“My light, Alexis, why do I love you so much? Where your thoughts are there are mine also, your word is my word, your will is mine. You are my master. This is my sorrow, that we women are all foolish and wicked, and that I exceed them all. God gave me a hungry grasping heart. I see you love me, but that does not satisfy me; what more I want I cannot tell. Why is my boy, I think, always so gentle and quiet, never contradicting, never saying a cross word, never admonishing me, stupid me? I never feel his hand upon me, nor his anger. It is not an empty saying that ‘they strike most who love most.’ Or is it because he does not love me? Let me make him angry; let me test him and see what he will do then? And this is what you are, you almost killed me. Just like your father. I nearly died of fear. Well, this will be a lesson for the future, I will remember it and love you, this is how I’ll love you, deep, deep——”
It was to him as if he saw for the first time those eyes kindled with a terrible dim fire, those parted, hungry lips, and for the first time felt this elusive, snake-like body. “Then this is her true self,” he thought, in blissful amazement.
“And you thought I could not caress?” and she laughed with a quiet laugh which seemed to set all his blood on fire. “Wait, and you’ll see how I can love! only satisfy my foolish heart, do what I ask you, then I shall know that you love me as I love you—unto death. My life, my dearest darling, will you do it?”
“I will do anything you ask. God knows there is nothing in the world I would not do. I’ll even meet certain death if you wish it.”
She did not whisper, but only breathed:—
“Return to your father.”
And again his heart sank in terror. The iron hand of his father seemed to stretch out and grip him from under this loving hand. “She lies,” the thought flashed across his mind with the swiftness of lightning.
“Well! let her lie, so long as she caresses me thus,” he concluded recklessly.
“I am sick, sick unto death of living with you in lawlessness. I don’t want to be a lost woman. I want to be your wedded wife before God and man. You may tell me I am as good as your wife now. Idle talk! What sort of a wife am I? Our boy, too, will be born a bastard. But as soon as you return to your father we can marry. Tolstoi himself says, ‘Let the Tsarevitch propose, as the condition of his return, that he may be allowed to marry.’ And the Tsar, he says, will be only too glad; all that will be expected from the Tsarevitch is the abdication of the throne and his retirement to the country. To marry a serf-girl means the same as going to a monastery; he will forfeit the crown. And this is all I want, my Alexis. I am afraid of the Tsardom, more than of anything else. When a Tsar you won’t have any time left for me. Your head will be turned. Tsars have no time for love. I don’t want to be a neglected Tsaritsa, I want to be your sweetheart always. Love is my kingdom. We will settle down in the country, in some village, either in Poretzkoye or Roshdestveno, and there we will live in peace and quiet, you and I and the boy, untroubled by anything. My heart, my life, my joy! Don’t you want it? Won’t you do it? Is it the throne you regret?”
“Why should you ask, Afrossinia, little mother? You know well I’ll do it.”