Under Western Eyes Read online

  "You will come in for a moment?" said Natalia Haldin.

  I demurred on account of the late hour. "You know mother likes you somuch," she insisted.

  "I will just come in to hear how your mother is."

  She said, as if to herself, "I don't even know whether she will believethat I could not find Mr. Razumov, since she has taken it into her headthat I am concealing something from her. You may be able to persuadeher...."

  "Your mother may mistrust me too," I observed.

  "You! Why? What could you have to conceal from her? You are not aRussian nor a conspirator."

  I felt profoundly my European remoteness, and said nothing, but I madeup my mind to play my part of helpless spectator to the end. The distantrolling of thunder in the valley of the Rhone was coming nearer to thesleeping town of prosaic virtues and universal hospitality. We crossedthe street opposite the great dark gateway, and Miss Haldin rang at thedoor of the apartment. It was opened almost instantly, as if theelderly maid had been waiting in the ante-room for our return. Her flatphysiognomy had an air of satisfaction. The gentleman was there, shedeclared, while closing the door.

  Neither of us understood. Miss Haldin turned round brusquely to her."Who?"

  "Herr Razumov," she explained.

  She had heard enough of our conversation before we left to know why heryoung mistress was going out. Therefore, when the gentleman gave hisname at the door, she admitted him at once.

  "No one could have foreseen that," Miss Haldin murmured, with herserious grey eyes fixed upon mine. And, remembering the expression ofthe young man's face seen not much more than four hours ago, the look ofa haunted somnambulist, I wondered with a sort of awe.

  "You asked my mother first?" Miss Haldin inquired of the maid.

  "No. I announced the gentleman," she answered, surprised at our troubledfaces.

  "Still," I said in an undertone, "your mother was prepared."

  "Yes. But he has no idea...."

  It seemed to me she doubted his tact. To her question how long thegentleman had been with her mother, the maid told us that Der Herr hadbeen in the drawing-room no more than a short quarter of an hour.

  She waited a moment, then withdrew, looking a little scared. Miss Haldingazed at me in silence.

  "As things have turned out," I said, "you happen to know exactly whatyour brother's friend has to tell your mother. And surely after that..."

  "Yes," said Natalia Haldin slowly. "I only wonder, as I was not herewhen he came, if it wouldn't be better not to interrupt now."

  We remained silent, and I suppose we both strained our ears, but nosound reached us through the closed door. The features of Miss Haldinexpressed a painful irresolution; she made a movement as if to go in,but checked herself. She had heard footsteps on the other side of thedoor. It came open, and Razumov, without pausing, stepped out into theante-room. The fatigue of that day and the struggle with himself hadchanged him so much that I would have hesitated to recognize that facewhich, only a few hours before, when he brushed against me in front ofthe post office, had been startling enough but quite different. Ithad been not so livid then, and its eyes not so sombre. They certainlylooked more sane now, but there was upon them the shadow of somethingconsciously evil.

  I speak of that, because, at first, their glance fell on me, thoughwithout any sort of recognition or even comprehension. I was simply inthe line of his stare. I don't know if he had heard the bell or expectedto see anybody. He was going out, I believe, and I do not think thathe saw Miss Haldin till she advanced towards him a step or two. Hedisregarded the hand she put out.

  "It's you, Natalia Victorovna.... Perhaps you are surprised...atthis late hour. But, you see, I remembered our conversations in thatgarden. I thought really it was your wish that I should--without loss oftime...so I came. No other reason. Simply to tell..."

  He spoke with difficulty. I noticed that, and remembered his declarationto the man in the shop that he was going out because he "needed air."If that was his object, then it was clear that he had miserably failed.With downcast eyes and lowered head he made an effort to pick up thestrangled phrase.

  "To tell what I have heard myself only to-day--to-day...."

  Through the door he had not closed I had a view of the drawing-room. Itwas lighted only by a shaded lamp--Mrs. Haldin's eyes could not supporteither gas or electricity. It was a comparatively big room, and incontrast with the strongly lighted ante-room its length was lost insemi-transparent gloom backed by heavy shadows; and on that ground I sawthe motionless figure of Mrs. Haldin, inclined slightly forward, with apale hand resting on the arm of the chair.

  She did not move. With the window before her she had no longer thatattitude suggesting expectation. The blind was down; and outsidethere was only the night sky harbouring a thunder-cloud, and the townindifferent and hospitable in its cold, almost scornful, toleration--arespectable town of refuge to which all these sorrows and hopes werenothing. Her white head was bowed.

  The thought that the real drama of autocracy is not played on the greatstage of politics came to me as, fated to be a spectator, I had thisother glimpse behind the scenes, something more profound than the wordsand gestures of the public play. I had the certitude that this mother,refused in her heart to give her son up after all. It was morethan Rachel's inconsolable mourning, it was something deeper, moreinaccessible in its frightful tranquillity. Lost in the ill-definedmass of the high-backed chair, her white, inclined profile suggestedthe contemplation of something in her lap, as though a beloved head wereresting there.

  I had this glimpse behind the scenes, and then Miss Haldin, passing bythe young man, shut the door. It was not done without hesitation. For amoment I thought that she would go to her mother, but she sent in onlyan anxious glance. Perhaps if Mrs. Haldin had moved...but no. Therewas in the immobility of that bloodless face the dreadful aloofness ofsuffering without remedy.

  Meantime the young man kept his eyes fixed on the floor. The thoughtthat he would have to repeat the story he had told already wasintolerable to him. He had expected to find the two women together. Andthen, he had said to himself, it would be over for all time--for alltime. "It's lucky I don't believe in another world," he had thoughtcynically.

  Alone in his room after having posted his secret letter, he had regaineda certain measure of composure by writing in his secret diary. He wasaware of the danger of that strange self-indulgence. He alludes to ithimself, but he could not refrain. It calmed him--it reconciled himto his existence. He sat there scribbling by the light of a solitarycandle, till it occurred to him that having heard the explanation ofHaldin's arrest, as put forward by Sophia Antonovna, it behoved him totell these ladies himself. They were certain to hear the tale throughsome other channel, and then his abstention would look strange, not onlyto the mother and sister of Haldin, but to other people also. Havingcome to this conclusion, he did not discover in himself any markedreluctance to face the necessity, and very soon an anxiety to be donewith it began to torment him. He looked at his watch. No; it was notabsolutely too late.

  The fifteen minutes with Mrs. Haldin were like the revenge of theunknown: that white face, that weak, distinct voice; that head, atfirst turned to him eagerly, then, after a while, bowed again andmotionless--in the dim, still light of the room in which his wordswhich he tried to subdue resounded so loudly--had troubled him like somestrange discovery. And there seemed to be a secret obstinacy in thatsorrow, something he could not understand; at any rate, something he hadnot expected. Was it hostile? But it did not matter. Nothing could touchhim now; in the eyes of the revolutionists there was now no shadow onhis past. The phantom of Haldin had been indeed walked over, was leftbehind lying powerless and passive on the pavement covered with snow.And this was the phantom's mother consumed with grief and white as aghost. He had felt a pitying surprise. But that, of course, was of noimportance. Mothers did not matter. He could not shake off the poignantimpression of that silent, quiet, white-haired woman, but a sort ofsternness crept in
to his thoughts. These were the consequences. Well,what of it? "Am I then on a bed of roses?" he had exclaimed to himself,sitting at some distance with his eyes fixed upon that figure of sorrow.He had said all he had to say to her, and when he had finished she hadnot uttered a word. She had turned away her head while he was speaking.The silence which had fallen on his last words had lasted for fiveminutes or more. What did it mean? Before its incomprehensible characterhe became conscious of anger in his stern mood, the old anger againstHaldin reawakened by the contemplation of Haldin's mother. And wasit not something like enviousness which gripped his heart, as if ofa privilege denied to him alone of all the men that had ever passedthrough this world? It was the other who had attained to repose and yetcontinued to exist in the affection of that mourning old woman, inthe thoughts of all these people posing for lovers of humanity. Itwas impossible to get rid of him. "It's myself whom I have given upto destruction," thought Razumov. "He has induced me to do it. I can'tshake him off."

  Alarmed by that discovery, he got up and strode out of the silent,dim room with its silent old woman in the chair, that mother! He neverlooked back. It was frankly a flight. But on opening the door he sawhis retreat cut off: There was the sister. He had never forgotten thesister, only he had not expected to see her then--or ever any more,perhaps. Her presence in the ante-room was as unforeseen as theapparition of her brother had been. Razumov gave a start as though hehad discovered himself cleverly trapped. He tried to smile, but couldnot manage it, and lowered his eyes. "Must I repeat that silly storynow?" he asked himself, and felt a sinking sensation. Nothing solidhad passed his lips since the day before, but he was not in a state toanalyse the origins of his weakness. He meant to take up his hat anddepart with as few words as possible, but Miss Haldin's swift movementto shut the door took him by surprise. He half turned after her, butwithout raising his eyes, passively, just as a feather might stir in thedisturbed air. The next moment she was back in the place she had startedfrom, with another half-turn on his part, so that they came again intothe same relative positions.

  "Yes, yes," she said hurriedly. "I am very grateful to you, KiryloSidorovitch, for coming at once--like this.... Only, I wish I had....Did mother tell you?"

  "I wonder what she could have told me that I did not know before," hesaid, obviously to himself, but perfectly audible. "Because I always didknow it," he added louder, as if in despair.

  He hung his head. He had such a strong sense of Natalia Haldin'spresence that to look at her he felt would be a relief. It was she whohad been haunting him now. He had suffered that persecution ever sinceshe had suddenly appeared before him in the garden of the Villa Borelwith an extended hand and the name of her brother on her lips....The ante-room had a row of hooks on the wall nearest to the outer door,while against the wall opposite there stood a small dark table and onechair. The paper, bearing a very faint design, was all but white. Thelight of an electric bulb high up under the ceiling searched that clearsquare box into its four bare corners, crudely, without shadows--astrange stage for an obscure drama.

  "What do you mean?" asked Miss Haldin. "What is it that you knewalways?"

  He raised his face, pale, full of unexpressed suffering. But thatlook in his eyes of dull, absent obstinacy, which struck and surprisedeverybody he was talking to, began to pass way. It was as though hewere coming to himself in the awakened consciousness of that marvellousharmony of feature, of lines, of glances, of voice, which made of thegirl before him a being so rare, outside, and, as it were, above thecommon notion of beauty. He looked at her so long that she colouredslightly.

  "What is it that you knew?" she repeated vaguely.

  That time he managed to smile.

  "Indeed, if it had not been for a word of greeting or two, I would doubtwhether your mother was aware at all of my existence. You understand?"

  Natalia Haldin nodded; her hands moved slightly by her side.

  "Yes. Is it not heart-breaking? She has not shed a tear yet--not asingle tear."

  "Not a tear! And you, Natalia Victorovna? You have been able to cry?"

  "I have. And then I am young enough, Kirylo Sidorovitch, to believe inthe future. But when I see my mother so terribly distracted, I almostforget everything. I ask myself whether one should feel proud--or onlyresigned. We had such a lot of people coming to see us. There wereutter strangers who wrote asking for permission to call to present theirrespects. It was impossible to keep our door shut for ever. You knowthat Peter Ivanovitch himself.... Oh yes, there was much sympathy,but there were persons who exulted openly at that death. Then, when Iwas left alone with poor mother, all this seemed so wrong in spirit,something not worth the price she is paying for it. But directly I heardyou were here in Geneva, Kirylo Sidorovitch, I felt that you were theonly person who could assist me...."

  "In comforting a bereaved mother? Yes!" he broke in in a manner whichmade her open her clear unsuspecting eyes. "But there is a question offitness. Has this occurred to you?"

  There was a breathlessness in his utterance which contrasted with themonstrous hint of mockery in his intention.

  "Why!" whispered Natalia Haldin with feeling. "Who more fit than you?"

  He had a convulsive movement of exasperation, but controlled himself.

  "Indeed! Directly you heard that I was in Geneva, before even seeing me?It is another proof of that confidence which...."

  All at once his tone changed, became more incisive and more detached.

  "Men are poor creatures, Natalia Victorovna. They have no intuition ofsentiment. In order to speak fittingly to a mother of her lost son onemust have had some experience of the filial relation. It is not the casewith me--if you must know the whole truth. Your hopes have to deal herewith 'a breast unwarmed by any affection,' as the poet says.... Thatdoes not mean it is insensible," he added in a lower tone.

  "I am certain your heart is not unfeeling," said Miss Haldin softly.

  "No. It is not as hard as a stone," he went on in the same introspectivevoice, and looking as if his heart were lying as heavy as a stone inthat unwarmed breast of which he spoke. "No, not so hard. But how toprove what you give me credit for--ah! that's another question. No onehas ever expected such a thing from me before. No one whom my tendernesswould have been of any use to. And now you come. You! Now! No, NataliaVictorovna. It's too late. You come too late. You must expect nothingfrom me."

  She recoiled from him a little, though he had made no movement, asif she had seen some change in his face, charging his words with thesignificance of some hidden sentiment they shared together. To me, thesilent spectator, they looked like two people becoming conscious of aspell which had been lying on them ever since they first set eyes oneach other. Had either of them cast a glance then in my direction, Iwould have opened the door quietly and gone out. But neither did; andI remained, every fear of indiscretion lost in the sense of my enormousremoteness from their captivity within the sombre horizon of Russianproblems, the boundary of their eyes, of their feelings--the prison oftheir souls.

  Frank, courageous, Miss Haldin controlled her voice in the midst of hertrouble.

  "What can this mean?" she asked, as if speaking to herself.

  "It may mean that you have given yourself up to vain imaginings while Ihave managed to remain amongst the truth of things and the realities oflife--our Russian life--such as they are."

  "They are cruel," she murmured.

  "And ugly. Don't forget that--and ugly. Look where you like. Look nearyou, here abroad where you are, and then look back at home, whence youcame."

  "One must look beyond the present." Her tone had an ardent conviction.

  "The blind can do that best. I have had the misfortune to be bornclear-eyed. And if you only knew what strange things I have seen! Whatamazing and unexpected apparitions!... But why talk of all this?"

  "On the contrary, I want to talk of all this with you," she protestedwith earnest serenity. The sombre humours of her brother's friend lefther unaffected, as though that bitterness, that s
uppressed anger, werethe signs of an indignant rectitude. She saw that he was not an ordinaryperson, and perhaps she did not want him to be other than he appeared toher trustful eyes. "Yes, with you especially," she insisted. "With youof all the Russian people in the world...." A faint smile dwelt fora moment on her lips. "I am like poor mother in a way. I too seem unableto give up our beloved dead, who, don't forget, was all in all to us. Idon't want to abuse your sympathy, but you must understand that it is inyou that we can find all that is left of his generous soul."

  I was looking at him; not a muscle of his face moved in the least. Andyet, even at the time, I did not suspect him of insensibility. It was asort of rapt thoughtfulness. Then he stirred slightly.

  "You are going, Kirylo Sidorovitch?" she asked.

  "I! Going? Where? Oh yes, but I must tell you first...." His voicewas muffled and he forced himself to produce it with visible repugnance,as if speech were something disgusting or deadly. "That story, youknow--the story I heard this afternoon...."

  "I know the story already," she said sadly.

  "You know it! Have you correspondents in St. Petersburg too?"

  "No. It's Sophia Antonovna. I have seen her just now. She sends you hergreetings. She is going away to-morrow."

  He had lowered at last his fascinated glance; she too was looking down,and standing thus before each other in the glaring light, between thefour bare walls, they seemed brought out from the confused immensityof the Eastern borders to be exposed cruelly to the observation of myWestern eyes. And I observed them. There was nothing else to do. Myexistence seemed so utterly forgotten by these two that I dared not nowmake a movement. And I thought to myself that, of course, they had tocome together, the sister and the friend of that dead man. The ideas,the hopes, the aspirations, the cause of Freedom, expressed in theircommon affection for Victor Haldin, the moral victim of autocracy,--allthis must draw them to each other fatally. Her very ignorance and hisloneliness to which he had alluded so strangely must work to that end.And, indeed, I saw that the work was done already. Of course. It wasmanifest that they must have been thinking of each other for a long timebefore they met. She had the letter from that beloved brother kindlingher imagination by the severe praise attached to that one name; and forhim to see that exceptional girl was enough. The only cause for surprisewas his gloomy aloofness before her clearly expressed welcome. But hewas young, and however austere and devoted to his revolutionary ideals,he was not blind. The period of reserve was over; he was coming forwardin his own way. I could not mistake the significance of this late visit,for in what he had to say there was nothing urgent. The true causedawned upon me: he had discovered that he needed her and she was movedby the same feeling. It was the second time that I saw them together,and I knew that next time they met I would not be there, eitherremembered or forgotten. I would have virtually ceased to exist for boththese young people.

  I made this discovery in a very few moments. Meantime, Natalia Haldinwas telling Razumov briefly of our peregrinations from one end of Genevato the other. While speaking she raised her hands above her head tountie her veil, and that movement displayed for an instant the seductivegrace of her youthful figure, clad in the simplest of mourning. In thetransparent shadow the hat rim threw on her face her grey eyes had anenticing lustre. Her voice, with its unfeminine yet exquisite timbre,was steady, and she spoke quickly, frank, unembarrassed. As shejustified her action by the mental state of her mother, a spasm of painmarred the generously confiding harmony of her features. I perceivedthat with his downcast eyes he had the air of a man who is listeningto a strain of music rather than to articulated speech. And in the sameway, after she had ceased, he seemed to listen yet, motionless, as ifunder the spell of suggestive sound. He came to himself, muttering--

  "Yes, yes. She has not shed a tear. She did not seem to hear what Iwas saying. I might have told her anything. She looked as if no longerbelonging to this world."

  Miss Haldin gave signs of profound distress. Her voice faltered. "Youdon't know how bad it has come to be. She expects now to see _him_!" Theveil dropped from her fingers and she clasped her hands in anguish. "Itshall end by her seeing him," she cried.

  Razumov raised his head sharply and attached on her a prolongedthoughtful glance.

  "H'm. That's very possible," he muttered in a peculiar tone, as ifgiving his opinion on a matter of fact. "I wonder what...." Hechecked himself.

  "That would be the end. Her mind shall be gone then, and her spirit willfollow."

  Miss Haldin unclasped her hands and let them fall by her side.

  "You think so?" he queried profoundly. Miss Haldin's lips were slightlyparted. Something unexpected and unfathomable in that young man'scharacter had fascinated her from the first. "No! There's neither truthnor consolation to be got from the phantoms of the dead," he added aftera weighty pause. "I might have told her something true; for instance,that your brother meant to save his life--to escape. There can be nodoubt of that. But I did not."

  "You did not! But why?"

  "I don't know. Other thoughts came into my head," he answered. He seemedto me to be watching himself inwardly, as though he were trying to counthis own heart-beats, while his eyes never for a moment left the faceof the girl. "You were not there," he continued. "I had made up my mindnever to see you again."

  This seemed to take her breath away for a moment.

  "You.... How is it possible?"

  "You may well ask.... However, I think that I refrained from tellingyour mother from prudence. I might have assured her that in the lastconversation he held as a free man he mentioned you both...."

  "That last conversation was with you," she struck in her deep, movingvoice. "Some day you must...."

  "It was with me. Of you he said that you had trustful eyes. And why Ihave not been able to forget that phrase I don't know. It meantthat there is in you no guile, no deception, no falsehood, nosuspicion--nothing in your heart that could give you a conception of aliving, acting, speaking lie, if ever it came in your way. That you area predestined victim.... Ha! what a devilish suggestion!"

  The convulsive, uncontrolled tone of the last words disclosed theprecarious hold he had over himself. He was like a man defying his owndizziness in high places and tottering suddenly on the very edge of theprecipice. Miss Haldin pressed her hand to her breast. The dropped blackveil lay on the floor between them. Her movement steadied him. He lookedintently on that hand till it descended slowly, and then raised againhis eyes to her face. But he did not give her time to speak.

  "No? You don't understand? Very well." He had recovered his calm by amiracle of will. "So you talked with Sophia Antonovna?"

  "Yes. Sophia Antonovna told me...." Miss Haldin stopped, wondergrowing in her wide eyes.

  "H'm. That's the respectable enemy," he muttered, as though he werealone.

  "The tone of her references to you was extremely friendly," remarkedMiss Haldin, after waiting for a while.

  "Is that your impression? And she the most intelligent of the lot,too. Things then are going as well as possible. Everything conspiresto...Ah! these conspirators," he said slowly, with an accent of scorn;"they would get hold of you in no time! You know, Natalia Victorovna, Ihave the greatest difficulty in saving myself from the superstitionof an active Providence. It's irresistible.... The alternative, ofcourse, would be the personal Devil of our simple ancestors. But, ifso, he has overdone it altogether--the old Father of Lies--our nationalpatron--our domestic god, whom we take with us when we go abroad. He hasoverdone it. It seems that I am not simple enough.... That's it! Iought to have known.... And I did know it," he added in a tone ofpoignant distress which overcame my astonishment.

  "This man is deranged," I said to myself, very much frightened.

  The next moment he gave me a very special impression beyond the range ofcommonplace definitions. It was as though he had stabbed himself outsideand had come in there to show it; and more than that--as though he wereturning the knife in the wound and watching the effect. T
hat was theimpression, rendered in physical terms. One could not defend oneselffrom a certain amount of pity. But it was for Miss Haldin, already sotried in her deepest affections, that I felt a serious concern. Herattitude, her face, expressed compassion struggling with doubt on theverge of terror.

  "What is it, Kirylo Sidorovitch?" There was a hint of tenderness inthat cry. He only stared at her in that complete surrender of all hisfaculties which in a happy lover would have had the name of ecstasy.

  "Why are you looking at me like this, Kirylo Sidorovitch? I haveapproached you frankly. I need at this time to see clearly inmyself...." She ceased for a moment as if to give him an opportunity toutter at last some word worthy of her exalted trust in her brother'sfriend. His silence became impressive, like a sign of a momentousresolution.

  In the end Miss Haldin went on, appealingly--

  "I have waited for you anxiously. But now that you have been moved tocome to us in your kindness, you alarm me. You speak obscurely. It seemsas if you were keeping back something from me."

  "Tell me, Natalia Victorovna," he was heard at last in a strangeunringing voice, "whom did you see in that place?"

  She was startled, and as if deceived in her expectations.

  "Where? In Peter Ivanovitch's rooms? There was Mr. Laspara and threeother people."

  "Ha! The vanguard--the forlorn hope of the great plot," he commented tohimself. "Bearers of the spark to start an explosion which is meant tochange fundamentally the lives of so many millions in order that PeterIvanovitch should be the head of a State."

  "You are teasing me," she said. "Our dear one told me once to rememberthat men serve always something greater than themselves--the idea."

  "Our dear one," he repeated slowly. The effort he made to appear unmovedabsorbed all the force of his soul. He stood before her like a beingwith hardly a breath of life. His eyes, even as under great physicalsuffering, had lost all their fire. "Ah! your brother.... But onyour lips, in your voice, it sounds...and indeed in you everything isdivine.... I wish I could know the innermost depths of your thoughts,of your feelings."

  "But why, Kirylo Sidorovitch?" she cried, alarmed by these words comingout of strangely lifeless lips.

  "Have no fear. It is not to betray you. So you went there?... AndSophia Antonovna, what did she tell you, then?"

  "She said very little, really. She knew that I should hear everythingfrom you. She had no time for more than a few words." Miss Haldin'svoice dropped and she became silent for a moment. "The man, it appears,has taken his life," she said sadly.

  "Tell me, Natalia Victorovna," he asked after a pause, "do you believein remorse?"

  "What a question!"

  "What can _you_ know of it?" he muttered thickly. "It is not for such asyou.... What I meant to ask was whether you believed in the efficacyof remorse?"

  She hesitated as though she had not understood, then her face lightedup.

  "Yes," she said firmly.

  "So he is absolved. Moreover, that Ziemianitch was a brute, a drunkenbrute."

  A shudder passed through Natalia Haldin.

  "But a man of the people," Razumov went on, "to whom they, therevolutionists, tell a tale of sublime hopes. Well, the people mustbe forgiven.... And you must not believe all you've heard from thatsource, either," he added, with a sort of sinister reluctance.

  "You are concealing something from me," she exclaimed.

  "Do you, Natalia Victorovna, believe in the duty of revenge?"

  "Listen, Kirylo Sidorovitch. I believe that the future shall be mercifulto us all. Revolutionist and reactionary, victim and executioner,betrayer and betrayed, they shall all be pitied together when the lightbreaks on our black sky at last. Pitied and forgotten; for without thatthere can be no union and no love."

  "I hear. No revenge for you, then? Never? Not the least bit?" He smiledbitterly with his colourless lips. "You yourself are like the veryspirit of that merciful future. Strange that it does not make iteasier.... No! But suppose that the real betrayer of yourbrother--Ziemianitch had a part in it too, but insignificant and quiteinvoluntary--suppose that he was a young man, educated, an intellectualworker, thoughtful, a man your brother might have trusted lightly,perhaps, but still--suppose.... But there's a whole story there."

  "And you know the story! But why, then--"

  "I have heard it. There is a staircase in it, and even phantoms, butthat does not matter if a man always serves something greater thanhimself--the idea. I wonder who is the greatest victim in that tale?"

  "In that tale!" Miss Haldin repeated. She seemed turned into stone.

  "Do you know why I came to you? It is simply because there is no oneanywhere in the whole great world I could go to. Do you understandwhat I say? Not one to go to. Do you conceive the desolation of thethought--no one--to--go--to?"

  Utterly misled by her own enthusiastic interpretation of two lines inthe letter of a visionary, under the spell of her own dread of lonelydays, in their overshadowed world of angry strife, she was unable tosee the truth struggling on his lips. What she was conscious of was theobscure form of his suffering. She was on the point of extending herhand to him impulsively when he spoke again.

  "An hour after I saw you first I knew how it would be. The terrors ofremorse, revenge, confession, anger, hate, fear, are like nothing to theatrocious temptation which you put in my way the day you appeared beforeme with your voice, with your face, in the garden of that accursedvilla."

  She looked utterly bewildered for a moment; then, with a sort ofdespairing insight went straight to the point.

  "The story, Kirylo Sidorovitch, the story!"

  "There is no more to tell!" He made a movement forward, and she actuallyput her hand on his shoulder to push him away; but her strength failedher, and he kept his ground, though trembling in every limb. "It endshere--on this very spot." He pressed a denunciatory finger to his breastwith force, and became perfectly still.

  I ran forward, snatching up the chair, and was in time to catch hold ofMiss Haldin and lower her down. As she sank into it she swung half roundon my arm, and remained averted from us both, drooping over the back.He looked at her with an appalling expressionless tranquillity.Incredulity, struggling with astonishment, anger, and disgust, deprivedme for a time of the power of speech. Then I turned on him, whisperingfrom very rage--

  "This is monstrous. What are you staying for? Don't let her catch sightof you again. Go away!..." He did not budge. "Don't you understandthat your presence is intolerable--even to me? If there's any sense ofshame in you...."

  Slowly his sullen eyes moved ill my direction. "How did this old mancome here?" he muttered, astounded.

  Suddenly Miss Haldin sprang up from the chair, made a few steps, andtottered. Forgetting my indignation, and even the man himself, I hurriedto her assistance. I took her by the arm, and she let me lead her intothe drawing-room. Away from the lamp, in the deeper dusk of the distantend, the profile of Mrs. Haldin, her hands, her whole figure hadthe stillness of a sombre painting. Miss Haldin stopped, and pointedmournfully at the tragic immobility of her mother, who seemed to watch abeloved head lying in her lap.

  That gesture had an unequalled force of expression, so far-reaching inits human distress that one could not believe that it pointed out merelythe ruthless working of political institutions. After assisting MissHaldin to the sofa, I turned round to go back and shut the door Framedin the opening, in the searching glare of the white anteroom, my eyesfell on Razumov, still there, standing before the empty chair, as ifrooted for ever to the spot of his atrocious confession. A wonder cameover me that the mysterious force which had torn it out of him hadfailed to destroy his life, to shatter his body. It was there unscathed.I stared at the broad line of his shoulders, his dark head, the amazingimmobility of his limbs. At his feet the veil dropped by Miss Haldinlooked intensely black in the white crudity of the light. He was gazingat it spell-bound. Next moment, stooping with an incredible, savageswiftness, he snatched it up and pressed it to his face with both ha
nds.Something, extreme astonishment perhaps, dimmed my eyes, so that heseemed to vanish before he moved.

  The slamming of the outer door restored my sight, and I went oncontemplating the empty chair in the empty ante-room. The meaningof what I had seen reached my mind with a staggering shock. I seizedNatalia Haldin by the shoulder.

  "That miserable wretch has carried off your veil!" I cried, in thescared, deadened voice of an awful discovery. "He...."

  The rest remained unspoken. I stepped back and looked down at her, insilent horror. Her hands were lying lifelessly, palms upwards, on herlap. She raised her grey eyes slowly. Shadows seemed to come and go inthem as if the steady flame of her soul had been made to vacillateat last in the cross-currents of poisoned air from the corrupted darkimmensity claiming her for its own, where virtues themselves fester intocrimes in the cynicism of oppression and revolt.

  "It is impossible to be more unhappy...." The languid whisper of hervoice struck me with dismay. "It is impossible.... I feel my heartbecoming like ice."

  IV

  Razumov walked straight home on the wet glistening pavement. A heavyshower passed over him; distant lightning played faintly against thefronts of the dumb houses with the shuttered shops all along the Ruede Carouge; and now and then, after the faint flash, there was a faint,sleepy rumble; but the main forces of the thunderstorm remainedmassed down the Rhone valley as if loath to attack the respectable andpassionless abode of democratic liberty, the serious-minded town ofdreary hotels, tendering the same indifferent, hospitality to touristsof all nations and to international conspirators of every shade.

  The owner of the shop was making ready to close when Razumov entered andwithout a word extended his hand for the key of his room. On reachingit for him, from a shelf, the man was about to pass a small joke as totaking the air in a thunderstorm, but, after looking at the face of hislodger, he only observed, just to say something--

  "You've got very wet."

  "Yes, I am washed clean," muttered Razumov, who was dripping from headto foot, and passed through the inner door towards the staircase leadingto his room.

  He did not change his clothes, but, after lighting the candle, took offhis watch and chain, laid them on the table, and sat down at once towrite. The book of his compromising record was kept in a locked drawer,which he pulled out violently, and did not even trouble to push backafterwards.

  In this queer pedantism of a man who had read, thought, lived, pen inhand, there is the sincerity of the attempt to grapple by the same meanswith another profounder knowledge. After some passages which have beenalready made use of in the building up of this narrative, or add nothingnew to the psychological side of this disclosure (there is even one moreallusion to the silver medal in this last entry), comes a page anda half of incoherent writing where his expression is baffled by thenovelty and the mysteriousness of that side of our emotional life towhich his solitary existence had been a stranger. Then only he beginsto address directly the reader he had in his mind, trying to express inbroken sentences, full of wonder and awe, the sovereign (he uses thatvery word) power of her person over his imagination, in which lay thedormant seed of her brother's words.

  "... The most trustful eyes in the world--your brother said of youwhen he was as well as a dead man already. And when you stood before mewith your hand extended, I remembered the very sound of his voice, andI looked into your eyes--and that was enough. I knew that something hadhappened, but I did not know then what.... But don't be deceived,Natalia Victorovna. I believed that I had in my breast nothing but aninexhaustible fund of anger and hate for you both. I remembered that hehad looked to you for the perpetuation of his visionary soul. He, thisman who had robbed me of my hard-working, purposeful existence. I, too,had my guiding idea; and remember that, amongst us, it is more difficultto lead a life of toil and self-denial than to go out in the street andkill from conviction. But enough of that. Hate or no hate, I felt atonce that, while shunning the sight of you, I could never succeed indriving away your image. I would say, addressing that dead man, 'Isthis the way you are going to haunt me?' It is only later on that Iunderstood--only to-day, only a few hours ago. What could I have knownof what was tearing me to pieces and dragging the secret for ever tomy lips? You were appointed to undo the evil by making me betray myselfback into truth and peace. You! And you have done it in the same way,too, in which he ruined me: by forcing upon me your confidence. Onlywhat I detested him for, in you ended by appearing noble and exalted.But, I repeat, be not deceived. I was given up to evil. I exulted inhaving induced that silly innocent fool to steal his father's money. Hewas a fool, but not a thief. I made him one. It was necessary. I hadto confirm myself in my contempt and hate for what I betrayed. I havesuffered from as many vipers in my heart as any social democrat of themall--vanity, ambitions, jealousies, shameful desires, evil passions ofenvy and revenge. I had my security stolen from me, years of good work,my best hopes. Listen--now comes the true confession. The other wasnothing. To save me, your trustful eyes had to entice my thought to thevery edge of the blackest treachery. I could see them constantly lookingat me with the confidence of your pure heart which had not been touchedby evil things. Victor Haldin had stolen the truth of my life from me,who had nothing else in the world, and he boasted of living on throughyou on this earth where I had no place to lay my head on. She will marrysome day, he had said--and your eyes were trustful. And do you know whatI said to myself? I shall steal his sister's soul from her. When we metthat first morning in the gardens, and you spoke to me confidinglyin the generosity of your spirit, I was thinking, 'Yes, he himself bytalking of her trustful eyes has delivered her into my hands!' If youcould have looked then into my heart, you would have cried out aloudwith terror and disgust.

  "Perhaps no one will believe the baseness of such an intention to bepossible. It's certain that, when we parted that morning, I gloatedover it. I brooded upon the best way. The old man you introduced me toinsisted on walking with me. I don't know who he is. He talked of you,of your lonely, helpless state, and every word of that friend of yourswas egging me on to the unpardonable sin of stealing a soul. Could hehave been the devil himself in the shape of an old Englishman? NataliaVictorovna, I was possessed! I returned to look at you every day,and drink in your presence the poison of my infamous intention. ButI foresaw difficulties. Then Sophia Antonovna, of whom I was notthinking--I had forgotten her existence--appears suddenly with thattale from St. Petersburg.... The only thing needed to make me safe--atrusted revolutionist for ever.

  "It was as if Ziemianitch had hanged himself to help me on to furthercrime. The strength of falsehood seemed irresistible. These peoplestood doomed by the folly and the illusion that was in them--they beingthemselves the slaves of lies. Natalia Victorovna, I embraced the mightof falsehood, I exulted in it--I gave myself up to it for a time. Whocould have resisted! You yourself were the prize of it. I sat alone inmy room, planning a life, the very thought of which makes me shuddernow, like a believer who had been tempted to an atrocious sacrilege. ButI brooded ardently over its images. The only thing was that there seemedto be no air in it. And also I was afraid of your mother. I never knewmine. I've never known any kind of love. There is something in the mereword.... Of you, I was not afraid--forgive me for telling you this.No, not of you. You were truth itself. You could not suspect me. As toyour mother, you yourself feared already that her mind had given wayfrom grief. Who could believe anything against me? Had not Ziemianitchhanged himself from remorse? I said to myself, 'Let's put it to thetest, and be done with it once for all.' I trembled when I went in;but your mother hardly listened to what I was saying to her, and, in alittle while, seemed to have forgotten my very existence. I sat lookingat her. There was no longer anything between you and me. You weredefenceless--and soon, very soon, you would be alone.... I thought ofyou. Defenceless. For days you have talked with me--opening your heart.I remembered the shadow of your eyelashes over your grey trustful eyes.And your pure forehead! It is low like the forehead of statues
--calm,unstained. It was as if your pure brow bore a light which fell on me,searched my heart and saved me from ignominy, from ultimate undoing.And it saved you too. Pardon my presumption. But there was that in yourglances which seemed to tell me that you.... Your light! your truth!I felt that I must tell you that I had ended by loving you. And to tellyou that I must first confess. Confess, go out--and perish.

  "Suddenly you stood before me! You alone in all the world to whom Imust confess. You fascinated me--you have freed me from the blindness ofanger and hate--the truth shining in you drew the truth out of me. Now Ihave done it; and as I write here, I am in the depths depths of anguish,but there is air to breathe at last--air! And, by the by, that old mansprang up from somewhere as I was speaking to you, and raged at me likea disappointed devil. I suffer horribly, but I am not in despair. Thereis only one more thing to do for me. After that--if they let me--I shallgo away and bury myself in obscure misery. In giving Victor Haldin up,it was myself, after all, whom I have betrayed most basely. You mustbelieve what I say now, you can't refuse to believe this. Most basely.It is through you that I came to feel this so deeply. After all, it isthey and not I who have the right on their side?--theirs is thestrength of invisible powers. So be it. Only don't be deceived, NataliaVictorovna, I am not converted. Have I then the soul of a slave? No! Iam independent--and therefore perdition is my lot."

  On these words, he stopped writing, shut the book, and wrapped it in theblack veil he had carried off. He then ransacked the drawers forpaper and string, made up a parcel which he addressed to Miss Haldin,Boulevard des Philosophes, and then flung the pen away from him into adistant corner.

  This done, he sat down with the watch before him. He could have gone outat once, but the hour had not struck yet. The hour would be midnight.There was no reason for that choice except that the facts and the wordsof a certain evening in his past were timing his conduct in the present.The sudden power Natalia Haldin had gained over him he ascribed to thesame cause. "You don't walk with impunity over a phantom's breast,"he heard himself mutter. "Thus he saves me," he thought suddenly. "Hehimself, the betrayed man." The vivid image of Miss Haldin seemed tostand by him, watching him relentlessly. She was not disturbing. He haddone with life, and his thought even in her presence tried to take animpartial survey. Now his scorn extended to himself. "I had neither thesimplicity nor the courage nor the self-possession to be a scoundrel,or an exceptionally able man. For who, with us in Russia, is to tell ascoundrel from an exceptionally able man?..."

  He was the puppet of his past, because at the very stroke of midnight hejumped up and ran swiftly downstairs as if confident that, by the powerof destiny, the house door would fly open before the absolute necessityof his errand. And as a matter of fact, just as he got to the bottomof the stairs, it was opened for him by some people of the house cominghome late--two men and a woman. He slipped out through them into thestreet, swept then by a fitful gust of wind. They were, of course, verymuch startled. A flash of lightning enabled them to observe him walkingaway quickly. One of the men shouted, and was starting in pursuit, butthe woman had recognized him. "It's all right. It's only that youngRussian from the third floor." The darkness returned with a single clapof thunder, like a gun fired for a warning of his escape from the prisonof lies.

  He must have heard at some time or other and now rememberedunconsciously that there was to be a gathering of revolutionists at thehouse of Julius Laspara that evening. At any rate, he made straight forthe Laspara house, and found himself without surprise ringing at itsstreet door, which, of course, was closed. By that time the thunderstormhad attacked in earnest. The steep incline of the street ran with water,the thick fall of rain enveloped him like a luminous veil in the playof lightning. He was perfectly calm, and, between the crashes, listenedattentively to the delicate tinkling of the doorbell somewhere withinthe house.

  There was some difficulty before he was admitted. His person was notknown to that one of the guests who had volunteered to go downstairs andsee what was the matter. Razumov argued with him patiently. There couldbe no harm in admitting a caller. He had something to communicate to thecompany upstairs.

  "Something of importance?"

  "That'll be for the hearers to judge."

  "Urgent?"

  "Without a moment's delay."

  Meantime, one of the Laspara daughters descended the stairs, small lampin hand, in a grimy and crumpled gown, which seemed to hang on her by amiracle, and looking more than ever like an old doll with a dusty brownwig, dragged from under a sofa. She recognized Razumov at once.

  "How do you do? Of course you may come in."

  Following her light, Razumov climbed two flights of stairs from thelower darkness. Leaving the lamp on a bracket on the landing, she openeda door, and went in, accompanied by the sceptical guest. Razumov enteredlast. He closed the door behind him, and stepping on one side, put hisback against the wall.

  The three little rooms _en suite_, with low, smoky ceilings and lit byparaffin lamps, were crammed with people. Loud talking was going onin all three, and tea-glasses, full, half-full, and empty, stoodeverywhere, even on the floor. The other Laspara girl sat, dishevelledand languid, behind an enormous samovar. In the inner doorway Razumovhad a glimpse of the protuberance of a large stomach, which herecognized. Only a few feet from him Julius Laspara was getting downhurriedly from his high stool.

  The appearance of the midnight visitor caused no small sensation.Laspara is very summary in his version of that night's happenings.After some words of greeting, disregarded by Razumov, Laspara (ignoringpurposely his guest's soaked condition and his extraordinary manner ofpresenting himself) mentioned something about writing an article. Hewas growing uneasy, and Razumov appeared absent-minded. "I have writtenalready all I shall ever write," he said at last, with a little laugh.

  The whole company's attention was riveted on the new-comer, drippingwith water, deadly pale, and keeping his position against the wall.Razumov put Laspara gently aside, as though he wished to be seen fromhead to foot by everybody. By then the buzz of conversations had dieddown completely, even in the most distant of the three rooms. Thedoorway facing Razumov became blocked by men and women, who craned theirnecks and certainly seemed to expect something startling to happen.

  A squeaky, insolent declaration was heard from that group.

  "I know this ridiculously conceited individual."

  "What individual?" asked Razumov, raising his bowed head, and searchingwith his eyes all the eyes fixed upon him. An intense surprised silencelasted for a time. "If it's me...."

  He stopped, thinking over the form of his confession, and found itsuddenly, unavoidably suggested by the fateful evening of his life.

  "I am come here," he began, in a clear voice, "to talk of an individualcalled Ziemianitch. Sophia Antonovna has informed me that she would makepublic a certain letter from St. Petersburg...."

  "Sophia Antonovna has left us early in the evening," said Laspara. "It'squite correct. Everybody here has heard...."

  "Very well," Razumov interrupted, with a shade of impatience, for hisheart was beating strongly. Then, mastering his voice so far that therewas even a touch of irony in his clear, forcible enunciation--

  "In justice to that individual, the much ill-used peasant, Ziemianitch,I now declare solemnly that the conclusions of that letter calumniate aman of the people--a bright Russian soul. Ziemianitch had nothing to dowith the actual arrest of Victor Haldin."

  Razumov dwelt on the name heavily, and then waited till the faint,mournful murmur which greeted it had died out.

  "Victor Victorovitch Haldin," he began again, "acting with, no doubt,noble-minded imprudence, took refuge with a certain student of whoseopinions he knew nothing but what his own illusions suggested to hisgenerous heart. It was an unwise display of confidence. But I am nothere to appreciate the actions of Victor Haldin. Am I to tell you ofthe feelings of that student, sought out in his obscure solitude, andmenaced by the complicity forced upon him? Am I to tell you
what he did?It's a rather complicated story. In the end the student went to GeneralT--- himself, and said, 'I have the man who killed de P--- locked up inmy room, Victor Haldin--a student like myself.'"

  A great buzz arose, in which Razumov raised his voice.

  "Observe--that man had certain honest ideals in view. But I didn't comehere to explain him."

  "No. But you must explain how you know all this," came in grave tonesfrom somebody.

  "A vile coward!" This simple cry vibrated with indignation. "Name him!"shouted other voices.

  "What are you clamouring for?" said Razumov disdainfully, in theprofound silence which fell on the raising of his hand. "Haven't you allunderstood that I am that man?"

  Laspara went away brusquely from his side and climbed upon his stool.In the first forward surge of people towards him, Razumov expected tobe torn to pieces, but they fell back without touching him, and nothingcame of it but noise. It was bewildering. His head ached terribly.In the confused uproar he made out several times the name of PeterIvanovitch, the word "judgement," and the phrase, "But this is aconfession," uttered by somebody in a desperate shriek. In the midstof the tumult, a young man, younger than himself, approached him withblazing eyes.

  "I must beg you," he said, with venomous politeness, "to be good enoughnot to move from this spot till you are told what you are to do."

  Razumov shrugged his shoulders. "I came in voluntarily."

  "Maybe. But you won't go out till you are permitted," retorted theother.

  He beckoned with his hand, calling out, "Louisa! Louisa! come here,please"; and, presently, one of the Laspara girls (they had been staringat Razumov from behind the samovar) came along, trailing a bedraggledtail of dirty flounces, and dragging with her a chair, which she setagainst the door, and, sitting down on it, crossed her legs. The youngman thanked her effusively, and rejoined a group carrying on an animateddiscussion in low tones. Razumov lost himself for a moment.

  A squeaky voice screamed, "Confession or no confession, you are a policespy!"

  The revolutionist Nikita had pushed his way in front of Razumov, andfaced him with his big, livid cheeks, his heavy paunch, bull neck, andenormous hands. Razumov looked at the famous slayer of gendarmes insilent disgust.

  "And what are you?" he said, very low, then shut his eyes, and restedthe back of his head against the wall.

  "It would be better for you to depart now." Razumov heard a mild, sadvoice, and opened his eyes. The gentle speaker was an elderly man, witha great brush of fine hair making a silvery halo all round hiskeen, intelligent face. "Peter Ivanovitch shall be informed of yourconfession--and you shall be directed...."

  Then, turning to Nikita, nicknamed Necator, standing by, he appealed tohim in a murmur--

  "What else can we do? After this piece of sincerity he cannot bedangerous any longer."

  The other muttered, "Better make sure of that before we let him go.Leave that to me. I know how to deal with such gentlemen."

  He exchanged meaning glances with two or three men, who nodded slightly,then turning roughly to Razumov, "You have heard? You are not wantedhere. Why don't you get out?"

  The Laspara girl on guard rose, and pulled the chair out of the wayunemotionally. She gave a sleepy stare to Razumov, who started, lookedround the room and passed slowly by her as if struck by some suddenthought.

  "I beg you to observe," he said, already on the landing, "that I hadonly to hold my tongue. To-day, of all days since I came amongst you,I was made safe, and to-day I made myself free from falsehood, fromremorse--independent of every single human being on this earth."

  He turned his back on the room, and walked towards the stairs, but, atthe violent crash of the door behind him, he looked over his shoulderand saw that Nikita, with three others, had followed him out. "They aregoing to kill me, after all," he thought.

  Before he had time to turn round and confront them fairly, they seton him with a rush. He was driven headlong against the wall. "I wonderhow," he completed his thought. Nikita cried, with a shrill laugh rightin his face, "We shall make you harmless. You wait a bit."

  Razumov did not struggle. The three men held him pinned againstthe wall, while Nikita, taking up a position a little on one side,deliberately swung off his enormous arm. Razumov, looking for a knifein his hand, saw it come at him open, unarmed, and received a tremendousblow on the side of his head over his ear. At the same time he heard afaint, dull detonating sound, as if some one had fired a pistol on theother side of the wall. A raging fury awoke in him at this outrage.The people in Laspara's rooms, holding their breath, listened to thedesperate scuffling of four men all over the landing; thuds against thewalls, a terrible crash against the very door, then all of them wentdown together with a violence which seemed to shake the whole house.Razumov, overpowered, breathless, crushed under the weight of hisassailants, saw the monstrous Nikita squatting on his heels near hishead, while the others held him down, kneeling on his chest, grippinghis throat, lying across his legs.

  "Turn his face the other way," the paunchy terrorist directed, in anexcited, gleeful squeak.

  Razumov could struggle no longer. He was exhausted; he had to watchpassively the heavy open hand of the brute descend again in a degradingblow over his other ear. It seemed to split his head in two, and all atonce the men holding him became perfectly silent--soundless as shadows.In silence they pulled him brutally to his feet, rushed with himnoiselessly down the staircase, and, opening the door, flung him outinto the street.

  He fell forward, and at once rolled over and over helplessly, going downthe short slope together with the rush of running rain water. He came torest in the roadway of the street at the bottom, lying on his back,with a great flash of lightning over his face--a vivid, silent flash oflightning which blinded him utterly. He picked himself up, and put hisarm over his eyes to recover his sight. Not a sound reached him fromanywhere, and he began to walk, staggering, down a long, empty street.The lightning waved and darted round him its silent flames, the water ofthe deluge fell, ran, leaped, drove--noiseless like the drift of mist.In this unearthly stillness his footsteps fell silent on the pavement,while a dumb wind drove him on and on, like a lost mortal in a phantomworld ravaged by a soundless thunderstorm. God only knows where hisnoiseless feet took him to that night, here and there, and back againwithout pause or rest. Of one place, at least, where they did leadhim, we heard afterwards; and, in the morning, the driver of the firstsouth-shore tramcar, clanging his bell desperately, saw a bedraggled,soaked man without a hat, and walking in the roadway unsteadily with hishead down, step right in front of his car, and go under.

  When they picked him up, with two broken limbs and a crushed side,Razumov had not lost consciousness. It was as though he had tumbled,smashing himself, into a world of mutes. Silent men, moving unheard,lifted him up, laid him on the sidewalk, gesticulating and grimacinground him their alarm, horror, and compassion. A red face withmoustaches stooped close over him, lips moving, eyes rolling. Razumovtried hard to understand the reason of this dumb show. To those whostood around him, the features of that stranger, so grievously hurt,seemed composed in meditation. Afterwards his eyes sent out at thema look of fear and closed slowly. They stared at him. Razumov made aneffort to remember some French words.

  "_Je suis sourd_," he had time to utter feebly, before he fainted.

  "He is deaf," they exclaimed to each other. "That's why he did not hearthe car."

  They carried him off in that same car. Before it started on its journey,a woman in a shabby black dress, who had run out of the iron gate ofsome private grounds up the road, clambered on to the rear platform andwould not be put off.

  "I am a relation," she insisted, in bad French. "This young man is aRussian, and I am his relation." On this plea they let her have her way.She sat down calmly, and took his head on her lap; her scared faded eyesavoided looking at his deathlike face. At the corner of a street, on theother side of the town, a stretcher met the car. She followed it to thedoor of the hospital, w
here they let her come in and see him laid on abed. Razumov's new-found relation never shed a tear, but the officialshad some difficulty in inducing her to go away. The porter observed herlingering on the opposite pavement for a long time. Suddenly, as thoughshe had remembered something, she ran off.

  The ardent hater of all Finance ministers, the slave of Madame de S--,had made up her mind to offer her resignation as lady companion tothe Egeria of Peter Ivanovitch. She had found work to do after her ownheart.

  But hours before, while the thunderstorm still raged in the night, therehad been in the rooms of Julius Laspara a great sensation. The terribleNikita, coming in from the landing, uplifted his squeaky voice inhorrible glee before all the company--

  "Razumov! Mr. Razumov! The wonderful Razumov! He shall never be any useas a spy on any one. He won't talk, because he will never hear anythingin his life--not a thing! I have burst the drums of his ears for him.Oh, you may trust me. I know the trick. Ha! Ha! Ha! I know the trick."

  V

  It was nearly a fortnight after her mother's funeral that I saw NataliaHaldin for the last time.

  In those silent, sombre days the doors of the _appartement_ on theBoulevard des Philosophes were closed to every one but myself. I believeI was of some use, if only in this, that I alone was aware of theincredible part of the situation. Miss Haldin nursed her mother aloneto the last moment. If Razumov's visit had anything to do withMrs. Haldin's end (and I cannot help thinking that it hastened itconsiderably), it is because the man, trusted impulsively by theill-fated Victor Haldin, had failed to gain the confidence of VictorHaldin's mother. What tale, precisely, he told her cannot be known--atany rate, I do not know it--but to me she seemed to die from the shockof an ultimate disappointment borne in silence. She had not believedhim. Perhaps she could not longer believe any one, and consequently hadnothing to say to any one--not even to her daughter. I suspect that MissHaldin lived the heaviest hours of her life by that silent death-bed.I confess I was angry with the broken-hearted old woman passing away inthe obstinacy of her mute distrust of her daughter.

  When it was all over I stood aside. Miss Haldin had her compatriotsround her then. A great number of them attended the funeral. I wasthere too, but afterwards managed to keep away from Miss Haldin, till Ireceived a short note rewarding my self-denial. "It is as you would haveit. I am going back to Russia at once. My mind is made up. Come and seeme."

  Verily, it was a reward of discretion. I went without delay to receiveit. The _appartement_ of the Boulevard des Philosophes presented thedreary signs of impending abandonment. It looked desolate and as ifalready empty to my eyes.

  Standing, we exchanged a few words about her health, mine, remarks as tosome people of the Russian colony, and then Natalia Haldin, establishingme on the sofa, began to talk openly of her future work, of her plans.It was all to be as I had wished it. And it was to be for life. Weshould never see each other again. Never!

  I gathered this success to my breast. Natalia Haldin looked matured byher open and secret experiences. With her arms folded she walked up anddown the whole length of the room, talking slowly, smooth-browed, with aresolute profile. She gave me a new view of herself, and I marvelled atthat something grave and measured in her voice, in her movements, in hermanner. It was the perfection of collected independence. The strengthof her nature had come to surface because the obscure depths had beenstirred.

  "We two can talk of it now," she observed, after a silence and stoppingshort before me. "Have you been to inquire at the hospital lately?"

  "Yes, I have." And as she looked at me fixedly, "He will live, thedoctors say. But I thought that Tekla...."

  "Tekla has not been near me for several days," explained Miss Haldinquickly. "As I never offered to go to the hospital with her, she thinksthat I have no heart. She is disillusioned about me."

  And Miss Haldin smiled faintly.

  "Yes. She sits with him as long and as often as they will let her," Isaid. "She says she must never abandon him--never as long as she lives.He'll need somebody--a hopeless cripple, and stone deaf with that."

  "Stone deaf? I didn't know," murmured Natalia Haldin.

  "He is. It seems strange. I am told there were no apparent injuries tothe head. They say, too, that it is not very likely that he will live sovery long for Tekla to take care of him."

  Miss Haldin shook her head.

  "While there are travellers ready to fall by the way our Tekla shallnever be idle. She is a good Samaritan by an irresistible vocation. Therevolutionists didn't understand her. Fancy a devoted creature like thatbeing employed to carry about documents sewn in her dress, or made towrite from dictation."

  "There is not much perspicacity in the world."

  No sooner uttered, I regretted that observation. Natalia Haldin, lookingme straight in the face, assented by a slight movement of her head. Shewas not offended, but turning away began to pace the room again. To mywestern eyes she seemed to be getting farther and farther from me, quitebeyond my reach now, but undiminished in the increasing distance. Iremained silent as though it were hopeless to raise my voice. The soundof hers, so close to me, made me start a little.

  "Tekla saw him picked up after the accident. The good soul neverexplained to me really how it came about. She affirms that there wassome understanding between them--some sort of compact--that in any soreneed, in misfortune, or difficulty, or pain, he was to come to her."

  "Was there?" I said. "It is lucky for him that there was, then. He'llneed all the devotion of the good Samaritan."

  It was a fact that Tekla, looking out of her window at five in themorning, for some reason or other, had beheld Razumov in the grounds ofthe Chateau Borel, standing stockstill, bare-headed in the rain, at thefoot of the terrace. She had screamed out to him, by name, to knowwhat was the matter. He never even raised his head. By the time she haddressed herself sufficiently to run downstairs he was gone. She startedin pursuit, and rushing out into the road, came almost directly upon thearrested tramcar and the small knot of people picking up Razumov. Thatmuch Tekla had told me herself one afternoon we happened to meet at thedoor of the hospital, and without any kind of comment. But I did notwant to meditate very long on the inwardness of this peculiar episode.

  "Yes, Natalia Victorovna, he shall need somebody when they dismiss him,on crutches and stone deaf from the hospital. But I do not think thatwhen he rushed like an escaped madman into the grounds of the ChateauBorel it was to seek the help of that good Tekla."

  "No," said Natalia, stopping short before me, "perhaps not." She satdown and leaned her head on her hand thoughtfully. The silence lastedfor several minutes. During that time I remembered the evening of hisatrocious confession--the plaint she seemed to have hardly enough lifeleft in her to utter, "It is impossible to be more unhappy...." Therecollection would have given me a shudder if I had not been lostin wonder at her force and her tranquillity. There was no longer anyNatalia Haldin, because she had completely ceased to think of herself.It was a great victory, a characteristically Russian exploit inself-suppression.

  She recalled me to myself by getting up suddenly like a person who hascome to a decision. She walked to the writing-table, now stripped of allthe small objects associated with her by daily use--a mere piece of deadfurniture; but it contained something living, still, since she took froma recess a flat parcel which she brought to me.

  "It's a book," she said rather abruptly. "It was sent to me wrappedup in my veil. I told you nothing at the time, but now I've decided toleave it with you. I have the right to do that. It was sent to me. Itis mine. You may preserve it, or destroy it after you have read it. Andwhile you read it, please remember that I was defenceless. And thathe.."

  "Defenceless!" I repeated, surprised, looking hard at her.

  "You'll find the very word written there," she whispered. "Well, it'strue! I _was_ defenceless--but perhaps you were able to see that foryourself." Her face coloured, then went deadly pale. "In justice to theman, I want you to remember that I was. Oh,
I was, I was!"

  I rose, a little shakily.

  "I am not likely to forget anything you say at this our last parting."

  Her hand fell into mine.

  "It's difficult to believe that it must be good-bye with us."

  She returned my pressure and our hands separated.

  "Yes. I am leaving here to-morrow. My eyes are open at last and my handsare free now. As for the rest--which of us can fail to hear the stifledcry of our great distress? It may be nothing to the world."

  "The world is more conscious of your discordant voices," I said. "It isthe way of the world."

  "Yes." She bowed her head in assent, and hesitated for a moment. "I mustown to you that I shall never give up looking forward to the day whenall discord shall be silenced. Try to imagine its dawn! The tempest ofblows and of execrations is over; all is still; the new sun is rising,and the weary men united at last, taking count in their conscience ofthe ended contest, feel saddened by their victory, because so many ideashave perished for the triumph of one, so many beliefs have abandonedthem without support. They feel alone on the earth and gather closetogether. Yes, there must be many bitter hours! But at last the anguishof hearts shall be extinguished in love."

  And on this last word of her wisdom, a word so sweet, so bitter, socruel sometimes, I said good-bye to Natalia Haldin. It is hard to thinkI shall never look any more into the trustful eyes of that girl--weddedto an invincible belief in the advent of loving concord springing likea heavenly flower from the soil of men's earth, soaked in blood, torn bystruggles, watered with tears.