“No, no! it is not true! I never said I wanted a parrot! Take it away! It frightens me. And so does the yellow wool.” I hear myself weeping loudly; then everything is blotted out and vanishes—parrot, Vassili, yellow wool, Olga—nothing remains but my mother's sad and anxious face bending above me, dim and constant as the light of a lamp in a shadowy chapel.
When I was able to come down to breakfast for the first time, my father stood waiting for me, straight and solemn at the foot of the great staircase. He gave me his arm with much ceremony and led me to my place, where flowers lay in fragrant heaps round my plate. Every one embraced and complimented me and I was very happy.
“I feel as if I were a princess!” I cried, clapping my hands; and they all laughed except my father, who answered gravely:
“If it is your wish, you may become one. Prince Ivan has asked for your hand.”
“Ivan? Ivan Troubetzkoi?” All the gladness went out of my heart.
“Yes. And so has Katerinowitch,” exclaimed Olga, with a bitter smile; and I noticed that she looked pale and sad.
“Both Ivan and Katerinowitch? How extraordinary!” Then glancing at my mother, whose eyes were fixed upon her plate, I added jestingly, “Is that all? No one else?”
My pleasantry fell flat, for no one answered, and I saw my father knitting his brows. But my mother lifted her eyes for an instant and looked at me. In the blue light of that dear gaze I read my happiness!
But Olga was speaking. “Yes,” she said, “there is some one else. Vassili Tarnowsky has asked to marry you.” And she added, with a touch of bitterness: “I wonder what has possessed all three of them!”
Vassili! Vassili! Vassili! The name rang like a clarion in my ears. I should be Vassili's wife! I should be the Countess Tarnowska—the happiest woman in all this happy world. Every other girl on earth—poor luckless girls who could not marry Vassili—would envy me. On his arm I should pass proudly and serenely through life, rejoicing in his beauty, protected by his strength. Sheltered on his breast the storms would pass over my head, nor could sorrow ever touch me.
“I trust that your choice will fall on Troubetzkoi,” said my father.
“Or on Vassili,” cried Olga quickly.
I jumped up and embraced her. “It shall not be Katerinowitch, that I promise,” I whispered, kissing the little pink ear that nestled under her fair curls. “He is to be for you!”
Time was to fulfil this prophecy.
As I went round the table, and passed my mother—poor little nervous mother!—I laid my hand on her arm. I noticed that she was trembling all over. Then I summoned up courage and approached my father.
“Father, dear, if you want your little Mura to be happy, you must let her marry Vassili.”
“Never,” cried my father, striking the table with his fist. The soul of the ancient O'Rourke—a demoniacal Irish ancestor of ours whose memory always struck terror to our souls—had awakened in him. I saw Olga and my mother turn pale. Nevertheless I laughed and kissed him again. “If I do not marry Vassili, I shall die! And please, father, do not be the Terrible O'Rourke, for you are frightening mother!”
But papa, dominated by the atavistic influence of the O'Rourke, grew even more terrible; and mother was greatly frightened. She sat white and rigid, with scarcely fluttering breath; suddenly in her transparent eyes the pupils floated upward like two misty pale-blue half-moons; she was in the throes of one of her dreaded epileptic seizures.
Then they were all around her, helping her, loosening her dress, fanning her; while I stood aside trembling and woebegone, and the pains in the nape of my neck racked me anew.
I said to myself that my father was hard and wicked, that I should marry Vassili and carry mother off with me, ever so far away!
As for papa, he should only be allowed to see us once a year. At Christmas.
I have married Vassili.
I pretended to be seized with such convulsions that my poor dear mother, being at her wits' end, at last allowed me to run away with him.
Do I say “I pretended”? I am not sure that that is correct. At first the convulsions were certainly a mere pretense. I would say to myself: “Now I shall make myself have convulsions.” But as soon as I had begun I could not stop. After I had voluntarily gnashed my teeth they seemed to become locked as in a vice; my fists that I had purposely clenched would not reopen. My nails dug into the palms of my hands, and I could see the blood flowing down my wrists without being able to unclasp or relax my fingers.
Doctor Orlof, summoned in haste from Kieff, shook his head gravely.
“There are indications of epilepsy, due to the fall from the swing.”
“No, no, no!” I cried. “Not the swing! It is because of Vassili!”
My mother trembled and wept.
How cruel we are in our childhood! How we torture the mothers that adore us, even though we love them with all our hearts. And oh! the tragedy of not understanding this until it is too late, when we can never, never ask for their forgiveness, nor console them or atone to them again.
I married Vassili.
My father, more the Terrible O'Rourke than ever, at once refused to have anything to do with me. He denied me his kiss and his forgiveness. I was very unhappy.
“Oh, don't bother your head about that tiresome old man,” said Vassili, much annoyed by my tears.
As for my mother, she could only entreat Vassili to be kind and gentle with me.
“Take care of her, Vassili,” she implored. “I have given her to you lest she should die of a broken heart: but she is really too young to be any one's wife—she is but a child! I do not know whether you understand me. Remember she is not yet a woman. She is a child.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Vassili, without paying much attention. “That's all right. I shall tweak her nose if she is naughty.”
“And if I am good?” I asked, lifting ecstatic eyes to his handsome nonchalant face.
“If you are good you shall have sweets and kisses!” and he laughed, showing all his white teeth.
“Promise me, Vassili, that you will always sing my favorite song: 'Oh distant steppes, oh savage plains,' to me, and to no one else.”
“To you and to no one else,” said Vassili with mock solemnity. “Come then, Marie Tarnowska!” and he drew my arm under his, patting my hand on which the new nuptial ring shone in all its brightness.
“Marie Tarnowska!” What a beautiful name! I could have wished the whole world to know that name; I could have wished that every one seeing me should say: “Behold, behold Marie Tarnowska, happiest and most blessed among women.”
IV
On my wedding night, in the hotel at Kharkoff, I summoned the chambermaid. She knocked and entered. She was a pert, pretty creature, and after surveying me from head to foot she threw a rapid glance at Vassili. He was seated in an armchair, lighting a cigarette.
“What is your name?” he asked the girl.
“Rosalia,