XII
The autumn was late that year. Though all the leaves had fallen the earth was still warm. Even the latest of the summer visitors were gone, leaving warm days behind them. The park grew empty, bare and light. All its summer decorations lay like a russet carpet on the earth: and a warm, blue mist floated between the tree trunks, filled with the spicy scent of fallen leaves and damp earth. The dew dripped from the branches like quiet tears of farewell.
The General had long disappeared from our horizon, with his green shade, angry looks, mumbling speech and taciturn manservant. Latterly he had seldom been seen in the avenues of the park; and, when he did come out, moved feebly, his head shaking more than ever. His eyes stood out further and had a strange stony glare. But they expressed only helplessness; bodily sickness and general weariness of life. When I saw that expression, I involuntarily looked away, feeling within me a sort of dismal pity for the man.
Yes, I said to myself; but why did he demand a false oath and the breaking of a free bond? The fact is, however, that I felt the need of justifying to my own mind my former hatred of Ferapontyev.
The lectures were in full swing. I still felt almost a schoolboy’s delight in making the acquaintance of new professors and new subjects, and the beginning of a new term generally. The arranging of my notes, the life in a circle of comrades, the students’ meetings at which I felt myself a full-blown citizen in comparison with the crowd of freshmen—all this absorbed me and for a time obscured the recollection of Urmánov and dimmed my interest in the tragedy of his life.
Then the first snow fell, and in such quantities that the porters had to clear paths to the Academy. In the park it lay in a smooth, even sheet, covering the clumps of trees, the stone staircase with its vases, the walks with their shrubs. Here and there the stalks of dead flowers stood out, and lumps of snow, like tufts of soft cotton-wool, covered the heads of the frozen asters. For the rest, the foggy sky, after unexpectedly shaking down this mass of snow, continued to breathe warmth upon the earth, and soon the snow began to melt. Water dripped from the trees; and all the air was full of that mysterious murmur which bespeaks the presence of warmth, soft weather, and tiny unseen streams.
That day, as I worked in the draughtsmen’s room, I saw from the window somebody who looked like Urmánov. He was walking in the avenue over the unbroken snow; and his tragic figure formed a striking contrast with the virgin stillness of the park. Hastily flinging on my overcoat, I ran out after him, calling him by name. The figure walked on without giving heed. After going down the main avenue it turned and disappeared among the tree-trunks. I stood still a moment, looking at the lonely footprints. The veil of snow was unsullied save here and there by the light marks of rooks’ feet, and a squirrel, running from tree to tree, had left traces of its path. A few dead boughs, which had fallen beneath their burden of the snow, showed black on the white surface.
My imagination was struck with some peculiar significance in the line of lonely footsteps across the virgin snow of the park.
“Urmánov!” I called again.
My voice rang out clear among the trees. Several rooks started from the boughs, shaking down lumps of snow. Then the faint echo of my cry came back to me from the lake which Urmánov was approaching. Though he must have heard me, he neither looked round nor altered his course. I saw in this inattention a sign of hostility, not to me personally, for I myself should not have recognised my own voice, but to anyone whatever who called to him in the mournful solitude into which he had plunged.
I felt sure that if it were Urmánov his face must again be wearing the gloomy and doggedly sinister expression which I had twice seen on it before. For that matter, I was not certain that I really had seen Urmánov. My fellow-students, when I told them of the incident, assured me that he had left Moscow a month previously.
As for the American woman, she had got her money and returned to America.
By the next morning the snow was half melted. Here and there the black earth peeped out, and in the morning a thick warm mist hung over the landscape. During the day it partially cleared off; and sharp, cold currents swept past, as though the frost were beginning to stretch out its icy fingers. The air became a clearer medium for both light and sound. The black spots of thawed earth, the damp fences, the humid tree-trunks and bushes all stood out clear in the atmosphere, and seemed to have grown heavy and dark and sorrowful.
The rattle and rush of the goods trains came from the distance so clearly and distinctly that one could almost distinguish every thud of the engine, every click of the wheels. When the train came out of the cutting it seemed quite close. It moved through the snowy fields like a long black serpent and something rumbled and steamed beneath it, as though the earth itself were boiling under the black band that moved along under the foggy sky from west to east.
As we sat in our room after dark, Titus and I heard the rumble of one of these trains through the closed window.
“It is curious how long that engine whistles,” suddenly remarked Titus, raising his head from his notes.
He went to the window and opened it. A great noise rushed into the room. Something was scraping, groaning and screaming, as if right underneath our window. Then the whistling and scraping stopped, and all was quiet. Leaning from our window in the darkness we saw lanterns moving along the rails.
“The train is gone off the rails,” said Titus indifferently. “That happened once last year. Come along Gavrik, let’s have tea.”
But still I stood, looking out of the window at the dark field and the little lights gleaming like glowworms in the night. After the sounds that had just filled the evening air there was something in the sudden silence weird and startling. The moist breeze shook our window-frame; a brook, half released from its frosty fetters, gurgled under the snow, and the bushes swayed their dry twigs under our windows.
Then the train moved on again, with a rumbling noise dying away in the distance. The night grew quite dark, impenetrable clouds covered the sky, and only one light remained on the spot where a moment ago there had been so much hurry and movement.
I shut the window.
Titus and I sat up long after midnight, carrying on a frank, delightful conversation. Then I put out the light and fell sound asleep, never thinking how long it would be before I should know such sweet, untroubled sleep again, nor that the last of my childish dreams hovered round my pillow on that last night of my youth.
Yes, if since then I have known joy, emotion, hope, they have certainly not been the same joys and hopes, and I have dreamt other dreams.