Katia

“Now it seems to me that a man neither ought nor can say that he loves,” was his reply.

I asked him why.

“Because it would always be a lie. What is this discovery that a man loves? As if he had only to pronounce the word, and there must immediately spring from it something extraordinary, some phenomenon or other, exploding all at once! It seems to me that those people who say to you solemnly: ‘I love you,’ either deceive themselves, or, which is worse, deceive others.”

“Then you think a woman is to know that she is loved, without being told?” asked Macha.

“That I do not know; every man has his own fashion of speech. But such feelings make themselves understood. When I read a novel, I always try to imagine the embarrassed air of Lieutenant Crelski or Alfred, as he declares: ‘Eléonore, I love thee!’ which speech he fancies is going to produce something astounding, all of a sudden, – while in reality it causes nothing at all, neither in her nor in him: features, look, everything, remain precisely the same!”

He spoke jestingly, but I thought I detected an undertone of serious meaning, which might have some reference to me; and Macha never allowed even playful aspersions upon her heroes of romance.

“Always paradoxes!” she exclaimed. “Come now, be honest, have you yourself never said to a woman that you loved her?”

“Never have I said so, never have I bowed a knee,” he replied laughing, “and never will I!”

“Yes, he need not tell me that he loves me!” I thought, now vividly recalling this conversation. “He does love me, and I know it. And all his efforts to seem indifferent cannot take away this conviction!”

During the whole evening he said very little to me, but in every word, in every look and motion, I felt love, and no longer had any doubts. The only thing that vexed and troubled me was that he should still judge it necessary to conceal this feeling, and to feign coldness, when already all was so clear, and we might have been so easily and so frankly happy almost beyond the verge of possibility. Then, too, I was tormenting myself as though I had committed a crime, for having jumped down into the cherry orchard to join him, and it seemed as if he must have ceased to esteem me, and must feel resentment against me.

After tea, I went to the piano, and he followed.

“Play something, Katia, I have not heard you for a long time,” he said, joining me in the drawing-room. “I wished … Sergius Mikaïlovitch!” And suddenly I looked right into his eyes. “You are not angry with me?”

“Why should I be?”

“Because I did not obey you this afternoon,” said I, blushing.

He understood me, shook his head, and smiled. And this smile said that perhaps he would willingly have scolded me a little, but had no longer the strength to do so.

“That is done with, then, isn’t it? And we are good friends again?” I asked, seating myself at the piano.

“I think so, indeed!”

The large, lofty apartment was lighted, only by the two candles upon the piano, and the greater portion of it was in semi-darkness; through the open windows we beheld the luminous stillness of the summer night. The most perfect calm reigned, only broken at intervals by Macha’s footfall in the adjoining room, which was not yet lighted, or by an occasional restless snort or stamp from our visitor’s horse, which was tied under one of the casements. Sergius Mikaïlovitch was seated behind me, so that I could not see him, but in the imperfect darkness of the room, in the soft notes that filled it, in the very depths of my being, I seemed to feel his presence. Every look, every movement, though I could not distinguish them, seemed to enter and echo in my heart. I was playing Mozart’s Caprice-sonata, which he had brought me, and which I had learned before him and for him. I was not thinking at all of what I played, but I found that I was playing well and thought he was pleased. I shared his enjoyment, and without seeing him, I knew that from his place his eyes were fixed on me. By a quite involuntary movement, while my fingers continued to run over the keys, unconscious of what they were doing, I turned and looked at him; his head stood out in dark relief against the luminous background of the night. He was sitting with his brow resting on his hand, watching me attentively with sparkling eyes. As mine met them, I smiled, and stopped playing. He smiled also, and made a motion with his head towards my notes, as if reproaching me and begging me to keep on. Just then the moon, midway in her course, soared in full splendor from a light cloud, pouring into the room waves of silvery radiance which overcame the feeble gleam of our wax candles, and swept in a sea of glory over the inlaid floor. Macha said that what I had done was like nothing at all, that I had stopped at the very loveliest part, and that, besides, I had played miserably; he, on the contrary, insisted that I had never succeeded better than this evening, and began pacing about restlessly, from the dim drawing-room into the hall, from the hall back again into the drawing-room, and every time he passed he looked at me and smiled. I smiled too though without any reason; I wanted to laugh, so happy was I at what had taken place that day, at that moment even. While the door hid him from me for an instant I pounced upon Macha and began to kiss her in my pet place on her soft throat under her chin, but when he reappeared I was perfectly grave, although it was hard work to keep from laughing.

“What has happened to her, to-day?” Macha said.

He made no answer, but began to tease and make laughing conjectures. He knew well enough what had happened to me!

“Just see what a night!” he said presently, from the door of the drawing-room, opening on the garden balcony.

We went and stood by him, and indeed I never remember such a night. The full moon shone down upon us from above the house with a glory I have never seen in her since; the long shadows of the roof, of the slender columns and tent-shaped awning of the terrace stretched out in oblique foreshortening, over the gravel walk and part of the large oval of turf. The rest lay in brilliant light, glistening with dew-drops turned by the moon’s rays to liquid silver. A wide path, bordered with flowers, was diagonally cut into at one edge by the shadows of tall dahlias and their supporting stakes, and then ran on, an unbroken band of white light and gleaming pebbles until it was lost in the mist of distance. The glass roof of the orangery sparkled through the trees, and a soft vapor stealing up the sides of the ravine grew denser every moment. The tufts of lilac, now partially faded, were pierced through and through by the light; every slender foot-stalk was visible, and the tiny flowers, freshened by the dew, could easily be distinguished from each other. In the paths light and shadow were so blended that one would no longer have said there were trees and paths, but transparent edifices shaken with soft vibrations. On the right of the house all was obscure, indistinct, almost a horror of darkness. But out of it sprang, more resplendent from the black environment, the fantastic head of a poplar which, by some strange freak, ended abruptly close above the house in an aureole of clear light, instead of rising to lose itself in the distant depths of dark blue sky.

“Let us go to walk,” said I.

Macha consented, but added that I must put on my galoshes.

“It is not necessary,” I said; “Sergius Mikaïlovitch will give me his arm.”

As if that could keep me from getting my feet wet! But at that moment, to each of us three, such absurdity was admissible, and caused no astonishment. He had never given me his arm, and now I took it of my own accord, and he did not seem surprised. We all three descended to the terrace. The whole universe, the sky, the garden, the air we breathed, no longer appeared to me what I had always known.

As I looked ahead of me in the path we were pursuing, I began to fancy that one could not go beyond, that there the possible world ended, and that all there would abide forever in its present loveliness.

However, as we went on, this enchanted wall, this barrier built of pure beauty, receded before us and yielded us passage, and I found myself in the midst of familiar objects, garden, trees, paths, dry leaves. These were certainly real paths that we were pursuing, where we crossed alternate spaces of light and spheres of darkness, where the dry leaves rustled beneath our feet, and the dewy sprays softly touched my cheek as we passed. It was really he, who walked by my side with slow, steady steps and with distant formality, allowed my arm to rest upon his own. It was the real moon, high in the heavens, whose light came down to us through the motionless branches.

Once I looked at him. There was only a single linden in the part of the path we were then following, and I could see his face clearly. He was so handsome; he looked so happy…

He was saying: “Are you not afraid?” But the words I heard, were: “I love thee, dear child! I love thee! I love thee!” His look said it, and his arm said it; the light, the shadow, the air, and all things repeated it.

We went through the whole garden, Macha walked near us, taking short steps, and panting a little, she was so tired. She said it was time to go in, and I was so sorry for the poor creature. “Why does not she feel like us?” I thought. “Why is not everybody always young and happy? How full this night is of youth and happiness, – and we too!”

We returned to the house, but it was a long time before Sergius Mikaïlovitch went away. Macha forgot to remind us that it was late; we talked of all sorts of things, perhaps trivial enough, sitting side by side without the least suspicion that it was three o’clock in the morning. The cocks had crowed for the third time, before he went. He took leave of us as usual, not saying anything particular. But I could not doubt that from this day he was mine, and I could no longer lose him. Now that I recognized that I loved him, I told Macha all. She was delighted and touched, but the poor woman got no sleep that night; and as for me, after walking a long, long time up and down the terrace, I went to the garden again, seeking to recall every word, every incident, as I wandered through the paths where we had so lately passed together. I did not go to bed, that night, and, for the first time in my life, I saw the sun rise and knew what the dawn of day is. Never again have I seen such a night and such a morning. But I still kept asking myself why he did not tell me frankly that he loved me. “Why,” thought I, “does he invent such or such difficulties, why does he consider himself old, when everything is so simple and so beautiful? Why lose thus a precious time which perhaps will never return? Let him say that he loves, let him say it in words, let him take my hand in his, bend down his head and say: “I love.” Let his face flush, and his eyes fall before me, and then I will tell him all. Or, rather, I will tell him nothing, I will only hold him fast in my arms and let my tears flow. But if I am mistaken? – if he does not love me?” This thought suddenly crossed my mind.

I was terrified by my own feeling. Heaven knows where it might have led me; already the memory of his confusion and my own when I suddenly dropped down into the cherry orchard beside him, weighed upon me, oppressed my heart. The tears filled my eyes, and I began to pray. Then a thought, a strange thought, came to me, which brought me a great quietness, and rekindled my hope. This was, the resolution to commence my devotions, and to choose my birthday as my betrothal day.

How and why? How could it come to pass? That I knew nothing about, – but from this moment I believed that it would be so. In the meantime, broad day had come, and every one was rising as I returned to my chamber.

CHAPTER IV

IT was the Carême de l’Assomption,[3 - This expression, peculiar to Russia, corresponds to what in Catholic countries is called: Making a preparatory retreat.] and consequently no one was surprised at my commencing a season of devotion.

During this whole week Sergius Mikaïlovitch did not once come to see us, and far from being surprised, alarmed, or angry with him, I was content, and did not expect him before my birthday. Throughout this week I rose very early every day, and while the horses were being harnessed I walked in the garden, alone, meditating upon the past, and thinking what I must do in order that the evening should find me satisfied with my day, and proud of having committed no faults.

When the horses were ready, I entered the droschky, accompanied by Macha or a maid-servant, and drove about three versts to church. In entering the church, I never failed to remember that we pray there for all those “who enter this place in the fear of God,” and I strove to rise to the level of this thought, above all when my feet first touched the two grass-grown steps of the porch. At this hour there were not usually in the church more than ten or a dozen persons, peasants and droroviés, preparing to make their devotions; I returned their salutations with marked humility, and went myself, (which I regarded as an act of superior merit,) to the drawer where the wax tapers were kept, received a few from the hand of the old soldier who performed the office of staroste,[4 - In the Greek Church the staroste acts as church-warden, collector of alms, etc.] and placed them before the images. Through the door of the sanctuary I could see the altar-cloth Mamma had embroidered, and above the iconstase[5 - Screen, upon which are the images.] two angels spangled with stars, which I had considered magnificent when I was a little girl; and a dove surrounded by a gilded aureole which, at that same period, often used to absorb my attention. Behind the choir I caught a glimpse of the embossed fonts near which I had so often held the children of our droroviés, and where I myself had received baptism. The old priest appeared, wearing a chasuble cut from cloth which had been the pall of my father’s coffin, and he intoned the service in the same voice which, as far back as I could remember, had chanted the offices of the Church at our house, at Sonia’s baptism, at my father’s funeral service, at my mother’s burial. In the choir I heard the familiar cracked voice of the precentor; I saw, as I had always seen her, a certain old woman, almost bent double, who came to every service, leaned her back against the wall, and, holding her faded handkerchief in her tightly clasped hands, gazed with eyes full of tears at one of the images in the choir, mumbling I knew not what prayers with her toothless mouth. And all these objects, all these beings, – it was not mere curiosity or reminiscence which brought them so near to me; all seemed in my eyes great and holy, all were full of profound meaning.

I lent an attentive ear to every word of the prayers I heard read, I endeavored to bring my feelings into accord with them, and if I did not comprehend them, I mentally besought God to enlighten me, or substituted a petition of my own for that which I had not understood. When the penitential prayers were read, I recalled my past, and this past of my innocent childhood appeared to me so black in comparison with the state of serenity in which my soul was, at this time, that I wept over myself, terrified; yet I felt that all was forgiven me, and that even if I had had many more faults to reproach myself with, repentance would only have been all the sweeter to me.

At the conclusion of the service, at the moment when the priest pronounced the words: “May the blessing of the Lord our God be upon you,” I seemed to feel within me, instantaneously communicated to all my being, a sense of even, as it were, physical comfort, as if a current of light and warmth had suddenly poured into my very heart.

When the service was over, if the priest approached me to ask if he should come to our house to celebrate vespers, and what hour would suit me, I thanked him with emotion for his offer, but told him that I would come myself to the church either on foot or in the carriage.

“So you will yourself take that trouble?” he asked.

I could not answer, for fear of sinning from pride. Unless Macha was with me, I sent the carriage home from the church, and returned on foot, alone, saluting humbly all whom I met, seeking occasion to assist them, to advise them, to sacrifice myself for them in some way; helping to lift a load or carry a child, or stepping aside into the mud to yield a passage.

One evening I heard our intendant, in making his report to Macha, say that a peasant, Simon, had come to beg for some wood to make a coffin for his daughter, and for a silver rouble to pay for the mortuary service, and that his request had been complied with.

“Are they so poor?” I enquired.

“Very poor, my lady; they live without salt,”[6 - Strong Russian phrase, to express great poverty.]replied the intendant.

I was distressed, yet, at the same time, in a manner rejoiced to hear this. Making Macha believe that I was going for a walk, I ran upstairs, took all my money (it was very little, but it was all I had,) and, having made the sign of the cross, hurried off, across the terrace and garden, to Simon’s cottage in the village. It was at the end of the little cluster of houses, and, unseen by anyone, I approached the window, laid the money upon the sill and tapped gently. The door opened, some one came out of the cottage and called to me; but I, cold and trembling with fear like a criminal, ran away home. Macha asked where I had been, what was the matter with me? But I did not even understand what she was saying, and made no reply.

Everything at this moment appeared to me so small, and of so little consequence! I shut myself up in my chamber, and walked up and down there alone, for a long time, not feeling disposed to do anything, to think anything, and incapable of analyzing my own sensations. I imagined the delight of the whole family, and what they would all say about the person who had placed the money upon their window, and I began to regret that I had not given it to them myself. I wondered what Sergius Mikaïlovitch would have said, if he had known what I had done, and I was delighted to think that he never would know it. And I was so seized with joy, so filled with a sense of the imperfection in myself and in all, yet so inclined to view with gentleness all these others, as well as myself, that the thought of death offered itself to me as a vision of bliss. I smiled, I prayed, I wept, and at this instant I suddenly loved every creature in the world, and I loved myself with a strange ardor. Searching my prayer-book, I read many passages from the Gospel, and all that I read in this volume became more and more intelligible; the story of that divine life, appeared to me more touching and simple, while the depth of feeling and of thought revealed to me, in this reading, became more terrible and impenetrable. And how clear and easy everything seemed, when, on laying aside the book, I looked at my life and meditated upon it. It seemed impossible not to live aright, and very simple to love every one and to be loved by every one. Besides, every one was good and gentle to me, even Sonia, whom I continued to teach, and who had become totally different, who really made an effort to understand, and to satisfy me, and give me no annoyance. What I was trying to be to others, others were to me.

Passing then to my enemies, from whom I must obtain forgiveness before the great day, I could not think of any except one young lady in the neighborhood, whom I had laughed at before some company, about a year before, and who had ceased to visit at our house. I wrote a letter to her, acknowledging my fault, and begging her pardon. She responded by fully granting it, and asking mine in return. I shed tears of pleasure while reading these frank lines, which seemed to me full of deep and touching sentiment. My maid wept when I asked her pardon also. Why were they all so good to me? How had I deserved so much affection? I asked myself. Involuntarily I began to think about Sergius Mikaïlovitch. I could not help it, and besides I did not consider it a light or frivolous diversion. True I was not thinking about him at all as I had done on that night when, for the first time, I found out that I loved him; I was thinking of him just as of myself, linking him, in spite of myself, with every plan and idea of my future. The dominating influence which his presence had exercised over me, faded away completely in my imagination. I felt myself to-day his equal, and, from the summit of the ideal edifice whence I was looking down, I had full comprehension of him. Whatever in him had previously appeared strange to me was now intelligible. To-day, for the first time, I could appreciate the thought he had expressed to me, that happiness consists in living for others, and to-day I felt in perfect unison with him. It appeared to me that we two were to enjoy a calm and illimitable happiness. No thought entered my mind of journeys to foreign lands, guests at home, excitement, stir, and gayety; it was to be a peaceful existence, a home life in the country, perpetual abnegation of one’s own will, perpetual love for each other, perpetual and absolute thankfulness to a loving and helpful Providence.

I concluded my devotions, as I had purposed, upon the anniversary of my birth. My heart was so overflowing with happiness, that day, when I returned from church, that there resulted all kinds of dread of life, fear of every feeling, terrors of whatever might disturb this happiness. But we had scarcely descended from the droschky to the steps before the house, when I heard the well-known sound of his cabriolet upon the bridge, and in a moment Sergius Mikaïlovitch was with us. He offered me his congratulations, and we went into the drawing-room together. Never since I had known him, had I found myself so calm, so independent in his presence, as upon this morning. I felt that I bore within myself an entire new world, which he did not comprehend and which was superior to him. I did not feel the least agitation in his society. He may, however, have understood what was passing within me, for his gentleness to me was peculiarly delicate, almost, as it were, a religious deference. I was going towards the piano, but he locked it and put the key in his pocket, saying: