A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

‘Ah, I am happy,’ she said.

At that instant there floated across to us broken, monotonous sounds. Hundreds of voices in unison and at regular intervals were repeating a chanted litany. The crowd of pilgrims moved slowly along the road below with crosses and banners…

‘I should like to go with them,’ said Acia, listening to the sounds of the voices gradually growing fainter.

‘Are you so religious?’

‘I should like to go far away on a pilgrimage, on some great exploit,’ she went on. ‘As it is, the days pass by, life passes by, and what have we done?’

‘You are ambitious,’ I observed. ‘You want to live to some purpose, to leave some trace behind you…’

‘Is that impossible, then?’

‘Impossible,’ I was on the point of repeating… But I glanced at her bright eyes, and only said:

‘You can try.’

‘Tell me,’ began Acia, after a brief silence during which shadows passed over her face, which had already turned pale, ‘did you care much for that lady?.. You remember my brother drank her health at the ruins the day after we first knew you.’

I laughed.

‘Your brother was joking. I never cared for any lady; at any rate, I don’t care for one now.’

‘And what do you like in women?’ she asked, throwing back her head with innocent curiosity.

‘What a strange question!’ I cried.

Acia was a little disconcerted.

‘I ought not to ask you such a question, ought I? Forgive me, I’m used to chattering away about anything that comes into my head. That’s why I’m afraid to speak.’

‘Speak, for God’s sake, don’t be afraid,’ I hastened to intervene; ‘I’m so glad you’re leaving off being shy at last.’

Acia looked down, and laughed a soft light-hearted laugh; I had never heard such a laugh from her.

‘Well, tell me about something,’ she went on, stroking out the skirt of her dress, and arranging the folds over her legs, as though she were settling herself for a long while; ‘tell me or read me something, just as you read us, do you remember, from Oniegin…’

She suddenly grew pensive —

‘Where now is the cross and the branches’ shade
Over my poor mother’s grave!’

She murmured in a low voice.

‘That’s not as it is in Pushkin,’ I observed.

‘But I should like to have been Tatiana,’ she went on, in the same dreamy tone. ‘Tell me a story,’ she suddenly added eagerly.

But I was not in a mood for telling stories. I was watching her, all bathed in the bright sunshine, all peace and gentleness. Everything was joyously radiant about us, below, and above us – sky, earth, and waters; the very air seemed saturated with brilliant light.

‘Look, how beautiful!’ I said, unconsciously sinking my voice.

‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ she answered just as softly, not looking at me. ‘If only you and I were birds – how we would soar, how we would fly… We’d simply plunge into that blue… But we’re not birds.’

‘But we may grow wings,’ I rejoined.

‘How so?’

‘Live a little longer – and you’ll find out. There are feelings that lift us above the earth. Don’t trouble yourself, you will have wings.’

‘Have you had them?’

‘How shall I say … I think up till now I never have taken flight.’

Acia grew pensive once more. I bent a little towards her.

‘Can you waltz?’ she asked me suddenly.

‘Yes,’ I answered, rather puzzled.

‘Well, come along then, come along… I’ll ask my brother to play us a waltz… We’ll fancy we are flying, that our wings have grown.’

She ran into the house. I ran after her, and in a few minutes, we were turning round and round the narrow little room, to the sweet strains of Lanner. Acia waltzed splendidly, with enthusiasm. Something soft and womanly suddenly peeped through the childish severity of her profile. Long after, my arm kept the feeling of the contact of her soft waist, long after I heard her quickened breathing close to my ear, long after I was haunted by dark, immobile, almost closed eyes in a pale but eager face, framed in by fluttering curls.

X

All that day passed most delightfully. We were as merry as children. Acia was very sweet and simple. Gagin was delighted, as he watched her. I went home late. When I had got out into the middle of the Rhine, I asked the ferryman to let the boat float down with the current. The old man pulled up his oars, and the majestic river bore us along. As I looked about me, listened, brooded over recollections, I was suddenly aware of a secret restlessness astir in my heart… I lifted my eyes skywards, but there was no peace even in the sky; studded with stars, it seemed all moving, quivering, twinkling; I bent over to the river – but even there, even in those cold dark depths, the stars were trembling and glimmering; I seemed to feel an exciting quickening of life on all sides – and a sense of alarm rose up within me too. I leaned my elbows on the boat’s edge… The whispering of the wind in my ears, the soft gurgling of the water at the rudder worked on my nerves, and the fresh breath of the river did not cool me; a nightingale was singing on the bank, and stung me with the sweet poison of its notes. Tears rose into my eyes, but they were not the tears of aimless rapture… What I was feeling was not the vague sense I had known of late of all-embracing desire when the soul expands, resounds, when it feels that it grasps all, loves all… No! it was the thirst for happiness aflame in me. I did not dare yet to call it by its name – but happiness, happiness full and overflowing – that was what I wanted, that was what I pined for… The boat floated on, and the old ferryman sat dozing as he leant on his oars.

XI

As I set off next day to the Gagins, I did not ask myself whether I was in love with Acia, but I thought a great deal about her, her fate absorbed me, I rejoiced at our unexpected intimacy. I felt that it was only yesterday I had got to know her; till then she had turned away from me. And now, when she had at last revealed herself to me, in what a seductive light her image showed itself, how fresh it was for me, what secret fascinations were modestly peeping out…

I walked boldly up the familiar road, gazing continually at the cottage, a white spot in the distance. I thought not of the future – not even of the morrow – I was very happy.

Acia flushed directly I came into the room; I noticed that she had dressed herself in her best again, but the expression of her face was not in keeping with her finery; it was mournful. And I had come in such high spirits! I even fancied that she was on the point of running away as usual, but she controlled herself and remained. Gagin was in that peculiar condition of artistic heat and intensity which seizes amateurs all of a sudden, like a fit, when they imagine they are succeeding in ‘catching nature and pinning her down.’ He was standing with dishevelled locks, and besmeared with paint, before a stretched canvas, and flourishing the brush over it; he almost savagely nodded to me, turned away, screwed up his eyes, and bent again over his picture. I did not hinder him, but went and sat down by Acia. Slowly her dark eyes turned to me.

‘You’re not the same to-day as yesterday,’ I observed, after ineffectual efforts to call up a smile on her lips.

‘No, I’m not,’ she answered, in a slow and dull voice. ‘But that means nothing. I did not sleep well, I was thinking all night.’

‘What about?’

‘Oh, I thought about so many things. It’s a way I have had from childhood; ever since I used to live with mother – ’

She uttered the word with an effort, and then repeated again —

‘When I used to live with mother… I used to think why it was no one could tell what would happen to him; and sometimes one sees trouble coming – and one can’t escape; and how it is one can never tell all the truth… Then I used to think I knew nothing, and that I ought to learn. I want to be educated over again; I’m very badly educated. I can’t play the piano, I can’t draw, and even sewing I do very badly. I have no talent for anything; I must be a very dull person to be with.’

‘You’re unjust to yourself,’ I replied; ‘you’ve read a lot, you’re cultivated, and with your cleverness – ’