The Swallow, the pleasure steamer which daily runs between Paris and St. Cloud, is about to start when Mascha reaches the landing. She will wait for the next boat. "Mais non, ma bonne fille," says a coal-blackened fireman. "Montez toujours," and he helps her on board.
Klip, klap, plash the waves on the ship's wooden sides. Maschenka watches everything very calmly. At times she forgets why she is here, but for not a moment is she free from a hateful cold weight on her mind. Occasionally she involuntarily makes plans for the morrow; then she shudders. To-morrow at this time--where will she be?
On glides the ship.
"Meudon--Meudon!" A little gray city nestling against a green hill.
Every time that the steamer stops, she says: "It must be now." Each time she will land, seek some place between the green, drooping willows, in order undisturbed to carry out what she has undertaken--once more kneel down in the tender spring grass, between the dear young blossoms, confide her weak, child-soul to her dead mother, and then-- Yes; at each station she wishes to land, and yet cannot, and remains sitting as if paralyzed with boundless anxiety of the fearful deed to which she would force herself, and against which every fibre of her warm young life rebels.
"Sèpres!"
All the beauty in this laughing, sunny world passes through her mind. In vain does she try to fix her mind on a glorified eternity, and with all her tormenting thoughts mingles a cowardly fear, not only of death, but of the physical torment which precedes death, of the horrible gasping for breath in the water.
"St. Cloud!" It is the last station. Some one of the ship officials asks her if she wishes to land. She rises. It grows black before her eyes. A cold sweat is on her forehead, dizzily she sinks back on the seat.
Slowly the boat works up the stream to Paris. Around its plump wooden body the waves plash sweetly and soothingly; between the whisper of the trees on the banks one hears the jubilant twittering of the birds who rejoice in the last sunbeams.
Weary, as after a severe illness, Mascha sits there. She no longer comprehends the situation. Why should she kill herself? Her father will pardon, his love is inexhaustible, that she knows; and the others--with something of her old childish defiance, she shrugs her shoulders. Ah! what does she care about the others?