Strange how deeply these words are impressed upon Katrine's soul! She does not sleep during the night following upon the captain's explanation, no, not for a quarter of an hour.
She tosses about restlessly in bed; a moonbeam which has contrived to slip through a crack in her shutters points at her with uncanny persistency, like an accusing ghostly finger. The little clock on her writing-table strikes twelve; the sixth of January is past, the seventh of January has begun. The seventh of January! It was her wedding-day. On the seventh of January nine years before, without a spark of love for Jack Leskjewitsch, but with the angry memory of humiliation suffered at another's hands, she had donned her gown of bridal white and her bridal wreath had been placed upon her head. In her inmost soul she had compared her bridal robes to a shroud, and so cold, so white, so stern, had she looked on that day that those who helped to dress her for the sacred ceremony had often said later that they had seemed to themselves to be preparing a corpse for burial, while all who witnessed the marriage declared that no funeral could have been sadder.
She had first known Jack on her father's, the Freiherr von Rinsky's, estate in M----. Quartered at the castle, Jack had soon ingratiated himself with its gouty old master. Katrine did not dislike him,--nay, she rather liked him. Her pride, which had been suffering from the destruction of her illusions ever since the winter she had spent with her aunt in Pesth three years before, turned with a bitterness that bordered on disgust from all the homage paid her by men. Jack Leskjewitsch had always been attentive to her without ever making love to her,--which attracted her. When he asked her to marry him he did it in so dry, odd a way that from sheer surprise she did not at once say no.
She replied that she would take his offer into consideration. Living beneath the same roof with a young stepmother whom she did not like, and who ruled her father, the suit of a wealthy, thoroughly honourable man was not to be lightly rejected. Yet if he had wooed her passionately and tenderly she would surely have refused to listen to him. This, however, he did not do.
When she confessed to him that a bitter disappointment had paralyzed all the sentiment she had ever possessed, that he was not to expect any love from her, he received the confession with the utmost calmness, and replied that he too had nothing to offer her save cordial friendship.
"Those of my friends who married for love are one and all wretched now. Let us try it after another fashion," he had said to her. And thus, almost with a laugh, without the slightest emotion, they had been betrothed on a gray, rainy November day, when the winds were raging as if they had sworn to blow out the sun's light in the skies, while the last field-daisies were hanging their heads among the faded meadow-grass as if tired of life.
Six weeks afterwards they were married, and took the usual trip to Rome and from one hotel to another.
The pale moonbeam still pointed at her like an accusing finger; its silver light fell upon her past and revealed many things which she had heedlessly forgotten during the nine years which now lay behind her.
She had married poor, very poor, had brought her husband nothing save her trousseau.
All the material comfort of her existence came from him. To show him any special gratitude for that would indeed have been petty; but, putting it aside, with how much consideration he had always treated her! how carefully he had removed from her path all need for trouble and exertion, with the tenderness which rude soldiers alone know how to lavish upon their wives. She had complained of the inconveniences of the nomadic life of the army; but who had drained all those inconveniences to the dregs? He! He had taken all trouble upon himself. In their wanderings she and the child had been cared for like the most frail and precious treasures, upon the transportation of which it was impossible to bestow too much thought. It had always been, "Spare yourself, and look out for the boy!" and either "It is too hot," or "It is too cold: you might be ill, or you might take cold; but do not stir. I will see to it; rely upon me!"