‘I shall find some place for myself; only take us, take me.’
Renditch scratched the back of his head.
‘You know best; but it’s all very difficult. I will, I will try; and you expect me here in two hours’ time.’
He went away. Elena passed into the next room, leaned against the wall, and for a long time stood there as though turned to stone. Then she dropped on her knees, but she could not pray. There was no reproach in her heart; she did not dare to question God’s will, to ask why He had not spared, pitied, saved, why He had punished her beyond her guilt, if she were guilty. Each of us is guilty by the fact that he lives; and there is no one so great a thinker, so great a benefactor of mankind that he might hope to have a right to live for the service he has done.... Still Elena could not pray; she was a stone.
The same night a broad-bottomed boat put off from the hotel where the Insarovs lived. In the boat sat Elena with Renditch and beside them stood a long box covered with a black cloth. They rowed for about an hour, and at last reached a small two-masted ship, which was riding at anchor at the very entrance of the harbour. Elena and Renditch got into the ship; the sailors carried in the box. At midnight a storm had arisen, but early in the morning the ship had passed out of the Lido. During the day the storm raged with fearful violence, and experienced seamen in Lloyd’s offices shook their heads and prophesied no good. The Adriatic Sea between Venice, Trieste, and the Dalmatian coast is particularly dangerous.
Three weeks after Elena’s departure from Vienna, Anna Vassilyevna received the following letter in Moscow:—
‘My DEAR PARENTS.—I am saying goodbye to you for ever. You will never see me again. Dmitri died yesterday. Everything is over for me. To-day I am setting off with his body to Zara. I will bury him, and what will become of me, I don’t know. But now I have no country but Dmitri’s country. There, they are preparing for revolution, they are getting ready for war. I will join the Sisters of Mercy; I will tend the sick and the wounded. I don’t know what will become of me, but even after Dmitri’s death, I will be faithful to his memory, to the work of his whole life. I have learnt Bulgarian and Servian. Very likely, I shall not have strength to live through it all for long—so much the better. I have been brought to the edge of the precipice and I must fall over. Fate did not bring us together for nothing; who knows?—perhaps I killed him; now it is his turn to draw me after him. I sought happiness, and I shall find—perhaps death. It seems it was to be thus: it seems it was a sin.... But death covers all and reconciles all; does it not? Forgive me all the suffering I have caused you; it was not under my control. But how could I return to Russia; What have I to do in Russia?
‘Accept my last kisses and blessings, and do not condemn me.
R.’
* * *