Easter was near. Esper Constantinovich Saksaoolov was in a painful and undecided state of mind. It seemed to have begun when he was asked at the Gorodischevs: “Where are you greeting the holiday?”

Saksaoolov, for some reason, did not reply at once. The housewife, who was stout, short-sighted and fussy, went on: “Come to us.”

Saksaoolov felt vexed—most likely at the young girl, who at the words of her mother gave him a quick glance, then averted it, and continued her conversation with a professor’s young assistant.

Mothers of grown daughters saw a possible husband in Saksaoolov, which annoyed him. He considered himself an old bachelor at thirty-seven.

He answered sharply: “Thank you. But I always pass that night at home.”

The girl glanced at him with a smile and asked: “With whom?”

“Alone,” answered Saksaoolov with a shade of astonishment in his voice.

“You’re a misanthrope,” said Madame Gorodischeva, with a sour smile.

Saksaoolov valued his freedom. It seemed strange to him, whenever he thought of it, that he had been so near marriage once. He had lived long in his small but tastefully furnished apartment, had got used to his man attendant, the elderly and steady Fedota, and to Fedota’s not less reliable spouse, who cooked his dinner; and he persuaded himself that he ought to remain single out of memory to his first love. In truth, his heart was growing cold from indifference born of a lonely, incomplete life.

He had his own fortune, his father and mother had died long ago, and he had no near relatives. He lived methodically and quietly; had something to do with a government department; was intimately acquainted with contemporary literature and art; and was something of an epicurean—but life itself seemed to him to be empty and aimless. Were it not that one pure, radiant fancy visited him at times he would have become entirely cold, like many others.

II

His first and only love, which ended before it had time to blossom, wrapt him closely in sad and sweet reveries, usually in the evenings. Five years earlier he had met a young girl who left an indelible impression upon him. She was pale, gentle, slender, with blue eyes, and fair wavy hair. She almost seemed to him not to belong to this earth, but was like a creature of air and mist, blown for a brief moment by fate into the city turmoil. Her movements were slow; her gentle, clear voice was soft, like the murmur of a brook purling over stones.

Saksaoolov, whether by chance or not, saw her always in a white dress. The impression of white had become inseparable from his thought of her. Her very name, Tamar, suggested to him something as white as the snow on the mountain tops.

He began to visit her at the house of her parents. More than once he had resolved to say to her those words which bind human fates together. But she never let him go on; she would always grow frightened and shy, and she would rise and leave him. What frightened her? Saksaoolov read signs of virgin love in her face; her eyes grew brighter when he entered, and a light flush suffused her cheeks.

But one never-to-be-forgotten day she listened to him. It was in the early spring. The ice on the river was gone, and the trees were covered with a soft green veil. Tamar and Saksaoolov were sitting before the window in the city house, and looking out on the Niva. He spoke, scarcely knowing what he said, but his words were both gentle and terrible to her. She grew pale, smiled vaguely, and rose. Her slender hand trembled on the carved top of the chair.

“To-morrow,” Tamar said quietly, and went out.

Saksaoolov gazed with intense feeling toward the door behind which Tamar had disappeared. His head was in a whirl. His eye fell upon a sprig of white lilac; he picked it up almost absently, and left without bidding his hosts good-bye.

He could not sleep that night. He stood at the window and looked out into the far-stretching streets, at first dark, then lighter at dawn; he smiled and pressed the sprig of lilac between his fingers. When it grew light he noticed that the floor of the room was strewn with white petals of lilac. This seemed both curious and of happy omen to Saksaoolov. He felt the cool of the breeze on his heated face. He took a bath and he felt refreshed. Then he went to Tamar.

They told him that she was ill, that she had caught a cold somewhere. And Saksaoolov never saw her again; she died within two weeks. He did not go to her funeral. Her death left him quite calm, and he no longer knew whether he had loved her or whether it was a short, passing fascination.

He mused about her sometimes in the evening; but he gradually learned to forget her; and Saksaoolov had no portrait of her. But after a few years—more precisely, only a year ago—in the spring, upon seeing a sprig of lilac sadly out of place among rich eatables in a restaurant window, he remembered Tamar. And from that time on he loved to think of Tamar again during the evenings.

Sometimes, as he fell into a light sleep, he dreamt that Tamar came to him, sat opposite him, and looked at him with unaverted, fond eyes; and that she had something to tell him. And it was painful to feel Tamar’s expectant glance upon him, and not know what she wanted of him.

Now, leaving the Gorodischevs, he thought timidly: “She will come to give me the kiss of Easter.”

A feeling of fear and loneliness took hold of him with such intensity that the idea came to him: “Perhaps it would be well to marry so as not to be alone on holy, mysterious nights.”

He thought of Valeria Mikhailovna, the Gorodischev girl. She was by no means a beauty, but she was always dressed becomingly to set off her looks. She apparently liked him, and was not likely to reject him if he asked her.

The throng and din in the street distracted him and his usual somewhat ironic mood swayed his thoughts of the Gorodischev girl. Could he prove false to Tamar’s memory for any one else? Everything in the world seemed so paltry to him that he wished no one but Tamar to give him the kiss of Easter.

“But,” thought he, “she will again look at me with expectancy. White, gentle Tamar, what does she want? Will her gentle lips kiss me?”

III

Saksaoolov thought sadly of Tamar as he wandered in the streets, and looking into the faces of the passers-by he thought many of the older people unpleasantly coarse. He recalled that there was no one with whom he would exchange the kiss of Easter with real desire and joy. There would be many coarse lips and prickly beards, smelling of wine, to kiss the first day.

It was much pleasanter to kiss the children. Children’s faces grew lovely in Saksaoolov’s eyes.

He walked a long time, and when he was tired he entered a church enclosure just off the noisy street. A pale lad sat on a form and looked up frightened at Saksaoolov; then he once more began to gaze absently before him. His blue eyes were gentle and sad, like Tamar’s. He was so small that his feet projected from the seat.

Saksaoolov, who sat near him, began to eye him, half with pity, half with curiosity. There was something in this youngster that stirred his memory with joy, and at the same time excited him. In appearance he was a most ordinary urchin; he had on ragged clothes, a white fur cap on his bright hair, and a pair of dirty boots, worse for wear.

He sat long on the form, then he rose suddenly and gave a cry. He ran out of the gate into the street, then stopped, turned quickly in another direction, and again stopped. It was clear that he did not know which way to turn. He began to weep quietly, making no ado, and large tears ran down his cheeks. A crowd gathered. A policeman came. They began to ask him where he lived.

“At the Gliukhov house,” he lisped in a childlike but indistinct tone.

“In what street,” the policeman asked.

The boy did not know, and only kept on repeating: “At the Gliukhov house.”

The young and good-natured policeman thought awhile, and decided that there was no such house near.

“With whom do you live?” asked a gruff workman. “With your father?”

“I have no father,” answered the boy, as he scanned the faces round him with his tearful eyes.

“So you’ve got no father, that’s how it is,” said the workman gravely, and shook his head. “Then where’s your mother?”

“I have a mother,” the boy replied.

“What’s her name?”

“Mamma,” said the boy; then, upon reflection, he added, “black mamma.”

Some one laughed in the crowd.

“Black? I wonder whether that’s the name of the family?” suggested the gruff workman.

“First it was a white mamma, and now it’s a black mamma,” said the boy.

“There’s no making head or tail of this,” decided the policeman. “I’ll take him to the station. They’ll telephone about it.”

He went to the gate and rang. But the house-porter had already seen the policeman and, besom in hand, he was coming to the gate. The policeman ordered him to take the boy to the station. But the boy suddenly bethought himself, and cried out: “Never mind, let me go, I’ll find the way myself.”

Perhaps he was frightened of the house-porter’s besom, or perhaps he had really recalled something; at any rate he ran off so hard that Saksaoolov almost lost sight of him. But soon the boy walked more quietly. He turned street corners and ran from one side to the other searching for, but not finding, his home. Saksaoolov followed him in silence. He was not an adept at talking to children.

At last the boy grew tired. He stopped before a lamp-post and leant against it. Tears gleamed in his eyes.

“My dear boy,” said Saksaoolov, “haven’t you found it yet?”

The lad looked at him with his sad, soft eyes, and Saksaoolov suddenly understood what had impelled him to follow the boy with such resolution. There was something in the face and glance of the little wanderer that gave him an unusual likeness to Tamar.

“My dear boy, what’s your name?” asked Saksaoolov in a tender and agitated voice.

“Lesha,” said the boy.

“Tell me, dear Lesha, do you live with your mother?”

“Yes, with mamma. Only now it’s a black mamma—and before it was a white mamma.”

Saksaoolov thought that by black mamma he meant a nun.

“How did you get lost?” he asked.

“I walked with mamma, and we walked and walked. She told me to sit down and wait, and then she went away. And I got frightened.”

“Who is your mother?”

“My mamma? She’s so black and so angry.”

“What does she do?”

The boy thought awhile.

“She drinks coffee,” he said.

“What else does she do?”

“She quarrels with the lodgers,” answered Lesha after a pause.

“And where is your white mamma?”

“She was carried away. She was put into a coffin and carried away. And papa was carried away.”

The boy pointed into the distance somewhere and burst into tears.

“What’s to be done with him?” thought Saksaoolov.

Then suddenly the boy began to run again. After he had turned a few corners he went more quietly. Saksaoolov overtook him a second time. The lad’s face expressed a strange mixture of joy and fear.

“Here’s the Gliukhov house,” he said to Saksaoolov, as he pointed to a huge, five-storeyed monstrosity.

At this moment there appeared at the gates of the Gliukhov house a black-haired, black-eyed woman in a black dress, a black kerchief with white dots on her head. The boy shrank back in fear.

“Mamma,” he whispered.

His stepmother looked at him with astonishment.

“How did you get here, you young whelp!” she shrieked out. “I told you to sit on the bench, didn’t I?”

She seemed to be on the point of whipping him when she noticed that some sort of gentleman, serious and dignified in appearance, was watching them, and she spoke more softly.

“Can’t I leave you for a half-hour anywhere without you taking to your heels? I’ve walked my feet off looking for you, you young whelp!”

She caught the child’s very small hand in her own huge one and dragged him within the gate. Saksaoolov made a note of the house number and the name of the street, and went home.

IV

Saksaoolov liked to listen to the opinions of Fedota. When he returned home he told him about the boy Lesha.

“She did it on purpose,” decided Fedota. “Just think what a witch she is to take the boy such a way from home!”

“Why should she?” Saksaoolov asked.

“It’s simple enough. What can you expect of a stupid woman! She thought the boy would get lost somewhere, and some one would pick him up. After all, she’s a stepmother. What’s a homeless child to her?”

Saksaoolov was incredulous. He observed: “But the police would have found her out.”

“Of course they would; but you can’t tell, she may have meant to leave town; then find her if you can.”

Saksaoolov smiled.

“Really,” he thought, “my Fedota should be a district attorney.”

He fell into a doze that evening as he sat reading before a lamp. Tamar appeared to him—the gentle, white Tamar—and sat down beside him. Her face was strangely like Lesha’s face. She looked steadily and persistently, and awaited something. It tormented Saksaoolov to see her bright, pleading eyes, and not to know what she wanted. He rose quickly and went to the armchair where he thought he saw Tamar sitting. He stopped before her and asked loudly and with emotion:

“What do you wish? Tell me.”

But she was no longer there.

“It was only a dream,” thought Saksaoolov sadly.

V

The next day, as he was leaving the academy exhibition, Saksaoolov met the Gorodischevs. He told the girl about Lesha.

“Poor boy,” said Valeria Mikhailovna quietly. “His stepmother is trying to get rid of him.”

“That’s yet to be proved,” said Saksaoolov.

He felt annoyed that every one, including Fedota and Valeria, should look so tragically upon a simple incident.

“That’s quite evident,” said Valeria Mikhailovna warmly. “There’s no father, and only a stepmother to whom he is simply a burden. No good will come of it—the boy will have a sad end.”

“You take too gloomy a view of the matter,” observed Saksaoolov, with a smile.

“You ought to take him to yourself,” Valeria Mikhailovna advised him.

“I?” asked Saksaoolov with astonishment.

“You are living alone,” Valeria Mikhailovna persisted. “You have no one. Here’s a chance for you to do a good deed at Eastertime! At least, you’ll have some one with whom to exchange the kiss of Easter.”

“I beg you to tell me, Valeria Mikhailovna, what am I to do with a child?”

“You might engage a governess. Fate itself is sending the boy to you.”

Saksaoolov looked with amazement and involuntary tenderness at the girl’s flushed, animated face.

When Tamar again appeared to him that evening he seemed already to know her wish. It was as though, in the silence of the room, he heard her tranquilly spoken words: “Do as she advised you.”

Saksaoolov rose joyously and rubbed his drowsy eyes with his hand. He saw a sprig of white lilac on the table, and was astonished. How did it come there? Did Tamar leave it there as a sign of her wish?

And he suddenly thought that if he married the Gorodischeva girl and took Lesha into his house he would be carrying out the will of Tamar. He breathed in the lilac’s aroma happily. He suddenly remembered that he himself had bought the sprig of lilac that same day.

Then he argued with himself: “It really doesn’t matter that I had bought it myself; its real significance is that I had an impulse to buy it; and that later I forgot that I had bought it.”

VI

Next morning he went to fetch Lesha. The boy met him at the gate and showed him where he lived. Lesha’s black mamma was drinking coffee, and was quarrelling with her red-nosed lodger. Saksaoolov learnt something about Lesha from her.

The lad lost his mother when he was three. His father married this black woman, and himself died within a year. The black woman, Irina Ivanovna, had her own son, now a year old. She was about to marry again. The wedding would take place in a few days and after the ceremony she would go with her husband to the provinces. Lesha was a stranger to her and she would rather do without him.

“Give him to me,” suggested Saksaoolov.

“With great pleasure,” said Irina Ivanovna with unconcealed and malignant joy.

She added after a short silence: “Only you will pay for his clothes.”

And so Lesha was presently installed at Saksaoolov’s. The Gorodischeva girl helped in the finding of a governess and in other details of Lesha’s comfort. This required her to visit Saksaoolov’s apartments. She assumed a different appearance in Saksaoolov’s eyes as she busied herself in these various cares. It was as though the door to her soul opened itself to him. Her eyes had become beaming and gentle, and she was permeated with almost the same tranquillity that breathed from Tamar.

VII

Lesha’s stories about the white mamma won over Fedota and his wife. As they put him to bed on Easter eve, they hung a white candied egg above his head.

“It’s from the white mamma,” said Christina, “only you darling mustn’t touch it; at least not until the resurrection, when you’ll hear the bell ring.”

Lesha lay down obediently. He looked long at the egg of joy and at last fell asleep.

Saksaoolov was sitting alone in another room. Just before midnight an unconquerable drowsiness again closed his eyes, and he was glad that he would soon see Tamar.

At last she came, all in white, joyous, bringing with her glad tidings from afar. She smiled gently, then bent over him, and—unspeakable happiness!—Saksaoolov’s lips felt a tender contact.

A sweet voice said softly: “Christoss Voskress!” (Christ has risen).

Saksaoolov, without opening his eyes stretched out his arms and embraced a slender, gentle body. It was Lesha who climbed on his knees and gave him the kiss of Easter.

The church bell had awakened the boy. He seized the white egg and ran to Saksaoolov.

Saksaoolov opened his eyes. Lesha laughed as he showed him the egg.

“White mamma has sent it,” he lisped, “and I’ll give it to you, and you can give it to Aunt Valeria.”

“Very well, my dear boy, I’ll do as you say,” said Saksaoolov.

He put Lesha to bed, then went to Valeria Mikhailovna with Lesha’s white egg, a gift from the white mamma, but which really seemed to him at that moment to be a gift from Tamar herself.

THE END