A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

‘And do you suppose,’ I retorted, ‘it will be easy for me to part with you?’

‘But what did you tell my brother for?’ Acia said, in perplexity.

‘I tell you – I could not do otherwise. If you had not yourself betrayed yourself…’

‘I locked myself in my room,’ she answered simply. ‘I did not know the landlady had another key…’

This innocent apology on her lips at such a moment almost infuriated me at the time … and now I cannot think of it without emotion. Poor, honest, truthful child!

‘And now everything’s at an end!’ I began again, ‘everything. Now we shall have to part.’ I stole a look at Acia… Her face had quickly flushed crimson. She was, I felt it, both ashamed and afraid. I went on walking and talking as though in delirium. ‘You did not let the feeling develop which had begun to grow; you have broken off our relations yourself; you had no confidence in me; you doubted me…’

While I was talking, Acia bent more and more forward, and suddenly slid on her knees, dropped her head on her arms, and began sobbing. I ran up to her and tried to lift her up, but she would not let me. I can’t bear women’s tears; at the sight of them I am at my wits’ end at once.

‘Anna Nikolaevna, Acia,’ I kept repeating, ‘please, I implore you, for God’s sake, stop…’ I took her hand again…

But, to my immense astonishment she suddenly jumped up, rushed with lightning swiftness to the door, and vanished…

When, a few minutes later, Frau Luise came into the room I was still standing in the very middle of it, as it were, thunderstruck. I could not believe this interview could possibly have come to such a quick, such a stupid end, when I had not said a hundredth part of what I wanted to say, and what I ought to have said, when I did not know myself in what way it would be concluded…

‘Is Fraülein gone?’ Frau Luise asked me, raising her yellow eyebrows right up to her false front.

I stared at her like a fool, and went away.

XVII

I made my way out of the town and struck out straight into the open country. I was devoured by anger, frenzied anger. I hurled reproaches at myself. How was it I had not seen the reason that had forced Acia to change the place of our meeting; how was it I did not appreciate what it must have cost her to go to that old woman; how was it I had not kept her? Alone with her, in that dim, half-dark room I had had the force, I had had the heart to repulse her, even to reproach her… Now her image simply pursued me. I begged her forgiveness. The thought of that pale face, those wet and timid eyes, of her loose hair falling on the drooping neck, the light touch of her head against my breast maddened me. ‘Yours’ – I heard her whisper. ‘I acted from conscientious motives,’ I assured myself… Not true! Did I really desire such a termination? Was I capable of parting from her? Could I really do without her?

‘Madman! madman!’ I repeated with exasperation…

Meanwhile night was coming on. I walked with long strides towards the house where Acia lived.

XVIII

Gagin came out to meet me.

‘Have you seen my sister?’ he shouted to me while I was still some distance off.

‘Why, isn’t she at home?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘She hasn’t come back?’

‘No. I was in fault,’ Gagin went on. ‘I couldn’t restrain myself. Contrary to our agreement, I went to the chapel; she was not there; didn’t she come, then?’

‘She hasn’t been at the chapel?’

‘And you haven’t seen her?’

I was obliged to admit I had seen her.

‘Where?’

‘At Frau Luise’s. I parted from her an hour ago,’ I added. ‘I felt sure she had come home.’

‘We will wait a little,’ said Gagin.

We went into the house and sat down near each other. We were silent. We both felt very uncomfortable. We were continually looking round, staring at the door, listening. At last Gagin got up.

‘Oh, this is beyond anything!’ he cried. ‘My heart’s in my mouth. She’ll be the death of me, by God!.. Let’s go and look for her.’

We went out. It was quite dark by now, outside.

‘What did you talk about to her?’ Gagin asked me, as he pulled his hat over his eyes.

‘I only saw her for five minutes,’ I answered. ‘I talked to her as we agreed.’

‘Do you know what?’ he replied, ‘it’s better for us to separate. In that way we are more likely to come across her before long. In any case come back here within an hour.’

XIX

I went hurriedly down from the vineyard and rushed into the town. I walked rapidly through all the streets, looked in all directions, even at Frau Luise’s windows, went back to the Rhine, and ran along the bank… From time to time I was met by women’s figures, but Acia was nowhere to be seen. There was no anger gnawing at my heart now. I was tortured by a secret terror, and it was not only terror that I felt … no, I felt remorse, the most intense regret, and love, – yes! the tenderest love. I wrung my hands. I called ‘Acia’ through the falling darkness of the night, first in a low voice, then louder and louder; I repeated a hundred times over that I loved her. I vowed I would never part from her. I would have given everything in the world to hold her cold hand again, to hear again her soft voice, to see her again before me… She had been so near, she had come to me, her mind perfectly made up, in perfect innocence of heart and feelings, she had offered me her unsullied youth … and I had not folded her to my breast, I had robbed myself of the bliss of watching her sweet face blossom with delight and the peace of rapture… This thought drove me out of my mind.

‘Where can she have gone? What can she have done with herself?’ I cried in an agony of helpless despair… I caught a glimpse of something white on the very edge of the river. I knew the place; there stood there, over the tomb of a man who had been drowned seventy years ago, a stone cross half-buried in the ground, bearing an old inscription. My heart sank … I ran up to the cross; the white figure vanished. I shouted ‘Acia!’ I felt frightened myself by my uncanny voice, but no one called back.

I resolved to go and see whether Gagin had found her.

XX

As I climbed swiftly up the vineyard path I caught sight of a light in Acia’s room… This reassured me a little.

I went up to the house. The door below was fastened. I knocked. A window on the ground floor was cautiously opened, and Gagin’s head appeared.

‘Have you found her?’ I asked.

‘She has come back,’ he answered in a whisper. ‘She is in her own room undressing. Everything is all right.’

‘Thank God!’ I cried, in an indescribable rush of joy. ‘Thank God! now everything is right. But you know we must have another talk.’

‘Another time,’ he replied, softly drawing the casement towards him. ‘Another time; but now good-bye.’

‘Till to-morrow,’ I said. ‘To-morrow everything shall be arranged.’

‘Good-bye;’ repeated Gagin. The window was closed. I was on the point of knocking at the window. I was on the point of telling Gagin there and then that I wanted to ask him for his sister’s hand. But such a proposal at such a time… ‘To-morrow,’ I reflected, ‘to-morrow I shall be happy…’

To-morrow I shall be happy! Happiness has no to-morrow, no yesterday; it thinks not on the past, and dreams not of the future; it has the present – not a day even – a moment.

I don’t remember how I got to Z. It was not my legs that carried me, nor a boat that ferried me across; I felt that I was borne along by great, mighty wings. I passed a bush where a nightingale was singing. I stopped and listened long; I fancied it sang my love and happiness.