XV.
The next morning she makes a great scene for her aunt and cousin, reproaches them violently and with bitter tears for that she is unlovingly pushed about and repressed, that she plays the rôle of a Cinderella in their house; that she cannot endure living with people who do not love her, etc.
Barbara Alexandrovna bows her head with shame at these reproofs. Anna, on the contrary, opposes the anger of her passionate, excited cousin with icy calm.
"Before all," she begins, "I would beg to remark to you that we are not at all obliged to put up with your rudeness. I do not condescend to answer your ill-bred accusations, for I think without that you will be ashamed of them in a calmer frame of mind. But for the rest, I tell you very plainly, if life with us does not suit you, you can take refuge in a boarding-school."
If Mascha had possessed shrewdness enough to declare herself agreed with the plan of boarding-school, it would have placed the Jeliagins in great embarrassment, on account of the pecuniary aid which they received from Mascha's stay with them. But she did not think of that. A boarding-school is for her something horrible--a prison, where she must give up all possibility of seeing Bärenburg again. And so she submits, shyly, shame-facedly.
When they tell her that, for the third time this week, she is to dine alone, she takes it with such sad, helpless submission that it pains her aunt, and she proposes to ask Nikolai to share her solitary meal; perhaps he may be disengaged.
"Yes, that would be nice," says Mascha. And completely reconciled with her fate, she sends a message to her brother, forms the most delightful plans--then comes her brother's answer.
"Dear Heart:--Just received a despatch from Aunt Katherine. Uncle Sergei is ill, desires me urgently. I must leave by the 3.25 train. Have not even time to take leave of you. Unfortunate for our cosey evening. God keep you, my little dove; be brave and prudent for love of me, and also for your own sake. Write me all that is on your heart, every little annoyance which weighs upon you. If you ever need immediate advice, go to Sonia and Fräulein von Sankjéwitch, who both love you. I kiss and embrace you.
"Your faithful brother,
"Colia."
"Is there nothing but unpleasantness in the world?" sighs Mascha, upon receiving this note. "But still, what use to torment one's self?"
After she has devoted perhaps fifteen minutes to the deepest sorrow, she runs singing about the house, and makes gay little jokes.
Now it is evening, and they stand in the vestibule and await the carriage--Anna and aunt; Anna with her regal bearing and carelessly trailing draperies; Barbara with her nervous anxiety and scant, short dress.
"What lace is that around your neck?" calls out Anna, angrily, looking at her mother through her lorgnon. "Did you buy that fichu on the Campo dei Fiori? It is grotesque! You look like a stage mother."
Barbara pulls uneasily at her fichu and drops her purse.
"Wait, auntie, I have such wonderful lace of mamma's up-stairs," says Mascha, who until now has been sunk in childish admiration of Anna's ice-cold blond beauty and white crêpe de Chine splendor. "Only a moment, auntie, I will bring it immediately." And she rushes up-stairs and returns in a minute with sewing utensils and a box smelling of Peau d'Espagne. "See, you must put on this scarf, auntie."
"We will call the maid," proposes Madame Jeliagin.
"Ah, no! I will do it myself. You will be beautiful at once, now, auntie," says Mascha, while she removes the shabby ornament condemned by Anna and replaces it with splendid old point lace.
"See, so; mamma wore it so. No, not the old mosaic brooch; here, take my pin." And Mascha drags it from her neck. "Oh, how that becomes you! Look in the glass, and see how pretty you are. Only a few stitches to make it firm. Is it not nice so, Anna?"
"Mais oui, très bien," Anna lets fall from her thin lips.
The servant announces the carriage. Madame Jeliagin becomes uneasy. "Now we are ready." And Mascha springs up from the floor, where she has knelt to fasten one end of the lace to her aunt's girdle. Then the servant gives them their wraps, Anna's red embroidered one, another of the unpaid-for articles which her mother has begged from the dressmaker with tears, and Barbara's old-fashioned shabby mantle, and they go.
But at the door Barbara turns round. Her flabby, wrinkled, painted face twitches a little, and taking Maschenka's head between both hands she kisses the girl on the forehead.
"My good child!" murmurs she, "my dear good child, I am very sorry that you must pass your evening alone. We will try to come home soon."
"How you smell of benzine, mamma!" Maschenka hears Anna say, as they get into the carriage.
Maschenka had taken no further notice that the hands which had caressed her were incased in cleaned gloves. It was so lovely to be a little bit caressed.
Mascha has eaten her solitary dinner. Afterward she played a little, improvised all sorts of droll, charming nonsense. About ten o'clock--they have just brought the tea to her--she hears the house-door open. Have they returned already? No; that is a visitor, a well-known voice--he. How unpleasant, just to-day, when no one is at home! Then the maid--a new one who has been engaged for Mascha and works for Anna--opens the door. "Count Bärenburg," she announces, with her insinuating, theatrical smile. "Does mademoiselle receive?"
Before she really knows what she does, Mascha says, "Yes."
Scarcely has she spoken the word when she would like to recall it. She knows that it is not permissible from a social standpoint for her to receive him, but for eight days she has longed so unspeakably to see him again, to thank him for the bear-skin, and then, why was Anna so hateful to her?
He enters, very handsome, very distinguished, very respectful. She forgets all the traits d'esprit prepared for him, and as if paralyzed with shyness, she stammers:
"My aunt is not at home; had you perhaps a message for her which I can deliver?" And with a charmingly diffident gesture she stretches out her hand to him. He takes it in his, holds it a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.
"Do you find it absolutely necessary to send me away again?" asks he.
Ah! she feels so happy in his presence. "At least not before I have expressed my thanks for your gift," she stammers.
Bräenburg, to whom it would be indescribably vexatious to be forced to break off his conversation with this strange, interesting little being, seeks some pretext to prolong his visit. His glance falls on the tea apparatus.
"Would your thankfulness go so far as to give me a cup of tea?" he remarks, and adds with genial inspiration: "Perhaps your aunt will return meanwhile."
"Yes; aunt said she would soon return," assured Mascha, gayly. The situation is justified; how happy she is to dare keep him there, were it only for a quarter of an hour.
She gives him his tea, he sits down in an arm-chair near the chimney opposite her. A deep silence follows. In vain does she try to find something suitable to the occasion in her carefully collected hoard of intellectual anecdotes. At length she says simply: "It must have been a splendid bear."
"Yes," replied the count. "It also was Russian boldness to creep into the thicket after the beast. Poor Nikolai, how the brute had cornered him! Really, I owed him the skin; but as I know him, he is always ready to share the best of everything with his little sister."
"Yes; he spoils me very much," says Mascha, moved. "I shall miss him fearfully--fearfully. You know, perhaps, that he has left the city to-day. You cannot think how unpleasant it is for me to be so quite alone."
"Alone?" repeated he.
"That is--well, yes, I am with relatives," Mascha hastens to explain. "Aunt is very good to me, but I cannot warm to my cousin; I do not like her. She is very beautiful, but intolerable. And you, Count Bärenburg, how do you find Anna?"
"She has a very decorative effect," says he, dryly. "She reminds me of an aloe, she is so stiff and pointed. She would do very well on a terrace."
"I am only surprised that she has not yet married," remarks Mascha, very pleased at Bärenburg's cool description of Anna's charms.
"I am not at all surprised," replies he. "I have often noticed that these acknowledged beauties usually marry very late. They are like the too beautiful apples on the dessert dishes, which remain because no one has the courage to reach for them. And then, finally, to kindle a flame one must have somewhere a spark about one; and your cousin is of ice."
"Yes, that is true," laughs Mascha; then, restraining herself, she adds: "But I really should not speak so of my nearest relatives to a stranger. I--I always forget that you are a stranger; you seem to me like--a friend."
He smiles at her, and says softly: "When I so soon feel such warm sympathy for any one as for you, it seems to me as if we had long been good friends in heaven, and had found each other again on the earth."
"Really?"
"Certainly," says he, earnestly. "I can distinctly remember our acquaintance up there. You were a lovely, gay, half-grown little angel, with short, unformed wings, with which you could not yet majestically sail about in the air, but only helplessly flutter a little. But every one loved you, and all the other angels were jealous of you. Then--now the affair becomes considerable; shall I go on?" he smilingly interrupts his improvisation.
"Oh, yes, yes, please," begs she. She looks charming, leaning back in the immense chair, with curious, friendly gay expression in the eyes fixed on him. "Yes, yes, please!" And unconsciously she makes a movement as if she would push the chair nearer the young man.
"Well," Bärenburg continues, "one day the devil presented himself in Paradise and demanded you for himself. He said you were his property, and had only by chance got into Paradise. We did not want to give you up, but as it could not be agreed upon, it was decided to send you back to earth so that you might make a second decisive trial of life and show whose being you were. I was so frightfully bored without you that I hurried down to earth to seek you."
"How droll you are!" says Maschenka, laughing loudly and childishly, and again she makes a movement as if she would draw nearer to him. "And do you think that I will go back to heaven?"
"I hope so." Meanwhile the clock strikes--eleven.
Maschenka suddenly grows red. "How long aunt stays!" murmurs she, and rises.
Bärenburg also rises. "I really cannot longer wait for the ladies," says he in an undertone, and gives her his hand. She sinks her head.
"I--I really should not have received you," stammers she with confusion.
"Why not?" says he, impatiently.
"No, I know it--but--" and suddenly raising her head, she looks at him from a pair of such wonderful, tearfully bright eyes that his senses swam--"but, I so longed to speak to some one who sympathizes with me a little," whispers she.
The whole pitiful neglect of the poor child dawns upon him, and a great compassion overcomes him. "You really need not fear being misunderstood by me," says he. "Oh! if you only had a suspicion of how lovely you are-- Good-night. And if you ever need a man who would go through fire for you, you know where to seek him."
He kisses her hand tenderly, passionately, and goes.
Long after he has gone Maschenka stands on the same spot, frightened, paralyzed, and looks at her hand.
A little later she goes up to her room.
"Has mademoiselle amused herself well?" asks the maid, while she helps her undress. "I was so sorry that, mademoiselle must pass the evening alone. Naturally, I will say nothing of it to madame."
"And why not?" burst out Mascha, violently.
"Oh! as mademoiselle wishes. I only thought----"
"I shall tell aunt myself that Count Bärenburg was here," says Mascha, defiantly. "And now go!"
In the midst of all her tender-heartedness she has fits of harsh, repellant roughness, which, like so much about her, are an inheritance from her father.
With loosened hair, half undressed, she sits before the fire, with her bare feet resting on the bear-skin. "Ah, it was lovely!" A great embarrassment robs her of breath. Again she looks at her hand. "He loves me!" And suddenly an uneasiness, something like dissatisfaction, creeps over her. Why had he not immediately told her that he loved her? Why had he not drawn her to his breast and kissed her?
She kneels down on the bear-skin, draws the shaggy head of the beast to her breast, and kisses it on the forehead.
"Why are you so out of temper; is anything the matter?"
This question Karl Bärenburg hears to annoyance in the days which follow his visit in the Avenue Wagram. And old friend even asked him: "Have you gambling debts? Confide in me."
He looks badly, and his manner is absent-minded.
He does not show himself in the Avenue Wagram. The recollection of the scene with Mascha is painful to him. He repeats to himself incessantly that he has behaved perfectly correctly, that every other man would have taken the situation differently. He would have given his life for a kiss, and--really, she would not have fought against it. To have renounced that was an heroic deed which bordered on quixotism. Why, then, was he not satisfied with himself?
He was not a bad, but only a weak, wavering man, a man without any originality, who, of his own inclination, had courage neither to do anything good nor bad which was not on the fixed programme of life of his companions in rank.
Still, he had fallen desperately in love with this little Russian. It was really fatal, for he could not marry her. In principle he was resolved to marry, to marry soon; he was urged on all sides to marry. What could he wish better than Sylvia Anthropos? She was beautiful, wealthy, of very good family, and, more than all this, she was wise, practical, and possessed the strength of will which he lacked. She would take the responsibility of his existence upon herself, think for him, act for him, resolve for him. There had formerly been a time when he was one of her most ardent admirers. She had refused him, but that was long ago, full three years, and in the life of a young diplomat that is an eternity. She had done her best to recompense him for her former unkindness and win him back; but the charm was gone. He knew that if he offered her his hand to-day it would not be refused. But never had he felt such a warm feeling for any one as for Mascha. With all her unconventional impulsiveness, her lack of restraint and social routine, her physical and moral personality was yet penetrated by such a subtle refinement! Shame, eternal shame! Well, he did not need to decide to-day or to-morrow. Perhaps it would pass. Before he had made up his mind he courted Sylvia Anthropos, and in a sympathetic hour, in the Hôtel Meurice, she laughed at him quite unexpectedly, and suddenly resting her large eyes very seductively upon him, she said: "You good, faithful, stupid man! Can you then never find courage to tell me that you love me?"
When, about an hour later, he left the Hôtel Meurice he was betrothed, and carried away with him a comfortable feeling of general satisfaction with himself. At least, all was now settled!
Between his betrothal and the moment when he had murmured to Mascha, "If you ever need a man who would go through fire for you, you know where to seek him!" scarcely five days had elapsed!