Asbeïn: From the Life of a Virtuoso

by Ossip Schubin

FOURTH BOOK.

Dear Natalie!--Owing to business affairs which will claim me still longer, it will be impossible for me to come to Trouville before the beginning of September. I am very sorry, but I hope and wish that you will not, on this account, put off your journey to the sea-shore; you know how you need the stay in the bracing air. I have engaged a residence for you through Madame de C., and also had everything arranged for your comfortable reception--a low châlet with a look-out over the sea. I know how you love it,--the poor wild sea, that cannot help it if it sometimes crushes a ship, and that finds no rest from despair over the evil which it does and cannot prevent.

You must not take any sea-baths; Dr. H. suitably impressed that upon me in the spring. But in any case, wait until I come.

From my great, clever boy I often receive long, pretty, regularly written letters which please me very much. I will show them to you when we are together again. The boy is romantic, through and through, which touches me in these our present times, and also a little of a pedant, which makes me impatient, but still, he is a dear, splendid fellow, and that you must tell him from me.

The little note, which I recently received from Maschenka, was laughably comic, and sweet enough to eat. The little witch wrote me quite secretly, without telling you anything about it. She confessed all her naughtinesses to me very remorsefully and over hurriedly, from anxiety that you might write something about them to me. Is she really so naughty, and passionate, and wild? She is still charming in spite of all, so thoroughly good-hearted and tender and generous, and withal so incredibly gifted. I tell you her little note--it was adorned with three ink spots, and I could not read a word of the writing--but still it was a little poem.

And how she loves you! Just as she is, I find her charming enough to make one lose one's head over her; and I am very sorry that one must cure her of her amusing little faults; they are so becoming to her. That you must naturally not tell her from me, but give her a very warm kiss from me on her full, defiant lips, of which you always assert that they are like mine. Do not vex yourself too much over it,--rejoice in our little gypsy as she is. And if you again worry over her inherited good-for-nothingness, then look in her wonderfully beautiful, large eyes, which she did not inherit from me. You will find your soul in them--let that be your consolation. Farewell, my angel, spare yourself really--really! Only do not think of saving at all on the journey. You know that I cannot bear that. Think only of your comfort and of what a joy it would be to me if, at our next meeting, I should find your poor thin cheeks somewhat rounder than when I left you.

Your boundlessly devoted

Boris.

It is in Berlin, in the Hôtel du Nord, nine years after the first violent quarrel, the first passionate reconciliation with her husband, that Natalie receives this letter.

She had left St. Petersburg a few days before, in order, as by agreement, to meet Lensky, whom she has not seen since the beginning of March, in the German capital. It had been a great disappointment for her that she had not found Boris in Berlin, but he has accustomed her to disappointments.

She reads the letter once more. It is a dear, good letter. Ah! Natalie has received such dear, good, tender letters from all the large cities in Europe and America--and knows----

Not that Boris is deceiving her when he writes to her in this tender tone. No, every trace of falseness is strange to him, his attachment to her, his anxiety about her, are sincere--but----

What use to grieve over it? These great geniuses are never different. One must not judge them like other men! With this shallow commonplace, with which she has so often put to sleep her inconsolable heart if it sometimes wishes violently to rise up against its oppressive, ignominious lot, she compels it to rest again to-day. It is easier now than formerly; her poor heart has already accustomed itself to grievances.

Nine years have passed since that time in the pretty, cosey Hermitage when she--forgave him too easily, and thereby lost her power over him forever. She has known it a long time. Late in that following autumn a great symphony by him was given in the "Gewandhaus," in Leipzig. The work was beautiful, the success moderate, Lensky's discouragement exaggerated, quite morbid. A few months later he took up his wanderer's staff anew, and left Petersburg, where he had returned with his family, in order to distract himself by the most exaggerated virtuoso triumphs from the humiliation which had befallen the composer. Oftener, ever oftener, he had then left wife and children, and now, in his own house, he had long been only an indulged, distinguished guest.

But in the time which he every year devoted to his wife, to his family, he behaved in an exemplary fashion. He did everything that lay in his power to make life bearable to Natalie--everything except to lay a restraint upon himself; that he simply could not, and for that reason he must leave home so often in order to vent his passion.

Natalie's nature was broken. An unexpressed, numbing, blunting conviction that this was the natural course of things, and that nothing of all this could be changed, had overpowered her. As to what might take place while he was away from her, of that she did not permit herself to think.

With his art matters had long gone downward, even more rapidly than Natalie--who already after his return from America had been startled by the exaggerations to which he had accustomed himself in his playing--had deemed possible. At that time he had given the reins to his temperament with assiduity in order to dazzle the public. Now--now, he had long lost power over himself. And concerning his compositions! A fearful pain contracted Natalie's heart if she thought how she had formerly, in her tender enthusiasm, called him the last musical poet, in opposition to the other great composers of modern times, whom at that time she had described as--musical bunglers. She could no longer remember the speech without blushing.

The bunglers had all grown above his head. One scarcely spoke of his compositions now, and the worst of it was--Natalie herself no longer cared to hear them.

Where was the sweet, sunny, charming element of his first little works? Where the fiery earnestness, the penetrating, noble sound of pain in his later works?

Sleepy monotony, noisy emptiness were now the characteristics of his musical creations. Certainly, here and there appeared melodies of wonderful beauty; but who had the patience to seek out the lovely oases in this sterile musical wilderness?

Once, Natalie had hesitatingly made a remark to him about a new composition. But he, who had formerly showed himself of such unimpeachable gentleness toward her, had flown into a passion, and had even for many days remained irritable. Since that time she said nothing more, but let him have his way, as she let him have his way in everything, only that she might not break the last thin thread which still held them together.

* * * * * *

She had read the letter a third time. "Business affairs detain him," she murmured to herself. "Business affairs! He writes from Leipzig; why does he not ask me to come to him?" She shrugged her shoulders--what good to think of it?

Suddenly her cheeks burned, her breath came short. She pours out a glass of water, throws a couple of bits of ice from a porcelain bowl in it, and drinks thirstily. "Such great geniuses are never different," she says to herself again. She begins to walk up and down in the room uneasily. At last she goes to the window and looks out.

A great weariness lay over everything. The lindens slept, wrapped in white dust; the stony heroes at their feet looked morose and weary, as if they were satiated with letting themselves parch on their pedestals. They throw pitch-black shadows over the sun-burned road. A black poodle lies at the foot of one of the memorials, on its back, and does its utmost to pull off the muzzle on its nose. The people are weary and pale, and crowd into the shadow wherever they can. Everything flees the sun. No one remembers another such hot, dry, oppressive summer. And suddenly a strange longing for shade comes over Natalie; for some deep, cool, shady place in which she can rest.

The hollow, oppressive feeling about her heart has become more significant, has taken, at length, the form of a piercing physical pain. She lays her hand on her breast; the physicians have told her that she should spare herself, should guard against every vehement sensation, because her heart is affected. Suddenly she breaks out in convulsive sobbing. Spare herself! Is it worth the trouble to spare one's self; to exert one's self for the preservation of this poor life; is it worth the trouble to bend down again and again in the mire for the poor little bit of happiness that is thrown to one as an alms?

Then the door opens; a charming little girl of about ten years, large-eyed, gay, with wonderful curly hair hanging far down her back, with very long black stockings and very short white dress, hops in--Maschenka, who had been to walk with the maid. The first thing which she discovers when she has scarcely greeted her mother and given her a somewhat breathless and hurried account of the various impressions she has formed on her walk, is Lensky's letter, which has remained lying on the table. "Oh, from papa!" says she. "When is he coming; to-morrow?" and her eyes shine.

"He is not coming; we are going to Trouville without him," replies Natalie, wearily.

"Without him," repeats Maschenka; her sweet, large-eyed cherub's face lengthens. "Oh!"--looking at Natalie attentively--"Did you cry over that, mamma?"

Natalie says nothing, only turns her head away with a gesture of displeasure.

"He is coming after us?" asks Maschenka, embarrassed.

"He promises to," replies Natalie, with difficultly restrained bitterness.

"Poor mamma!" and Maschenka tenderly kisses the tears away from her mother's cheek. "You must not cry, it is not good for you. You know papa cannot bear to see you cry."

It is quite inexplicable how nature has been able to bestow upon this tender, childish, velvet-cheeked little being such a striking likeness to the face stamped by time, weather, and life of the virtuoso. The troubled, strangely deep look with which Maschenka regards her mother; the tender and still defiant expression of her full lips; the manner of drawing together her delicate brows, all that reminds one of her father. But that in which her likeness to him is most strikingly announced, is the bewitching heartiness of her manner, the flattering insinuation of her caresses.

Natalie observes her with quite fixed attention, then draws her to her and kisses her passionately on both eyes.

Meanwhile there is a knock at the door. It is a waiter, who brings a telegram from Petersburg. Natalie starts, her thoughts fly to her son whom she has left behind them. But no the telegram has nothing to do with Kolia. It is really not from Petersburg, but has only sought her there, and has been sent after her to Berlin. She reads:

Dresden, Hôtel Bellevue, August 4th.

Can you not take the roundabout way through Dresden? We would be very glad to see you.

Sergei.

Why should she not take the roundabout way through Dresden? Why should she hasten to reach Trouville, the full, empty Trouville, where no one will be glad to see her?

* * * * * *

Shortly after his reconciliation with his sister, Sergei had left St. Petersburg, in order to follow his brilliant but exacting diplomatic wandering career from one important but remote post to another, and now he had at length been recalled to Petersburg, to fill a high position at home. Natalie cherished the conviction that he suspected nothing of the slow crumbling together of her happiness. How should he! Before him, more than before all the others, she had concealed her great inconsolableness. In the long letter which, by agreement, she wrote him every month, she had always forced herself to take as gay as possible a tone, and even if she was accustomed, in the description of her "domestic happiness" to dwell at especial length on the lovability and happy dispositions of both of her children, she yet had never failed to mention the goodness of their father and his unwearied consideration for her. "How he would triumph if he knew!" she said to herself, on the platform in Dresden, while she uneasily looked round for her brother, whom she had informed by telegram of the hour of her arrival. "If he knew anything of it!" she said to herself, and at the mere thought, it seemed to her that she would flee to the end of the world, rather than bear the cold scrutinizing glance of his eye. Then a very slender man in blameless English clothes came up to her, looked at her a moment uncertainly, put up his eye-glass--"Natalie! it is really you!" and evidently truly pleased to see her again he draws her hand to his lips. And now she is also glad to see him, is pleased to be with her brother, as she has never yet been glad since her betrothal to Lensky. He has changed very much since that time in Rome when he had vainly sought to destroy Natalie's illusions; but, as with all really distinguished men, growing old was becoming to him. If his bearing is still proud, it has yet lost much of its harsh, nervous, immature arrogance of that time. His fine features are still sharper, but his glance has become softer, more benevolent.

"That is your little girl?" says he, bending down to Maschenka, pleasantly. "May one ask a kiss of such a large young lady?"

The gay Maschenka, always bent upon the conquest of all hearts, hops up to him with hearty readiness, and throws both her little arms round his neck. "Elle est charmante!" whispers Sergei in a somewhat patronizing tone to Natalie.

"We find her very like the Maria Ægyptica of Ribera--your favorite picture in the Dresden Gallery. Do you not remember it?"

"Indeed!" The prince bends down a second time, wonderingly, to Maschenka. Suddenly his face takes on a discontented expression. "She chiefly resembles Lensky; I do not understand how that could escape me!" says he, and his tone expresses decided displeasure.

"And still if he knew!" thinks Natalie.

"Kolia looks like you," says she, hastily.

"They have often written me that," says the prince. "Besides, they tell me only good things of him; I shall be glad to see a great deal of him in Petersburg. And now come, Natalie. I wished to have rooms in Bellevue for you, but there were none to be had; not a mouse hole; all engaged. We ourselves live at the extreme end of a corridor. So I have taken a little apartment for you in the Hôtel du Saxe. It is a plain house, but the nearest one to us, and you will not be there much. Send your maid ahead with the luggage. I hope you will now come direct to our rooms with me, you and the little one; my wife awaits you at dinner."

* * * * * *

And now Natalie has been in Dresden since many hours. The joy of the meeting with her brother has fled, a great depression benumbs her whole being. What a home! Sergei's wife, born a Countess Brok, who is two years older than he, and whom he has married on account of the influential position of her father, suffers with rheumatism, on which account she fears a little bit of too warm sunshine as well as a slight draught. The meal is taken in the drawing-room of the married pair, instead of down on the gay, sunny terrace, as Sergei had ordered. After the princess has welcomed Natalie, and has said something in praise of Maschenka's beautiful hair, her remarks consist in commanding her companion, a very homely little Frenchwoman, by turns to open or close a window.

After dinner the married couple quarrel over several immaterial trifles, which momentarily interest no one; over the latest Russian table of duties, and as to whether it is better to treat scarlet fever with heat or with cold. Then Varvara Pavlovna busies herself in her favorite occupation; that is to say, twisting paper flowers. Natalie took part in this, but Maschenka, to whom they have confided an album with views of Dresden for her entertainment, has uneasily crept about the room, now reached after this and now that, has hopped around first on the right, then on the left leg, until at last Natalie's maid presents herself to ask her mistress if she has anything to command or to be done, whereupon Natalie has commissioned her to take the little one out for a walk, and then to take her to the Hôtel du Saxe.

Then Sergei read something aloud from the newspaper; then tea was brought.

It is nine o'clock. Natalie rises, says that she is tired, and that she would like to retire early to-night. Sergei asks: "Do you wish to drive? Shall I send for a carriage? It would really be a shame! The evening is lovely; if you go on foot, I will accompany you."

They go on foot. "I do not know what fancy has seized me to loiter about a little," she says in the passage, where Sergei has remained standing to light a cigarette. "Would you have time?" she asks her brother.

"Yes," replies he, "I am very willing to walk a little. Where do you wish to go?"

"Anywhere, where it is quiet and pretty, and where one does not hear this café chantant music." She points over the Elbe, where from out a dazzlingly lighted enclosure, frivolous dance measures sound boldly and obtrusively over the dreamy plash of the waves.

"Come in the fortress grounds," says Sergei, and gives her his arm. And suddenly a kind of anxiety at being alone with him overcomes Natalie. "Now he will question me," thinks she, and would like to tear her arm away from him and--has not the courage to do it.

They are quite alone in the court-yard, the world-renowned court-yard of the fortress, with its enclosure of strange, carved, exaggerated, and charming irregular architecture; only the sentinel continually goes along the same path, up and down, and above, on the flat terrace roofs of the fortress, a couple of friends are walking. One hears them laugh, jest; yes, even kiss, standing in the court below. They may be lovers, or some couple on their wedding tour.

The lanterns burn red and sleepily in the transparent pale gray of the summer half light, and the buttons of the sentinel shine dully; all other light is extinguished in the world, but up in heaven the stars slowly open their golden eyes. What is there down here to-day for them to look at?

A thunder-storm threatens, but one does not see it as yet, but only hears its hollow voice growling in the distance.

Slowly the brother and sister wander along the narrow way between the old-fashioned, regularly laid-out flower-beds. The stony faces of satyrs and fauns grin down upon them with triumphant cynicism. One can still see their small eyes, slanting upward toward the temples, distinctly in the dull, shadowless, clear twilight. The air is sultry and close, and quite immoderately impregnated with the sad, penetrating perfume of weary flowers which have been tormented by an over-hot summer day.

"Do you remember the last time that we walked around here together?" remarked Sergei, at length breaking the silence.

"Yes," says Natalie. "It was the year before our father's death. I was not much older than Maschenka, and you had not completed your studies."

"Quite right, I did not yet feel myself obliged to be ambitious, in order to help raise our family from its sunken condition," said Sergei very bitterly. "Father had taken me with him during my vacation, in order to cultivate my æsthetic taste. Only think, Natalie, at that time I wrote a poem on the Sistine Madonna! I! that is very laughable, is it not?"

"You--a poem," says Natalie, astonished, and still absently; the affair has in reality little interest for her.

"Yes, I--a poem!" repeats Sergei. "I--now at that time I was an idealist, however improbable that may seem to you! Now, now I am a machine, who still sometimes dreams of having been a man!" He laughs harshly and forcedly, and is suddenly silent. After a while he begins again: "Just look at the roses, Natascha," and he points to the slender bushes which are almost broken under their weight of dried blossoms. "Have you ever seen such an Ash Wednesday? Early this morning they were still fresh! It is a pitiless summer."

Natalie lowers her head. "Now it is coming," she thinks. "Now it is coming." But no, not what she has expected, but something different, comes.

"Did it ever occur to you," continues Sergei after a little while, "how very much a tree struck by lightning resembles one killed by frost? In the end it all tends in the same direction." He is silent. After a while he says, looking her straight in the eyes: "Did you understand me?"

"Yes, I understand," murmurs she, tonelessly.

"Hm! it was plain enough. You are dying of heat, I of cold!" says he, and laughing slightly to himself, he adds: "Do you still remember how I lectured you at that time in Rome?"

Instead of any answer, she pulls her hand away from his arm. Compassionately her brother looks at her through the gray veil of the now fast-descending twilight. "Poor Natascha!" he says. "You surely do not believe that I will return to my wisdom of that time--no! I will make you a great confession!" His voice sounds hissingly close to her ear. She feels his breath unpleasantly hot on her cheeks. "There are moments when I envy you!" he whispers. "Bah! that one must say of one's self: it is over, one is old, one will die, without once having been deeply shaken by a true shudder of delight,--sans avoir connu le grand frisson--it is horrible! I know what you have to bear, Natalie, and still--yes, there are moments when I envy you!"

"Who has then permitted himself to assert that I have anything to bear?" Natalie bursts out.

"Who?" Sergei raises his eyebrows. "You surely do not fancy that it is a secret?" says he. "Many wonder that you endure it; as it seems, he exercises an incredible charm over all women!"

Her eyes and his meet in the sultry half darkness. "What have they told you?" asks Natalie, with difficulty.

But then he replies with fearful emphasis: "You surely do not demand an answer of me in earnest?"

She breathes heavily. "It is not true!" says she. "They have lied to you!"

Thereupon he remains silent. The sultriness becomes ever more oppressive. Heavy thunder-clouds creep slowly and threateningly over the roof of the fortress and blot out the stars from the heavens.

Natalie has turned away from her brother, and with uneasy haste she hurries to the gate of the yard; he comes after her. "I am sorry to have wounded you," he says. "I had not that intention."

She answers nothing; silently she walks along near him. From time to time he pulls her gently by the sleeve and says: "This is the way." The stars are all extinguished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and close to the ground sighs a heavy wind which cannot yet rise to a hurricane. What is it in this depressing sound of nature which chases the blood more rapidly through her veins?

At the door of the great, many-storied hotel, Natalie wishes to take leave of her brother. "I will accompany you to your room," says Sergei.

Silently, she lets him remain near her. With bowed head she goes up the broad staircase to the first landing; then something wakes her from her brooding thoughts--the rustling of a woman's dress. She looks up--there goes a man up the stairs to the second story with a heavily veiled woman on his arm. She sees him for one moment only; then the shadow of his profile passes quickly over the wall; she turns away her head. It is he--she has recognized him! Silently and with doubled haste she follows her brother's guidance. "Your room is No. 53," says he, and turns the door-knob of a room. The lamp is lighted, everything cosily prepared for her reception. "I will disturb you no longer," says Sergei. His manner has become very stiff, his voice is icy cold, and before he leaves the room his glance seeks a last time the eyes of his sister.

* * * * * *

She is alone. Trembling in all her limbs, she has thrown herself down on a sofa. The maid presents herself with the question whether her mistress wishes to undress. Natalie signifies to her to go away, to retire for the night to her room in an upper story. The maid goes, happy to be released from her service, weary, sleepy. Natalie does not think of sleeping. How should she think of it when she knows that here, under the same roof, a few rooms distant from her-- It is horrible! It seems to her that she is slowly suffocating in a close, oppressing dread.

The lamp burns brightly. As a maid of good form, Lisa has already unpacked those little objects which luxurious women always carry about with them, even on the shortest journey, in order to make a hotel residence cosey. On the table lies Natalie's portfolio; her travelling writing utensils stand near by; and near the ink-case two photographs in pretty little leather frames the pictures of her husband and of her son. Shuddering, she turns away. She pushes the hair back from her temples. "Sergei recognized him also!" murmurs she to herself. "It was impossible not to recognize him," whispers she, "and Sergei believes that I will still bear this also. And why should he not believe it?"

For years she has waded through the mire after a fata morgana, and the world laughs, and points its fingers at her. What does she care about the world, if she can only once shake off the feeling of boundless degradation which drags her down to the ground? In a few days he will come to her with loving glance, uneasily concerned about her, with a thousand anxious, tender words, with open arms. And she--well, she--she will rush into those arms, forgive and forget everything as before. Ah!--she springs up.

A few moments later she stands near the bed of her little daughter. The child looks very lovely in her white night-gown, richly trimmed with lace and embroidery. One of her hands rests under her cheek, the other is hidden under the pillow. Formerly Natalie has come every night to the bed of the child in order to kiss and bless her, still asleep. But to-night her tortured heart is capable of no tender emotion.

"Wake up!" she commands, in a harsh, strange voice. Maschenka starts up, thereby involuntarily drawing her hand out from under the pillow, and with the hand a little letter which she immediately tries to conceal again from her mother. But Natalie tears it away from her. "What have you to conceal from me?" she says to the little girl, imperiously.

"I have only written to papa!" replies Maschenka excusingly, tearfully. "I wrote him that you are sad, and that he must come very soon because we will be so glad--that was all."

Natalie tears the poor little letter apart in the middle. "Dress yourself!" she orders.

"Is there a fire?" asks Maschenka, frightened.

"No, but something has happened; we cannot stay in the hotel; do not ask."

Sleepy, but obedient, as a good child who has the most complete confidence in her mother, Maschenka sets about putting on the clothes daintily arranged on a chair near her little bed. Natalie helps her as well as her fingers, trembling with fever, will permit her, then wrapping head and shoulders in a lace scarf, she takes the child by the hand and hurries down the stairs.

"Is the princess going out?" asks the porter, who has not the heart to give the sister of Prince Assanow another title. "The weather is very threatening; shall I send for a carriage?"

Natalie takes no notice of him, pushes by him like a strange, inexplicable apparition.

* * * * * *

The stars are all extinguished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and close to the ground sighs a weary wind.

What is it in this confused, depressing sound of nature which chases the blood through her veins? In the midst of her excitement she hears the chromatic succession of tones--her breath stops--it is that inciting, musical poison, that now follows her with a longing complaint, a strange, alluring call--Asbeïn.

The wind rises, screams louder and more shrill, its sultry breath rages so powerfully against Natalie that she can scarcely proceed. One, two great water-drops splash in her face, then more. Pointed hailstones prick her between them; all drive her back--back.

Has not some one seized her by the dress? She looks round. No! she is alone on the street with her child and the raging storm. Forward she hastens, panting, breathless. The way to Bellevue is quite easy to find--quite straight along the street. It grows darker and darker, the rain falls in streams, the clothes hang ever heavier on her body, she can scarcely lift her feet from the paving; it is as if all would drag her down to the ground--all! Twice she loses her way, twice she suddenly, as if attracted by an evil charm, stands before the Hôtel du Saxe.

Maschenka cries silently and bitterly to herself. There--this wall ornamented with black lead, Natalie remembers, and here--the large mass of formless shadow--is not that the Catholic church?

A flash of lightning rends the darkness--Natalie sees the immense stairs of the Brühl terrace, with its adornments of colossal gilded statues; she sees the broad, black river flowing along, cool, alluring; hastily she goes across the place, for one moment her eyes rest on the stream--Maschenka pulls her by the arm with her tender little fingers, and whispers: "I am afraid, mamma; I am afraid!"

Then Natalie turns away from the most alluring temptation that has ever met her in life, and the water ripples behind her as if in anger that they have torn away a sacrifice from it.

Now they have reached the Hôtel Bellevue; the phlegmatic Hollander in the porter's lodge looks after her in astonishment as she rushes past him, stretches his powerful limbs, sticks his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, closes his eyes, sleepily, and murmurs, "These Russian women!"

She finds the number of her brother's sitting-room. Light still shines through the keyhole. She bursts open the door. Varvara Pavlovna is still busy making flowers. Sergei sits bent over a railroad courier, the eternal samovar stands on its small table.

"What has happened, Natalie, for God's sake?" says Varvara, as she discovers Natalie's figure, dripping with water, her pale, staring face, her burning eyes, and the little girl by her side. "What has happened?"

The brother does not ask.

"I come to seek shelter with you," murmurs Natalie, breaking down, as she sinks upon a sofa; then turning to Sergei, she with difficulty gasps out: "You understand--I could not stay there--it--it is all over!"

* * * * * *

Yes, it was all over--all. The bond between him and her was broken. He was beside himself when he discovered what had taken place, begged for a meeting, wrote her the tenderest letters. She left his letters unanswered.

Then a wild defiance overcame him. It angered him that she had placed herself under her brother's protection--that brother, who from the beginning had wished to sow discord between him and her. He also could not be persuaded that the prince had not alone been the cause of the separation.

The circumstance that Natalie travelled in advance with her sister-in-law to Baden-Baden, while Assanow remained in Dresden to arrange with Lensky, strengthened him in his conviction.

It did not come to a legal separation. Lensky was not the man to use compulsion with a woman; if she did not wish to stay with him, he let her go voluntarily. That she wished to keep the child with her was understood of itself; he could see the child from time to time, for a couple of weeks, on neutral ground. Nikolas, as one could not interrupt him in his studies, quite naturally remained with his father in St. Petersburg.

"All that is understood of itself; why lose words over it?" thought Lensky to himself, while he quite passively consented to all the propositions of the diplomat.

For what reason did the unendurable man remain sitting there and tormenting him?

Quite everything was wound up between them--it was afternoon, and the brothers-in-law sat opposite each other at a long table strewn with papers, in a large, gloomy room, with dark green damask hangings, in the Hôtel du Saxe. A pause had occurred.

"What does he still wish?" thought Lensky, and drummed unrestrainedly on the top of the table, while at the same time he gave a significant glance toward the door.

Assanow coughed a couple of times; at last he began: "In conclusion, I must touch upon a delicate point--the question of money. My sister formally rejects all assistance on your part, Boris Nikolaivitch, and wishes strictly to limit herself to live on her own income!"

Then Lensky flew into a rage: "And you have declared yourself agreed to that?" he cried, to his brother-in-law.

"I should have considered it undignified in my sister if she had wished to act otherwise!" replied Assanow.

Lensky clutched his temples with a gesture which was peculiar to him. "Ah! leave me in peace with your pasteboard dignity," said he, impatiently. "I cannot endure the word--a parade expression which means nothing--live on her own income--my poor luxurious Natalie--but that is madness, simply not possible! You are indeed her brother, but still you do not know her. Such a tender, guarded hothouse plant as she is! Why, she would die if she did not have what she needed."

"With the best will, I would not be able to persuade her to take anything from you," replied Sergei, earnestly.

"Not?" Lensky struck his clenched fist on the table. "Listen, Sergei Alexandrovitch, you are not only pitiless, you are also stupid. If she will not take anything from me, deceive her a little, tell her that the rents of her estate have increased, that you have sold building land for her, or what do I know! With women that is so easy, especially with her, poor soul!--who has never understood the difference in appearance between ten rubles and a thousand--but force the money upon her, she must have it! And hear me! if you do not so care for it that she takes it, then I will make a scandal for you, and insist upon a legal exposition!"

For a moment Assanow was silent, then he said: "Good, I will arrange it!" with that he rose and offered Lensky his hand.

But Lensky refused it. "Let that go! Between you and me there is no friendship. After the 'service' which you have rendered me such grimaces are repulsive."

"You are mistaken if you believe I would have persuaded Natalie to the separation," assured the Prince. "Naturally, however, as a conscientious man, I could not dissuade her therefrom."

"Conscientious! Certainly, hangmen are always conscientious--that one knows," murmured Lensky, and stamped his foot on the ground. "Well, you will see what you have done! Meanwhile--go. I will not longer bear it--go!"

* * * * * *

When Assanow hereupon wrote Natalie in Baden that the affair was arranged with Lensky, and the separation declared he added, at the same time: "I feel myself obliged to say to you, that Lensky in this whole affair has acted not only honorably, but really nobly."

To his wife wrote Sergei at the same time: "I do not understand the man!--figurez-vous that I myself for a moment, was sous le charme. What a depth of nobility is in this prodigy! His is an enormous nature!"

* * * * * *

As long as the separation was still impending, as long as the conferences still lasted, a kind of restless life fevered in Natalie; she forced her being, naturally inclined to tender reliance and dependence, to an independent strength of will, of which no one had thought her capable.

But when the last word was spoken, the separation at length validly arranged, she fell into a condition of brooding sadness from which nothing more could rouse her.

For still three years she lived after the separation; three years, in which every hour endlessly dragged itself along, and which flowed together in the recollection into a single endless, cold, dull day; a day in that northern zone where the sun, with far-extending, weak, weary beams, tardily remains the whole twenty-four hours long, standing on the horizon, and grudges the night its refreshing darkness and the day its light.

Her torment reached an exquisite culmination when Maschenka, who idolized her father, and who, in her childish innocence, had no idea of the state of affairs, in the beginning incessantly and anxiously asked her mother little questions referring to the separation. Natalie gave her no answer, frowned and turned away her head. And sometimes Maschenka then became ungovernable and angry. Her little warm, loving heart could not understand why they had taken away her idol.

Once, Lensky asked for his daughter for two weeks. Maschenka, with her English governess, was sent to Nice to her grandmother, where Lensky daily visited her. When, loaded with presents, her heart full of sweet, tender recollections, she came back again to Cannes, where Natalie had meanwhile awaited her, with fearful obstinacy she insisted in relating to Natalie endless things about the goodness and lovability of the father, and especially how impressively and anxiously he had inquired after mamma. Her full, deep little voice trembled resentfully thereby, and an angry reproach darkened her large, clear child's eyes.

For a while Natalie was quite calm, then, without having replied a word to the child, she stood up and left the room.

Maschenka observed with astonishment how she tottered and hit against the furniture like a blind person. Thereupon the child remained as if rooted to the ground, with thoughtfully wrinkled brow, her little hands glued to her sides, standing, staring down at the carpet as if she there sought the solution to the great, sad riddle which so occupied her. Then with a short motion as if shaking off something, which she had caught from her father, like so much else, she threw her little head back and hurried after her mother.

Natalie had retired to her bedroom. Maschenka found her deathly pale, with helpless, stiff bearing, and hands folded straight before her, sitting in an easy chair; her weary glance, directed in front of her, expressed inconsolable despair.

"Little mother, forgive me, oh, forgive me!" begged the child, embracing her mother with her soft, warm arms. "Sometimes it seems to me as if you love him as much as I, only you do not wish to. But why do you cover your soul with a veil; why? Oh, why did you separate yourself from him? He was not very much with us without that, but still it was so lovely to expect him and to rejoice over him from one time to another!" And Maschenka burst out in violent weeping.

Natalie remained silent, but she raised the child on her knee and kissed her, ah, how tenderly! Every tear she kissed away from the round little cheeks. And Maschenka never repeated her question.

Once, in the night--Maschenka's little room was next to her mother's bedroom--the child awoke; from the adjoining room sounded soft, whimpering, difficultly restrained sobs.

* * * * * *

She wandered from Venice to Florence, from Florence to Nice, from Nice to Pau--all the European cities of refuge for uprooted existences she sought out. Nowhere could Natalie find rest. Sometimes she tried to distract herself. She never visited large entertainments, but she associated with her old friends if she met them in their different exiles, gradually slid back into the old, aristocratic atmosphere in which she had been brought up; but, strange! she no longer felt at home therein, and in her inconsolable misery a feeling of insensible ennui mingled itself.

His name never crossed her lips. Did she ever think of him? Day and night. The more she tried to accustom herself to other people the more she thought of him. How empty, how shallow, how insignificant were all the others in comparison to him; how cold, how hard!

Her health went rapidly downward. A short, nervous cough tormented her, her hands were now ice-cold, now hot with fever. Associated with that was something else strangely tormenting: she almost incessantly had the feeling that her heart was torn away from its natural place; she felt in her breast something like an uneasy fluttering, like the beating of the wings of a deathly weary, sinking bird.

She slept badly and was afraid of sleep, for always the whole spring of her love, with its entrancing charm and perfume of flowers, arose in her dreams again. Again vibrated through her soul the swelling musical, alluring call--Asbeïn. Little trifles, which in her waking condition she no longer remembered, came to her mind, and when she awoke she burned with fever and hid her face, gasping, in her pillows. She consumed herself in longing; a longing of which she was ashamed as of a sin, and which she fought as a sin.

* * * * * *

Gradually she became wearier and more calm. His picture began to obliterate itself from her memory.

* * * * * *

It was in Geneva, in a music shop. Natalie, who had gone out to attend to a few trifles, entered and desired the Chopin Études, which she had promised to bring the extremely musical Maschenka. While a clerk looked for the music, she observed an elderly man--she divined the piano teacher in him--talking about a photograph which he held in his hand, to the woman who managed the business.

She glanced fleetingly at the photograph--she shuddered.

"So that is he; that is the way he looks now! C'est qu'il a terriblement changé," said the piano teacher.

"Que voulez-vous, with the existence which he leads?" replied the woman. "If one burns the candle of life at both ends!"

"But he should stop it, a married man, as he is," said the music teacher.

"My goodness; his marriage is so--so--he has been separated, who knows how long, already." The woman shrugged her shoulders.

"Ah! Who, then, is his wife?"

"Some great lady who has made enough out of him, and to whom he has become inconvenient," replied the old woman.

"So--h'm! that explains much," said the musician, and laying down the photograph, he added: "enfin c'est un homme fini." With that he seized the roll of music which had been prepared for him and left the shop. Natalie bought the photograph, without having the courage to look at it before strangers. Arrived at home, she unwrapped the portrait. For the first time since that evening when she ran out of the Hôtel du Saxe she looked at a picture of him. She was frightened at the fearful physical deterioration designated in his features. Around the mouth and under the eyes hateful lines were drawn; but from the eyes still spoke the deep, seeking glance as formerly, and on the lips lay an expression of inconsolable goodness. "A great lady who has made enough out of him, and to whom he has become inconvenient," Natalie repeated to herself again and again. That truly was false from beginning to end. Still, a great uneasiness overcame her. The reproofs which she believed she had expiated once for all by the easy, tender confession that she had set aside her beloved husband on account of her scruples, now rose sharply and reprovingly before her.

A nervous condition, which culminated in a long-enduring cramp of the heart, befell her; the cramp was followed by an hour-long swoon which could not be lifted.

When she could again leave her bed, a great change had taken place in her. She no longer evaded the recollection of Lensky; the old love was dead, but a new love had risen from the ruins of the old, a new enlightened love, which was nothing more than a warm, compassionate pardon.

* * * * * *

With the restlessness of those mortally ill, who in vain seek relief, she was again driven to leave Geneva, where at first she had intended to pass the whole winter. She longed for Rome.

The physicians laid no difficulties in the way. In the end, a dying person has the right to seek out the place where she will lay down her weary head for the last time.

* * * * * *

In Rome, it seemed at first as if she would be better again. At the end of March, Nikolas came to visit her. He was now a young man, tall, slender, with great dreamy eyes in an aristocratically cut face, and with pretty, still somewhat embarrassed manners.

Already he had twice come to foreign countries to visit his mother, but never had she been so glad to see him.

As the day was beautiful, and she felt better than usual, she proposed a drive. "To the Via Giulia," she ordered the coachman. "I will show you the Palazzo Morsini, in which we lived when your father was betrothed to me," she said to her children. Mascha looked at her mother in astonishment; it was the first time in quite three years that she had mentioned her father before her.

So they drove in the Via Giulia, on a bright March afternoon they drove there. But Natalie in vain sought the Palazzo Morsini; she did not find it. A pile of rubbish stood in its place, surrounded by a board fence. Disappointed almost to tears, with that childish, foolish disappointment such as only those mortally ill know, she turned away. On the way, it occurred to her to order the coachman to stop at the Trevi fountain. She quite started with delight when she saw the irregular collection of statues again. "Here I met your father for the first time in Rome; it is just twenty years ago," said she, and rested a strange, brilliant, dreamy glance on the old wall. The sculpturing was still blacker and more weather-worn than twenty years before, but the silver cascade rushed down more arrogantly than ever in the gray stone basin, and the sky, which arched over the time-blackened walls, was as blue as formerly. "Ah, how much beauty, nobility, and immortality there still is in the world, together with the bad that passes away," murmured Natalie, softly; then passing her hand over her eyes, and as if speaking to herself, she added: "It is thus with great men, and therefore I think, considerately overlooking their earthly failings, one should rejoice over that which is immortal in them!"

Maschenka had not quite understood the words, but Nikolas sought by a glance the eyes of his mother, and raised her hand to his lips.

It was evening of the same day, in Natalie's pretty apartment on the Piazza di Spagna, opposite the church of Trinità dei Monti, and the sick woman, relieved of her constricting and heavy street-clothes, lay, in a white, lace-trimmed wrapper, on a lounge. Mother and son were alone. He had read her a couple of verses from Musset, which she particularly loved--les souvenirs--but it had become dark during the reading; he laid the book away. For a while they were both quiet, silently happy in each other's presence, as very nearly related people when they are together after a long separation; but then Nikolas laid his hand on that of his mother and said, softly: "Little mother--do you know that it was really papa who sent me to you?"

The hand of the mother trembles, and softly draws itself out from under the son's. Nikolas is silent. But what was that? After a while his mother's hand voluntarily stole back into his, and the young man continued: "Yes, papa sent me here, so that I might accurately report to him how you are. You really cannot imagine how he always asks after you, worries about you."

The hand of the poor woman trembles in that of her son, like an aspen leaf. After a pause, quite as if he had waited so that his words might sink warmly and deeply into her heart, he continues: "Father commissioned me to bring before you a request from him--namely, whether you would not permit him to visit you?"

Again Natalie drew her hand away from her son, but more hastily than the first time. Her breath comes quickly and pantingly, for a few moments she remains silent, then she says slowly, wearily: "No! it must not be; tell him all love and kindness from me, and that I think only with emotion of the great consideration which he always shows me, but it must not be--it is better so!"

After she had made this decision, which had a sad and intimidating effect upon the inexperienced boy, she remained for the rest of the evening taciturn and with that, out of temper and irritable, as one had never formerly seen her.

In the night she had one of her fearful attacks; the doctor must be sent for. When the horrible oppression of breath and shuddering had subsided, as usual, she fell into a condition of pale, cold numbness, which resembled a deep swoon.

Nikolas, who had watched by the sick one, accompanied the physician without. He begged him, in the name of his father, to tell him the truth about the condition of the sufferer. The physician told him that her condition was very serious, and a recovery absolutely out of the question. It might last a few weeks still, perhaps only a few days.

When Nikolas, with difficulty restraining his tears, came up to his mother's bed, she lay exactly in the same position as when he left the room; still, something about her had changed. Her eyes were closed, but around her beautiful mouth trembled a smile whose happy loveliness he never forgot.

After a while she looked up and said in a quite weak voice: "Perhaps only a few days"--she had heard the doctor's speech. After a pause, she added: "Write your father--write--he must hurry--only a few more days!"

Nikolas telegraphed to St. Petersburg.

* * * * * *

The consciousness of her near death had given her back her lack of embarrassment toward Lensky. She insisted that he should stay in her house, that they should prepare a room for him.

One day she was well enough to overlook the preparations herself. But the improvement did not last. Quite every night came on an attack, shorter and weaker, but still very painful; in between she slept, and always had the same dream. It seemed to her as if she could fly, but only about two feet from the ground; if she wished to rise higher, she awoke. Of the young happiness of her love, she dreamed never more.

* * * * * *

Lensky had telegraphed back that he would set out immediately. They counted the days and nights which must elapse before his arrival--Kolia and she; they consulted railroad time-tables together--so long to Eydtkuhnen--so long to Berlin--so long to Vienna--so long to Rome. They were twelve hours apart in their reckoning. Natalie expected Lensky already on the morning of the fifth day, Nikolas not until the evening.

On the fourth day she was so well that she wished to undertake a walk. "I would so like to see the spring once more," said she.

Nikolas begged her to save herself until his father had come, in order not to aggravate her heart by excitement--that great, rich heart through which she lived, and of which she was now dying. "We will bring the spring in to you," said he tenderly.

They brought flowers, whatever kind they could buy, and placed them in the pretty, pleasant boudoir in which she lay, stretched out on her couch bed. The broad sunbeams slid like a golden veil over the magnolias, violets, and roses.

Dreamily the dying woman let her eyes wander over the fragrant splendor. "How lovely the spring is!" murmured she, and then she added: "How can one fear to die, when the resurrection is so beautiful!" The windows stood wide open; it was afternoon; from without one heard the rattling of carriages which rolled along in the heart of the city.

It sounded like the rolling of a stream which forced its way to the sea.

* * * * * *

The night came. Nikolas sat near his mother's bed and watched. She slept uneasily. Frequently she started and listened, then she looked at her watch--it could not yet be! Once Maschenka came in, with little bare feet peeping out from under her long night-dress, and face quite swollen with weeping. On tip-toes she crept up to the dying woman's bed. Since a couple of days Natalie had no longer permitted her to sleep in the adjoining little room, from fear that the child might be awakened by her painful attacks. Maschenka had dreamed that her mother was worse; she wished to see her mother. Natalie opened her eyes just as she entered.

Then the child ran up to her, kneeled down near her, and sobbing hid her little face in the covers. Natalie stroked her little head with weary, weak hand, and asked her to be brave, and lie down and sleep; that would give her the greatest joy.

Then Maschenka stood up, and went with hesitating steps as far as the door; then she turned round, and hurried back to her mother. Natalie made the sign of the cross on her forehead, then kissed her once more, and held her to her thin breast. It should be the last time--the child went.

Natalie looked after her tenderly, sadly.

Toward morning Nikolas fell asleep in the arm-chair in which he watched by his mother's bed. All at once he felt that some one pulled him by both sleeves. He started up; his mother sat half upright in the bed.

"Wake up, your father is coming!" she called quickly and breathlessly.

"But, little mother, it is quite impossible--not before evening can he be here."

With a short, imperious motion she admonished him to silence. Now he heard quite plainly--softly, then louder--the rolling of a single carriage through the deathly-quiet, sleeping city. It came nearer stopped before the house.

"Go to meet him, Kolia; I do not wish him to think we did not expect him."

Kolia went, did, like a machine, whatever was required of him. Natalie sat up, listened--listened. If she had been mistaken--no. Heavy steps came up the stairs. Steps of two men--not of one--and this voice! rough, deep, going to the heart. She did not understand a word; but it was his voice.

A quite numbing embarrassment and shyness overcame her. She drew the lace cuffs of her night-dress over her thin arms, she arranged her hair; she felt as shy as before a stranger. What should she say to him? She would be quite calm--calm and friendly. Then the door opened--he entered, dusty, with tumbled, badly arranged gray hair, with fearful furrows in his face, aged ten years since she last had seen him.

What should she say to him?

He did not wait for that; he only gave one look at her pale face, then he hurried up to her and took her in his arms.

Behind the church of Trinità dei Monti there was already a golden light, and the whole room was filled with brilliancy and light.

"Oh, my angel! how could you so repulse me!" are the first words which he speaks.

She says nothing, only lies on his breast, silently, unresistingly. Through her veins creeps for the last time the feeling of pleasant, animating warmth which has always overcome her in his nearness. She tries to rouse herself, to consider; she had certainly wished to tell him something for farewell. But what was it--what----

Ah, truly!

"Boris," she breathes out softly, "do you know--at that time in your study--in Petersburg--do you still remember how you once said to me I should show you the way to the stars?"

"Yes, my little dove, yes."

"I was not fitted for my task," whispers she, sadly; "forgive!"

For one moment he remains speechless with emotion; then he presses his lips to her mouth, on her poor emaciated hands, on her hair.

"Forgive--I you! O my heart!" murmurs he. "How could you draw me up when I had broken your wings! But now all is well; we will seek our old happiness hand in hand. You shall become well, shall live!"

"Live," whispers she, quite reproachfully; "live," and shakes her head.

He looks at her with a long, tender glance, and is frightened.

Her face is still angel beautiful, but there is nothing left of her lovely form. It pains him to see the sharp, harsh lines which outline her limbs under the covering. That is no longer a living woman who stretches out her arms to him, it is only an angel who wishes to bless him. It is quite clear between them, and also the last shyness, which still held her back from him, has vanished.

"Yes, it is over," whispers she; "only a few more days--how many is that?--three days--five days--oh, perhaps it will last longer--physicians are so often mistaken. We will drive out once more together to see the spring--out there where the almond trees bloom between the ruins--by St. Steven, do you still know?--and until I feel it coming--the last, the end--then you will hold me by the hand, will you not? like a child that fears the dark, you will lead me quite tenderly up to the threshold of eternity--is it not true? No one can be so tender and loving as you. But do not be sad--not now; to-day I feel well, quite well. Ah!----"

What is that? She clutches at her heart--there it is again, the strange fluttering feeling in her heart. Her face changes, her breath fails.

"The doctor, Kolia!" calls Boris beside himself.

Kolia hurries away; at the door his mother calls him back once more.

"Not without a farewell, my brave boy," she says, and kisses him. "God bless you!"

Then he rushes away down the stairs, to fetch the doctor--there is haste.

No, there is no more haste--the attack is short--only a couple of strange shudders--then the invalid grows calm in Lensky's arms.

"How wonderfully the trees bloom--" murmurs the dying one. "It grows dark--give me your hand--do not grieve--my poor Genius----"

Suddenly her eyes take on a peculiarly longing expression. A last time the Asbeïn tones glide through her soul, but no longer an inciting, alluring call--but as something elevating, holy. She hears the tones quite high and distinct, as if they vibrated down to her from Heaven, resounding strangely in a sublime, calm harmony that is no longer the devil's succession of tones, that is the music of the spheres.

"Boris," she murmurs, and raising her hand, points upward, "listen ..."

The hand sinks slowly, slowly--when, a little later, the physician enters she is dead. A wonderful smile lies on her countenance, the smile of one set free.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1]: When the Devil, banished from heaven, resolved on the temptation of mankind, he loved to make use of music which had been made known to him as a heavenly privilege when he still was a member of the eternal hosts. But the Almighty deprived him of his memory, so he could remember but a single strain, and this mysterious, bewitching strain is still called in Arabia "The Devil's Strain--Asbeïn."--Arabian Legends.