Gzhatski’s good wish, however, was not destined to be fulfilled. Was it the music or the black coffee that was to blame? It is difficult to say. But however it may be, Irene found it impossible to go to sleep. She tried drinking sugared water, applied cold compresses to her head, turned from side to side, got up and paced the room, opened the window—all in vain, for sleep obstinately refused to answer her call. At last, towards four o’clock in the morning, she threw on her dressing-gown, sat down on the sofa with a book, and hoped to fall asleep with the dawn, as frequently happened to her after a wakeful night. Even the book, however, failed to interest her—her excited brain refusing to follow the tangled thread of the sugary English novel. “How unexpectedly everything has arranged itself,” she thought, with a quiet smile. “How foolish we all are when we make plans, and arrange and fuss and worry, and seriously imagine we can direct our own destinies! God does everything in His own way, and always for the best, since our needs and our characters are far better known to Him than to ourselves. There was I, for instance, imagining that I had nothing more to live for, and, suddenly, God sent me so incomparable a lover, so immense a happiness. In my fairest dreams, I had never seen so ideal a husband—so handsome, so clever, so good, so noble. What a contrast, indeed, between him and the worthless Petrograd “And he has such high ideals!” continued Irene dreamily to herself. “How severely he judged that unhappy woman! A little too severely perhaps, but that only proves how seriously he looks upon love. Oh! my dear one, my dear one! “All the priests were wrong when they found my faith pagan. I knew I was right! God wanted to try me with long and dark years of despair and suffering, but finding that I was not embittered, and that I had remained, in spite of everything, honest and good, He has sent me this wonderful happiness as a reward. My faith was the right one, my God has triumphed!” Irene rejoiced and exulted, and life had never seemed so glorious to her before. Suddenly she felt that this was the happiest moment of her existence, and that nothing still happier could or would ever be. She rose, opened the door leading to the balcony, “Soon the sun will rise,” thought Irene. “How lovely the view must be from the Casino Terrace!” The idea of seeing the sun rise attracted her. “I have lived all this time, and have never once seen it,” she said to herself. “How surprised Sergei will be when I tell him my impressions!” Irene dressed hurriedly, and, having thrown a cloak over her dress and a scarf over her hair, stepped softly out into the corridor. All was quiet, and a grey streak of light was filtering through the glass door leading into the garden. Like a ghost, Irene slipped along the passage, when, suddenly, the slight movement of a door on the right attracted her attention. The door gradually opened, softly, slowly, carefully. Something guilty and horrible seemed suggested by this carefulness. Irene stopped still in the shadow of a large cupboard, her eyes riveted on the moving door. At last it stood half-way open, and yesterday’s Poor Irene’s knees shook, and all but gave way under her. Leaning against the wall, with hardly strength enough to drag one foot before the other, she staggered back to her room, and fell, almost lifeless, on the sofa. The sun had long since risen and was forcing its way in through the shutters. The birds had long been singing, noise and movement were in the air, everywhere people were laughing and talking, but Irene still lay prone and motionless. Thoughts were rushing wildly through her head, but she could not disentangle them. Slowly, gradually, she “So that is what you are like,” she murmured childishly. “And I had believed in you so completely, and had placed you so high.…” For a moment the voice of reason tried to pacify her. “But this is nothing more than a man’s adventure, a prank, a caprice after a gay supper,” it whispered seriously. But Irene paid no attention. “If it were only the supper,” she argued, “why did not Sergei come to her, to his bride? What cared she for marriage ceremonies? Did she not, before God, belong to Gzhatski soul and body? But no, he had not come to her. He considered her old and ugly and repulsive!” This thought filled Irene with such an agony of despair that she slipped from the sofa to the carpet, rolled about and knocked her head against the floor, striving by this means to deaden her unbearable pain. “You are old, you are ridiculous, you are hideous, in spite of your fashionable dresses!” she exclaimed wildly to herself, and, rising from the carpet, she tottered towards the looking-glass, “So this is the part that has been allotted to you in Sergei’s life!” she hissed. “You are the ideal, the image of his mother, the statue of purity that stands on a pedestal surrounded by respect and homage! I am sick to death of this eternal respect! I want love—one month, one day, one hour of love! But no—love belongs only to such as Carmen; never will it fall to my lot! Oh! if this is so, if this is so, I do not want to live!” A bitter resentment against God took possession of Irene’s soul. “What is the object of this mockery?” she groaned. “Thou knowest that if I had entered a convent I should have been an exemplary nun. Of what use was it to distract me from my purpose, and send me a hope of happiness, only to shatter it cruelly with a derisive laugh? As if I had not suffered enough without this! All my life has been nothing but suffering, nothing but pain. But to Thee, this seemed insufficient—there was still this last refinement of torture to apply! But who art Thou “Pull yourself together,” whispered reason. “Look at life more soberly. Your Sergei is not perhaps as depraved as it would seem. There was nothing to prevent his passing all his life in the company of beautiful Carmens, and yet you know how he has been struggling all the winter to win you. That was because he felt that only you could give him happiness. Cannot you, in return, struggle a little for him? Will you not try with the strength of your love to keep alight in him the divine spark that burns in every human soul? You are pure and virtuous, and therefore stronger than all the Carmens in the world. Victory belongs to you, and not to them!” “No, no, no!” answered Irene. “I cannot, and will not—for I do not love The savage beast that Gzhatski had once mentioned to Irene had awakened in her, and growled and roared, its appetite roused and unsatisfied!… “I will drown myself—throw myself from the rocks above the Monaco gardens!” she thought. But the idea of going out into the sunshine and facing the triumphant glory of Southern nature, caused her to frown nervously. “They are all happy out there,” she muttered angrily. “Very well, they can be as happy as they like. It is all the same to me. I must do away with myself here, in this dark room.” Her glance swept the walls in search of a nail, and returned to the table, arrested by a glass of pinkish water. On arriving at Monte Carlo Irene had developed, on account of the strong sea air, a slight rash on her face. Having just at that time been very particular about her appearance, she had applied to a doctor, who had given her a lotion composed of a solution of sublimate, with the warning that it was a strong poison, for external application only. Irene had prepared the solution each evening, in readiness for use the following morning, and a glassful of it was now standing temptingly on her table. She approached. In her imagination she saw frightful tortures and frantic pains. “Nonsense, nonsense,” she whispered to herself encouragingly. “Are you such a coward? What are a few hours of physical pain compared to the unbearable mental sufferings which, with your tiresome good health, might last another forty years! And however cruel your sufferings have been till now, at least you had some faith in God, in His miracles and His power. What would Irene shuddered. Struggling with the animal instinct of “Life at all costs,” she alternately stretched out her hand towards the glass, and withdrew it again. Suddenly a strange thought came into her mind. “Could it be that Nature, foreseeing the possibility of her having children by Gzhatski, and finding it necessary to protect these future children from inheriting her moral disease, from suffering, from leading useless, miserable lives and spreading darkness and despair along their path, had purposely sent her out to see the sun rise that morning, and was now hurrying her to drink the glass of poison?” A strong feeling of resentment accompanied this thought. “But why such tender solicitude for these unborn creatures?” thought the unfortunate girl, “and such cold, cruel indifference to me and my sufferings?” And she felt inclined to upset the glass, throw away the tempting poison, and live on, just to spite Nature.… There was a knock at the door. “Irene Pavlovna, are you still asleep?” Gzhatski’s gay voice resounded in the passage. “Do get up and come out! It is a glorious morning, just like the one Fett “‘I have brought to thee a greeting From this rosy summer morn; Come! the golden hours are fleeting.…’” The blood rushed to Irene’s head. “He is gay and happy!” she thought. “In whose arms has he gleaned this joy?” And such an insufferable sense of insult and of irony conveyed itself to her mind through Gzhatski’s light-hearted greeting, that with a sudden impulse she seized the glass and swallowed the poison in one draught. The door opened, and Gzhatski entered. “Oh! you are quite ready!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t you answer? There I stood, like a Spanish hidalgo, declaiming at your door! What is the matter? Why do you look so tragic?” Irene looked at him in silence, and crossed her arms on her chest. “I saw you come out from that room at dawn,” she said, in a low whisper and with, trembling lips. “You saw?…” And Gzhatski blushed deeply. “Well, then. Of course you now think I am a scoundrel. I am not going to try and justify myself. I ask you only one thing—do not, for Heaven’s sake, lower yourself in my eyes by being jealous of that disgusting creature. If only you could understand what an abyss separates you from her! To me she is not a woman. She is—a glass of whisky that I must drink sometimes, a cigarette that one has the need of smoking at certain moments.… Forgive me—I have no right to tell you these things. But it is incredible that you girls can pass through life without understanding them. What am I to say, how am I to prove to you that that miserable worm simply does not exist for me? If it can please you, let us go immediately to the North Cape or to Central Africa. She will not follow us there! What is the matter? Oh! what is it? What is it?” Irene had fallen to the ground with a cry, and was writhing on the carpet. Gzhatski “Irene! Irene! My darling! My dearest one! Tell me. What is it? Don’t frighten me so!” “I am lost!” whispered Irene in terror, clinging spasmodically to Gzhatski, and only just then realizing to the full what she had done to herself. “I am dying; I have poisoned myself with sublimate!” “Poisoned yourself! How? Purposely? Because of that accursed Frenchwoman?” “Yes!” whispered Irene shamefacedly. Gzhatski gazed at her for a moment in horror. “Oh! madness! madness!” he cried helplessly. Then, regaining his presence of mind, he tore himself from her embrace, and rushed to the door. “A doctor! A doctor!” His voice rang wildly through the corridor. “Too late—too late!” muttered Irene. And the agony set in. BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND |