by way of cultivating the 'new strength.'"
"Scoffer!" he laughed, as he sat down beside her. "You are young, andstill too inexperienced to be disillusioned of all the charm of the goodold times. How can I instruct you in the rights of mankind?"
"And how am I to cure you of the slandering of mankind?"
"You have always a retort handy, and nobody could complain of dullnesswith you, but," he said, clutching meditatively at his head, "if I...."
"Am locked up by the police," she finished. "That seems to be all thatyour fate still lacks."
"But for you, I should long ago have been sent off somewhere. You area disturbing element."
"Are you tired of living peaceably, and already craving for a storm? Youpromised me to lead a different life. What have you not promised me? AndI was so happy that they even noticed my delight at home. And now youhave relapsed into your old mood," she protested, as he seized her hand.
"Pretty hand!" he said, kissing it again and again without any objectionfrom her, but when he sought to kiss her cheek she drew back.
"You refuse again. Is your reserve never to end? Perhaps you keep yourcaresses for...."
She drew her hand away hastily.
"You know I do not like jests of that kind. You must break yourself ofthis tone, and of wolfish manners generally; that would be the firststep towards unaffected manhood."
"Tone and manners! You are a child still occupied with your ABC. Beforeyou lie freedom, life, love, happiness, and you talk of tone and manners.Where is the human soul, the woman in you? What is natural and genuinein you?"
"Now you are talking like Raisky."
"Ah, Raisky! Is he still so desperate?"
"More than ever, so that I really don't know how to treat him."
"Lead him by the nose."
"How hideous! It would be best to tell him the truth about myself. If heknew all he would be reconciled and would go away, as he said heintended to do long ago."
"He will hate you, read you a lecture, and perhaps tell your Aunt."
"God forbid that she should hear the truth except from ourselves. ShouldI go away for a time?"
"Why? It could not be arranged for you to be away long, and if yourabsence was short he would be only the more agitated. When you were awaywhat good did it do. There is only one way and that is to conceal thetruth from him, to put him on a wrong track. Let him cherish his passion,read verses, and gape at the moon, since he is an incurable Romanticist.Later on he will sober down and travel once more."
"He is not a Romanticist in the sense you mean," sighed Vera. "You mayfairly call him poet, artist. I at least begin to believe in him, in hisdelicacy and his truthfulness. I would hide nothing from him if he didnot betray his passion for me. If he subdues that, I will be the firstto tell him the whole truth."
"We did not meet," interrupted Mark, "to talk so much about him."
"Well, what have you done since we last met?" she asked gaily. "Whomhave you met? Have you been discoursing on the 'new strength' or the'dawn of the future,' or 'young hopes?' Every day I live in anxiousexpectation."
"No, no," laughed Mark. "I have ceased to bother about the people here;it is not worth while to tackle them."
"God grant it were so. You would have done well if you had acted up towhat you say. But I cannot be happy about you. At the Sfogins, theyoungest son, Volodya, who is fourteen, declared to his mother that hewas not going any more to Mass. When he was whipped, and questioned, hepointed to his eldest brother, who had sneaked into the servants' roomand there preached to the maids the whole evening that it was stupid toobserve the fasts of the Church, to go through the ceremony of marriage,that there was no God...."
Mark looked at her in horror.
"In the servants' room! And yet I talked to him for a whole evening asif he were a man capable of reason, and gave him books...."
"Which he took straight to the bookseller. 'These are the books youought to put on sale,' he said. Did you not give me your promise," shesaid reproachfully, "when we parted and you begged to see me again?"
"All that is long past. I have had nothing more to do with those peoplesince I gave you that promise. Don't be angry, Vera. But for you I wouldescape from this neighbourhood to-morrow."
"Escape--where? Everywhere there are the same opportunities; boys whowould like to see their moustaches grow quicker, servants' rooms, ifindependent men and women will not listen to your talk. Are you notashamed of the part you play?" she asked after a brief pause. "Do youlook on it as your mission?"
She stroked his bent head affectionately as she spoke. At her last wordshe raised his head quickly.
"What part do I play? I give a baptism of pure water."
"Are you convinced of the pureness of the water?"
"Listen, Vera. I am not Raisky," said Mark, rising. "You are a woman, orrather one should say a bud which has yet to unfold into womanhood. Whenthat unfolding comes many secrets will be clear to you that have no partin a girl's dreams and that cannot be explained; experience is the solekey to these secrets. I call you to your initiation, Vera; I show youthe path of life. But you stand hesitating on the threshold, and youradvance is slow. The serious thing is that you don't even believe me."
"Do not be vexed," begged Vera affectionately. "I agree with you ineverything that I recognise as right and honourable. If I cannot alwaysfollow you in life and in experience it is because I desire to know andsee for myself the goal for which I am making."
"That is to say, that you wish to judge for yourself."
"And do you desire that I should not judge for myself?"
"I love you, Vera. Put your trust in me, and obey. Does the flame ofpassion burn in me less strongly than in your Raisky, for all his poetry.Passion is chary of words. But you will neither trust nor obey me."
"Would you have me not stand at the level of my personality? Youyourself preached freedom to me, and now the tyrant in you appearsbecause I do not show a slavish submission."
"Let us part, Vera, if doubt is uppermost with you and you have noconfidence in me, for in that fashion we cannot continue our meetings."
"Yes, let us part rather than that you should exact a blind trust in you.In my waking hours and in my dreams I imagine that there lies between usno disturbance, no doubt. But I don't understand you, and thereforecannot trust you."
"You hide under your Aunt's skirts like a chicken under a hen, and youhave absorbed her ideas and her system of morals. You, like Raisky,inshroud
passion in fantastic draperies. Let us put aside all the otherquestions untouched. The one that lies before us is simple andstraightforward. We love one another. Is that so or not?"
"What does that lead to, Mark!"
"If you don't believe me, look around you. You have spent your wholelife in the woods and fields, and do you learn nothing from what you seein all directions?" he asked, pointing to a swarm of flying pigeons, andto the nesting swallows. "Learn from them; they deal in no subtleties!"
"Yes, they circle round their nests. One has flown away, probably insearch of food."
"When winter comes they will all separate."
"And return in spring to the same nest."
"I believe you when you talk reasonably, Vera. You felt injured by myrough manners, and I am making every effort. I have transformed myselfto the old-fashioned pattern, and shall soon shift my feet and smilewhen I make my bow like Tiet Nikonich. I don't give way to the desire toabuse or to quarrel with anybody, and draw no attention to my doings. Ishall next be making up my mind to attend Mass, what else should I do?"
"You are in the mood for joking, but joking is not what I wanted,"sighed Vera.
"What do you want me to do?"
"So far I have not even been able to persuade you to spare yourself formy sake, to cease your baptisms, to live like other people."
"But if I act in accordance with my convictions?"
"What is your aim? What do you hope to do?"
"I teach fools."
"Do you even know yourself what you teach, for what you have beenstruggling for a whole year? To live the life that you prescribe is notwithin the bounds of possibility. It is all very new and bold, but...."
"There we are again at the same old point. I can hear the old ladypiping," he laughed scornfully, pointing in the direction of the house."You speak with her voice."
"Is that your whole answer, Mark? Everything is a lie; therefore, awaywith it! But the absence of any notion of what truth is to supersede thelies makes me distrustful."
"You set reflexion above nature and passion. You are noble, and younaturally desire marriage. But that has nothing to do with love, and itis love and happiness that I seek."
Vera rose and looked at him with blazing eyes.
"If I wished only for marriage, Mark, I should naturally make anotherchoice."
"Pardon me, I was rude," he said in real embarrassment, and kissed herhand. "But, Vera, you repress your love, you are afraid, and instead ofgiving yourself up to the pleasure of it you are for ever analysing."
"I try to find out who and what you are, because love is not a passingpleasure to me, but you look on it as a distraction."
"No, as a daily need of life, which is no matter for jesting. LikeRaisky, I cannot sleep through the long nights, and I suffer nervoustorture that I could not have believed possible. You say you love me;that I love you is plain? But I call you to happiness and you areafraid...."
"I do not want happiness for a month, for six months--"
"For your life long, and even after death?" asked Mark, scornfully.
"For life! I do not want to foresee an ultimate limit. I do not and willnot believe in happiness with a term. But I do believe in another kindof intimate happiness, and I want...."
"To make me embrace the same belief."
"Yes, I know no other happiness, and I would scorn it if I knew it."
"Good-bye, Vera. You do not love me, but are for ever disputing,analysing either my character or the nature of happiness. We always getback to the point from which we started. I think it is your destiny tolove Raisky. You can make what you will of him, can deck him out withall your Aunt's tags, and evolve a new hero of romance every day, forever and ever. I haven't the time for that kind of thing. I have work todo."
"Ah work, and love, with happiness as an afterthought, a trifle...."
"Do you wish to build a life out of love after the old fashion, a lifesuch as that lived by the swallows who leave their nest only to seekfood."
"You would fly for a moment into a strange nest, and then forget."
"Yes, if forgetting is so easy; but if one cannot forget, one returns.But must I return if I don't want to? Is that compatible with freedom?Would you ask that?"
"I cannot understand a bird's life of that kind."
"Farewell, Vera. We were mistaken. I want a comrade, not a school girl."
"Yes, Mark, a comrade, strong like yourself, I agree. A comrade for thewhole of life, is that not so?"
"I thought," said Mark as if he had not heard her last question, "thatwe should soon be united, and that whether we separated again mustdepend on temperament and circumstances. You make your analysis inadvance, so that your judgment is as crooked and twisted as an oldmaid's could be. You don't look to the quarter whence truth and lightmust come. Sleep, my child. I was mistaken. Farewell once more. We willtry to avoid one another in the future."
"We will try. But can we really not find happiness together? What is thehindrance?" she asked, in a low, agitated tone, touching his hand.
Mark shouldered his gun in silence, and walked out of the arbour intothe brushwood. Vera stood motionless as if she were in a deep sleep.Overcome by grief and amazement, she could not believe he was reallyleaving her. Where there is no trust there is no love, she thought. Shedid not trust him, and yet, if she did not love him, why was her griefand pain at his going so great. Why did she feel that death itself wouldbe welcome?
"Mark!" she cried in a low voice. He did not look round, and althoughshe repeated the cry he strode forward. "Mark!" she cried breathlessly athird time, but he still pursued his path. Her face faded, butmechanically she picked up her handkerchief and her parasol and mountedthe cliff. Were truth and love to be found there where her heart calledher? Or did truth lie in the little chapel that she was now approaching?
For four days Vera wandered in the park, and waited in the arbour, butMark did not come. There was no reply to the call of her heart. She nolonger hid her movements from Raisky, who came upon her from time totime in the chapel. She allowed him to accompany her to the littlevillage church on the hill where she usually went alone. She remained onher knees with bowed head for a long time, while he stood motionlessbehind her. Then without a word or a glance, she took his arm, to returnwearily to the old house, where they parted. Vera knew nothing of hissecret suffering, of the passionate love which attracted him to her, thedouble love of a man for a woman, and of an artist for his ideal.
Raisky wondered what the shots meant. It need not necessarily be lovethat drove her to the rendezvous. There might be a secret of anotherkind, but the key to the mystery lay in her heart. There was nosalvation for her except in love, and he longed to give her protectionand freedom.
Again he found her at twilight praying in the chapel, but this time shewas calm and her eyes clear. She gave him her hand, and was plainlypleased to see him.
"You cannot imagine, Vera," he said, "how happy it makes me to see youcalmer. What has given you peace?"
She glanced towards the chapel.
"You don't go down there any more?" he said, pointing to the precipice.
She shook her head.
"Thank God!" he cried. "If you are going home now, take my arm," he said,and they walked together along the path leading across the meadow. "Youhave been fighting a hard and despairing battle, Vera. So much you donot conceal. Are you going to conquer this agonising and dangerouspassion?"
"And if I do, Cousin?" she asked despondently.
"The richer for a great experience, strengthened against future storms,your portion will be a great happiness, sufficient to fill your wholelife."
"I cannot comprehend any other happiness," she said, thoughtfully. Shestood still, leaning her head on his shoulder, and her eyes filled withtears. He did not know that he had probed her wound by touching on thevery point that had caused her separation from Mark.
At that moment there was the report of a shot in the depths below theprecipice, and the sound was re-echo
ed from the hills. Raisky and Veraboth started. She stood listening for a moment. Her eyes, still wet withtears, were wide and staring now. Then she loosed her hold of his arm,and hurried in the direction of the precipice, with Raisky hurrying ather heels. When she had gone half way, she stopped, laid her hand on herheart, and listened once more.
"A few minutes ago your mind was made up, Vera!"
Raisky's face was pale, and his agitation nearly as great as hers. Shedid not hear his words, and she looked at him without seeing him. Thenshe took a few steps in the direction of the precipice, but suddenlyturned to go slowly towards the chapel.
"I am not going," she whispered. "Why does he call me? It cannot be thathe has changed his attitude in the last few days."
She sank down on her knees before the sacred picture, and covered herface with her hands. Raisky came up to her, and implored her not to go.She herself gazed at the picture with expressionless, hopeless eyes.When she rose she shuddered, and seemed unaware of Raisky's presence.
A shot sounded once more. With a cry Vera ran over the meadow towardsthe cliff. Perhaps my conviction has conquered, she thought. Why elseshould he call her? Her feet hardly seemed to touch the grass as she raninto the avenue that led to the precipice.