A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

I did not understand it in the least at the time.

‘But what is the meaning of her fright?’ I wondered—‘Can she really have seen Madame Eltsov? Imagination!’ I thought, and again I gave myself up to the emotions of expectation.

It was on that day I wrote you,—with what thoughts in my head it hurts me to recall—that deceitful letter.

In the evening—the sun had not yet set—I took up my stand about fifty paces from the garden gate in a tall thicket on the edge of the lake. I had come from home on foot. I will confess to my shame; fear, fear of the most cowardly kind, filled my heart; I was incessantly starting … but I had no feeling of remorse. Hiding among the twigs, I kept continual watch on the little gate. It did not open. The sun set, the evening drew on; then the stars came out, and the sky turned black. No one appeared. I was in a fever. Night came on. I could bear it no longer; I came cautiously out of the thicket and stole down to the gate. Everything was still in the garden. I called Vera, in a whisper, called a second time, a third.… No voice called back. Half-an-hour more passed by, and an hour; it became quite dark. I was worn out by suspense; I drew the gate towards me, opened it at once, and on tiptoe, like a thief, walked towards the house. I stopped in the shadow of a lime-tree.

Almost all the windows in the house had lights in them; people were moving to and fro in the house. This surprised me; my watch, as far as I could make out in the dim starlight, said half-past eleven. Suddenly I heard a noise near the house; a carriage drove out of the courtyard.

‘Visitors, it seems,’ I thought. Losing every hope of seeing Vera, I made my way out of the garden and walked with rapid steps homewards. It was a dark September night, but warm and windless. The feeling, not so much of annoyance as of sadness, which had taken possession of me, gradually disappeared, and I got home, rather tired from my rapid walk, but soothed by the peacefulness of the night, happy and almost light-hearted. I went to my room, dismissed Timofay, and without undressing, flung myself on my bed and plunged into reverie.

At first my day-dreams were sweet, but soon I noticed a curious change in myself. I began to feel a sort of secret gnawing anxiety, a sort of deep, inward uneasiness. I could not understand what it arose from, but I began to feel sick and sad, as though I were menaced by some approaching trouble, as though some one dear to me were suffering at that instant and calling on me for help. A wax candle on the table burnt with a small, steady flame, the pendulum swung with a heavy, regular tick. I leant my head on my hand and fell to gazing into the empty half-dark of my lonely room. I thought of Vera, and my heart failed me; all, at which I had so rejoiced, struck me, as it ought to have done, as unhappiness, as hopeless ruin. The feeling of apprehension grew and grew; I could not lie still any longer; I suddenly fancied again that some one was calling me in a voice of entreaty.… I raised my head and shuddered; I had not been mistaken; a pitiful cry floated out of the distance and rang faintly resounding on the dark window-panes. I was frightened; I jumped off the bed; I opened the window. A distinct moan broke into the room and, as it were, hovered about me. Chilled with terror, I drank in its last dying echoes. It seemed as though some one were being killed in the distance and the luckless wretch were beseeching in vain for mercy. Whether it was an owl hooting in the wood or some other creature that uttered this wail, I did not think to consider at the time, but, like Mazeppa, I called back in answer to the ill-omened sound.

‘Vera, Vera!’ I cried; ‘is it you calling me?’ Timofay, sleepy and amazed, appeared before me.

I came to my senses, drank a glass of water, and went into another room; but sleep did not come to me. My heart throbbed painfully though not rapidly. I could not abandon myself to dreams of happiness again; I dared not believe in it.