XXII
One evening as I sat in the shed, in the state of mind which I have just described, the passenger train from Moscow began to slacken speed as it neared the station. Again the bars of light flashed across the platform and shadows moved in the dim windows, and I could hear sounds and talking from the shut-in life of the carriages. And once more it seemed like the mere echo of long past impressions. When, however, the train went on again, I found that this echo had left upon the platform a living being.
The red lantern at the end of the last carriage flung a ray of light on the solitary passenger, from whom I instantly retreated to the furthest corner of the shed. It was the girl-cashier from the Volga, who, as the navigation was stopped, had made up her accounts and returned to us for the winter.
She apparently expected that somebody would meet her, and found herself mistaken. Perhaps, though, she was playing one of her audacious pranks, and trusted to chance for an escort. Be that as it might, there she stood, alone in the dark, looking round her. The train glittered in the distance like a red star; the place was quite deserted; and I sat still in the shed, trying not to stir.
The girl laid her handbag on the platform, and crossed the line to the watchman’s hut on the opposite bank. For a moment I lost sight of her, but the next moment her slender figure reappeared at the open door.
“Grigoryevna! Good evening!” she called to the watchman’s wife.
“Eh! Who is there?”
“I, I. Why, she doesn’t know me!”
Grigoryevna answered in the languid voice of a suffering woman. The door closed; but a moment afterwards both the women came out again.
“Dear! dear! What a pity! He is just gone down the line. You had better wait a bit for him; he will go with you.”
“No; it is all right; I’ll go alone. Goodbye!” And the girl went rapidly down the bank.
“No, but really … it is not safe; indeed, it is not safe. Heaven forbid! somebody might harm you.”
“No, they won’t. I’m lucky; no one ever harms me.”
These familiar words, accompanied by the old familiar laugh, sounded as if they had been spoken in my ear. Then she crossed the platform, and I withdrew further into my corner.
Why, I cannot tell. It seemed to me that the indefinite, half-conscious expectations which I had previously formed in the same place, referred to the event which was now coming to pass. I even fancied that, earlier in the day, I had felt a foreboding of her coming, and taken my “resolution” beforehand.
Be that as it might, there rose before me the living image of that past so near, yet already so far off.
Now I analyzed everything and mocked at everything. But, until this moment I had not dared to touch with my hideous analysis this girl whom I had once loved, and whose memory I still cherished, pure and unsullied. It lay dormant in the deepest recesses of my soul, together with some other memories that were also very dear to me. But I knew that they would be called up to judgment by my new mood, and if I once began to submit these memories and feelings to analysis, I should never stop, and there would not be left in my soul one single untainted spot.
It is very likely that I was trembling in my corner from a foreboding of all this. It is possible, too, that I did not like to let her, so strong and full of life, see me shivering, shrinking, with the inner consciousness of a wretched little dog. Anyhow, I waited till she had started, and then followed her.
She walked quickly, and her figure now showed like a dim shadow in front, now disappearing altogether. I followed her, dreading to lose sight of her, yet, at the same time, fearing to attract her attention. And then, for the first time, the oddity of my position occurred to me: why had I not gone straight up to her? Why hide myself, and then creep after her like a thief in the dark?
For the first time I felt causeless shame. Why? I had done nothing wrong—nothing with which to reproach myself. It is the shame of existing at all, flashed through my mind. It was the dread of showing her the dirty, gray spot in my soul.
This thought angered me. At the same time, as I could no longer see her, I feared I might lose her, and forgetting both the cold and my own shivering fit hurried on peering into the darkness.
Suddenly I quivered as if I had been shot, and stood still, hearing at the same moment a low, startled cry. The girl, as it appeared, was tired, and, placing her portmanteau on the ground, sat down on it to rest herself. I thus found myself face to face with her.
For a few seconds we remained standing—she in surprised silence … Then I held out my hand and said:—
“Good evening, … Tonia.”
“Ah! it is you! There, I knew you would come. Why, Gavrik dear, how you startled me!” and, taking my hand in both hers, she pressed it warmly, laughing and talking merrily of her fright.
“Why didn’t I see you on the platform? Did you get my letter? Why, wherever did you come from?”
She showered questions upon me, and went straight on, without waiting for an answer. She had such a lot to tell me; she had seen so much. And what was going on in Moscow—in the Academy? She asked after our acquaintances. But, first of all, how were the Sokolovs?
The Sokolovs were a couple united in civil marriage. He was a good-natured student, no longer young; she, an almost uneducated woman, also past her youth, with a freckled face and thin, close-cropped hair that suited her face very badly. Tonia (as the girl-cashier was still so called in our circle) was a great friend of theirs, and usually lodged with them.
I grew confused at her question, and was hesitating what to answer, when she stopped short and tried to look at me closely in the darkness.
“Do you know, there’s something strange about you? …” she said half-interrogatively.
I smiled, and felt glad that she could not see how unnatural was my smile.
“Strange, quite strange,” she repeated. “You turn up from one doesn’t know where, … you don’t speak, … you don’t answer one’s questions.”
“Well, but you don’t give me time to answer.”
“No, no! Somehow—it isn’t that,” said the girl sadly, and then brightened up again. “Oh, well. I’ll find out all about that tomorrow. I shall stay here a fortnight.”
“And then?”
“Then? Perhaps. … Why, you know, I wrote to you. …”
She glanced at me again and walked faster.
“No, we’ll talk about that tomorrow.”
“Why? Because I am strange?” I asked involuntarily smiling again, but this time with deeply felt bitterness.
“Y … yes.”
“Well, perhaps that’s better, after all.”
“There you see!” said the girl mournfully. “Do tell me what is the matter?”
“It’s all the same. We won’t talk about that. But I am very glad to be walking with you now.”
“What did you say?”
“I say that I am very glad. … I really mean it …”
“Is—is there any need to say that?”
She relapsed into an embarrassed silence, and walked on for some time thinking. I, too, was silent and oppressed with gloomy forebodings. I had fancied, at first that just this once, in the darkness, I might, for a passing moment, enjoy at least the illusion of a happy meeting, although on the morrow my new mood might again assert the mastery. But I felt that even the darkness could not for long hide my secret. She could not see my unnatural smile; and yet she knew intuitively that there was something strange about me. And, indeed, should we have met like this, should I have spoken as I did, if nothing had befallen me?
“All right; we needn’t talk at all,” I said again, although well aware that I had done better not to say it.
After passing the Academy and crossing the bridge, we arrived at a small villa, standing alone in a clump of young pine-trees. A stove was alight, and a lamp burning in the front room; and through the window, we could see three figures.
“Now, goodbye,” said I, stopping and handing her the portmanteau.
“Why? Aren’t you coming in?”
“No; you had better go alone.”
“Is anything … wrong between you and the Sokolovs?”
“Nothing particular.”
“But you know they are dear, good people.”
“I don’t dispute that.”
She stopped, made as if she would say something, but changing her mind, took the portmanteau from me, and held out her hand in silence.
I held it for a moment, and fancied that it trembled slightly, as though ready to respond warmly and strongly to the pressure of mine. But the moment passed; her hand slipped away from mine; and she said softly:—
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Antonina Dimitrievna.”
A moment later, I saw through the window how warmly she was welcomed by her friends. Sokolov, a dark, stooping, broad-shouldered man, swung himself out of his chair and embraced her. His wife ran in from the next room, and, tossing back her thin hair, flung herself on the girl’s neck. Syergakóv, a young student of the group to which I had formerly belonged, at first hesitatingly shook hands with her; then his face brightened into a smile, and he too kissed the newcomer.
I went up to the hedge without the slightest hesitation, fully determined to hide there and watch what happened next. I knew that I should probably be the subject of their conversation; and I was not mistaken.
For some time past I had observed that the people I met eyed me with peculiar attention, yet furtively, I knew that many considered me “cracked”; and this irritated me. At times, therefore, I would purposely say brusque and disagreeable things, carefully cultivating the art of finding out the weak points of these “sensible” folk. I had not been at the Sokolovs for a long time.
After the first greetings, Tonia, as she took off her cloak, asked a question which, as I could see from her contracted brows and the expression of her face, referred to me.
Sokolov turned away and began gloomily poking the fire. He was one of those very good-natured men who always find it difficult to speak ill of anyone, or to tell unpleasant news. Syergakóv sat down at the table and took up a pencil.
Tonia doffed her gray cloak and, flinging it on a chest, turned round, so that I could see her agitated face, and I inferred from her manner that she was repeating her question and telling them of her meeting with me. Then Madame Sokolov, sitting down on the chest, began to relate something. And her face gradually assumed an excited and indignant expression. I knew what she was saying. She was complaining that for some time past I had behaved very queerly, keeping aloof from my comrades and when I met her looking at her in the strangest way possible; moreover, when she remonstrated with me, I had answered sneeringly that I hoped she did not suspect me of any Don Juan-like intentions.
Sokolov rose impatiently and made an observation, whereupon his wife broke off and looked at Tonia conscience-stricken. The girl’s face was pale and sad. For some time nothing more was said; then Tonia turned her face away from them and stood looking at the fire. I could see her profile, her dark dress and the tress of fair hair hanging over her shoulder.
My eyes were glued to the window; it was as if I were looking at people who mourned for me, for the “me” which had been and was not. A sense of overwhelming misery swept over my soul as if I were assisting at the burial of something unspeakbly dear to me—my own youth, and with it …
Strange! From that time I have understood the legends of demons entering into men’s bodies and speaking through their mouths.
At that very moment when I suffered this unbearable misery, and felt so much tenderness towards this girl who felt so much for me, the dirty spot in my soul asserted its influence; and for the first time my sneering analysis touched the girl’s image and my love for her.
A tress of fair hair, said someone within me, so distinctly that I started as if I had actually heard an internal whisper. The whole matter lies in the fair tress. Never since I began to grow up have I been able to look unmoved at a fair tress hanging down a girl’s back. A fair tress on a dark brown dress suggests thoughts which still cause me acute distress.
At that moment, I heard footsteps and the sound of voices, one of which I recognized as that of Chernov, a comrade of mine both in the classes and the group. He belonged to a family of rich landowners, and it was known that he had once been in the habit of striking his female serfs in the face with his boots when they brought them to him badly cleaned. Moreover his harsh unsympathetic voice showed that his character was hard, and he possessed few attractive qualities. Many who knew him doubted the sincerity of his present liberal opinions; but Tonia believed in him: and Chernov repaid her with a seeming affection bordering on devotion.
The students were walking rapidly and must have seen me; but this did not embarrass me in the least. I quietly left the window and walked towards them, thinking that Chernov did not know of Tonia’s arrival, but as he was going to the Sokolovs he would soon see her. And embrace her … fraternally.
When I came up to them, the students looked round in amazement.
“It is all right, it is all right!” I said roughly, “don’t be confused, good folk! Make haste; Tonichka is come back.”
Chernov uttered a cry of joy; and I impulsively, and to my own surprise, added bluntly:
“And how her hair has grown! … splendid!”
Then I burst out laughing. I can imagine how utterly wild this speech must have seemed to them. And yet, for me, it was the logical continuation of my thoughts. I must have seemed to my fellow-students completely insane, and I often think, now, that even in the thoughts of regular maniacs, who talk all kinds of nonsense, there is far more sequence than we usually suppose.
The students hurried to the villa and I struck off into the wood, walking straight on without choosing my way. I wanted to tire myself out. I needed exhaustion, oblivion, and darkness.