OUR house at Nikolski, so long cold and , came to life again; but the thing which did not come to life was our old existence. Mamma was there no longer, and henceforth we were alone, we two alone with each other. But not only was no longer to us what it had once been, but we found it a burden and . The winter passed all the more for me from my being out of health, and it was not until some time after the birth of my second son that I recovered my strength.
My relations with my husband continued cold and friendly, as at St. Petersburg; but here in the country there was not a floor, not a wall, not a piece of furniture, which did not remind me of what he had been to me, and what I had lost. There stood between us, as it were, an offence not forgiven; one would have said that he wished to punish me for something, and that he was pretending to himself to be unconscious of it. How could I ask forgiveness without knowing for what fault? He only punished me by no longer giving himself up to me, by no longer surrendering to me his whole soul; but to no one, and under no circumstances, was his soul surrendered, any more than if he had none. It sometimes came into my head that he was only making a of being what he now was, in order to me, and that his feelings were in reality what they had been, and I tried to provoke him into letting this be seen; but he invariably all frank explanation; one would have said that he suspected me of , and all of tenderness as attempts to him. His looks and his air seemed to say: “I know all, there is nothing to tell me; all that you would to me, I already know; I know that you talk in one manner and act in another.” At first I was hurt by his apparent fear of being frank with me, but I soon accustomed myself to the thought that in him this was not so much lack of frankness, as lack of necessity for frankness.
And on my side, my tongue was no longer capable of telling him , as in the old days, that I loved him, of asking him to read the prayers with me, of calling him to listen to my music when I was going to play; there seemed to be certain rules of formality tacitly decreed between us. We lived our own lives; he, with his various interests and occupations, in which I no longer claimed nor desired a share; I, with my idle hours, about which he no longer seemed to trouble himself. As for the children, they were still too young to be in any way a bond between us.
Spring came. Macha and Sonia returned to the country for the summer; and as Nikolski was undergoing repairs, we went with them to Pokrovski. The same old home, the terrace, the out-of-door tea-table, the piano in the half-lighted room, my own old with its white curtains, and the girlish dreams which seemed to have been left behind there, forgotten. In this chamber were two beds; over one, which had been my own, I now nightly to bless my sturdy Kokocha,[H] in the midst of his bedtime frolics; in the other lay little Vasica,[I] his baby-face with sleep, under the soft white blankets. After giving the , I often lingered a long time in this peaceful chamber, and from every corner of its walls, from every fold of its curtains, came stealing around me forgotten visions of my youth; childish songs, gay choruses, floated again to my ears. And what were they now,—these visions? Were they sounding still, anywhere,—these glad and sweet old songs? All that I had hardly dared to hope had come true. My vague and confused dreams had become reality, and it was now my life, so hard, so heavy, so stripped of joy. And yet here around me were not all things as before? Was it not the same garden that I saw beneath my window, the same terrace, the same paths and benches? Far off there, across the ravine, the songs of the nightingales still seemed to rise out of the of the little pond, the lilacs bloomed as they used to do, the moon still stood in white glory over the corner of the house, yet for me all was so changed, so changed! Macha and I had our old quiet talks, sitting together as of old in the , and we still talked of him. But Macha’s brow was grave, her face was , her eyes no longer shone with contentment and hope, but were full of sad sympathy, and almost expressed . We no longer went into over him, as in the past; we judged him, now; we no longer at our great happiness and wondered how it came to be ours, we no longer had the impulse to tell all the world what we felt; we whispered in each other’s ear like ; for the hundredth time we asked each other why all was so sad, so changed. As for him, he was still the same, except that the line between his brows was deeper, and his temples were more silvery, and his eyes, , deep, continually turned away from me, were darkened by a shadow. I, too, was still the same, but I no longer felt either love or desire to love. No more wish to work, no more satisfaction with myself. And how far off, how impossible, now appeared my old religious , my old love for him, my old fulness of life! I could not, now, even comprehend what in those days was so and so true: the happiness of living for others. Why for others? when I no longer wished to live for myself....
I had entirely given up my music during our residence in St. Petersburg, but now my old piano and my old pieces brought back the love for it.
One day when I was not feeling well, I stayed at home, alone, while Macha and Sonia went with my husband to see the improvements at Nikolski. The tea-table was set, I went down-stairs, and, while waiting for them, seated myself at the piano. I opened the Quasi una fantasia, and began to play. No living creature was to be seen or heard, the windows were open upon the garden; the familiar notes, so sad and , through the room. I concluded the first part, and unconsciously, simply from old habit, I looked across to the corner where he used to sit and listen to me. But he was no longer there, a long-unmoved chair occupied his old place; from the side of the open window a projecting branch of lilac stood out against the burning west, the evening air stole quietly in. I leaned my elbows on the piano, covered my face with both hands, and fell into a fit of . I remained there a long time, mournfully recalling the old days, irrevocably gone, and timidly looking at the days to come. But hereafter, it seemed to me, there could be nothing, I could hope nothing, desire nothing. “Is it possible that I have outlived all that!” thought I, raising my head with horror, and in order to forget and to cease thinking, I began to play again, and still the same old andante. “My God!” I said, “pardon me if I am guilty, or give back to my soul what made its beauty ... or teach me what I ought to do,—how I ought to live!”
The sound of wheels echoed on the turf and before the door, then I heard on the terrace steady steps, well-known to me, then all was quiet. But it was no longer the old feeling which stirred in me at these familiar footsteps. They came up behind me when I had finished the sonata, and a hand was laid upon my shoulder.
“A happy thought, to play the old sonata!” he said.
I made no answer.
“Have not you had tea?”
I shook my head, without turning towards him, for I did not want him to see the traces of on my face.
“They will be here presently; the horses were a little unruly, and they are coming home on foot, by the road,” he continued.
“We will wait for them,” I said, going out on the terrace, in the hope that he would follow, but he inquired for the children, and went up to see them. Once more, his presence, the sound of his voice, so kind, so honest, me from believing that all was lost for me. “What more is there to desire?” I thought: “he is good and true, he is an excellent husband, an excellent father, and I do not myself know what is missing,—what I want.”
I went out on the balcony, and sat down under the of the terrace, on the same bench where I was sitting upon the day of our decisive explanation long ago. The sun was nearly down, dusk was ; a shade of spring the pure sky, where one tiny spark was already gleaming. The light wind had died away, not a leaf or blade of grass stirred; the perfume of the lilacs and cherry-trees, so powerful that one might have thought all the air itself was in bloom, came in over garden and terrace, now faint and now full, making one feel an impulse to close the eyes, to shut out all sight and sound, to every sensation save that of this . The dahlias and rose-bushes, yet leafless, stood in still lines in the newly-dug black mould of their beds, lifting their heads above their white . From afar came the notes of the nightingales, or the rush of their restless flight from place to place.
It was in vain that I strove to calm myself, I seemed to be waiting and wishing for something.
Sergius came from up-stairs, and sat down beside me.
“I believe it is going to rain,” he said, “they will get wet.”
“Yes,” I replied; and we were both silent.
In the meantime, the cloud, without any wind, had crept slowly and stealthily above our heads; nature was yet more , sweet, and still: suddenly one drop fell, and, so to speak, , upon the of the awning, another rolled, a growing ball of dust, along the path; then, with a sound like deadened hail, came the heavy dash of rain, gathering force every moment. At once, as if by concert, frogs and nightingales were silent; but the light plash of the fountain was still heard beneath the beating of the rain, and far off in the distance some little bird, no doubt safe and dry under a sheltering , in rhythm his two notes. Sergius rose to go into the house.
“Where are you going?” said I, stopping him. “It is so here!”
“I must send an umbrella and some overshoes.”
“It is not necessary, this will be over directly.”
He , and we remained together by the balustrade of the balcony. I put my hand on the wet slippery rail, and leaned forward into the rain, the cool drops falling lightly on my hair and neck. The cloud, brightening and thinning, in shining spray above us, the regular beat of the shower was succeeded by the sound of heavy drops falling more and more rarely from the sky or from the trees. The frogs resumed their , the nightingales shook their wings and began again to respond to each other from behind the , now on one side, now on another. All was again before us.
“How good it is to live!” he said, leaning over the balustrade and passing his hand over my wet hair.
This simple acted on me like a reproach, and I longed to let my tears flow.
“What more can a man need?” continued he. “I am at this moment so content, that I feel nothing wanting, and I am completely happy!”
(“You did not speak so to me when to hear it would have made my happiness,” I thought. “However great yours was, then, you used to say that you wished for more of it, still more. And now you are calm and content, when my soul is full of inexpressible and unsatisfied tears!”)
“To me, too, life is good,” said I, “and it is because it is so good to me, that I am sad. I feel so detached, so incomplete; I am always wanting some other thing, and yet everything here is so good, so tranquil! Can it be possible that for you no sorrow ever seems with your pleasure in life?—as if, for instance, you were feeling regret for something in the past?”
He drew away the hand resting on my head, and was silent for a moment.
“Yes, that has been the case with me, formerly, particularly in the spring,” he said, as if searching his memory. “Yes, I also have spent whole nights in and fears,—and what beautiful nights they were!... But then all was before me, and now all is ............