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!"
* * * * * *