The White Terror and The Red Part 23

He saw her the very next day, at the trunk shop. Both blushed violently.

The first minutes of their conversation were punctuated with nervous pauses, like the first talk of people who have been reconciled after a long estrangement. He said to himself: "Now is the time," and vaguely felt confident of success, yet he was still in awe of her and all he managed to do was to turn the conversation upon his mother.

"I should like you to meet her," he said. "She has heard of you."

"Your mother?" she asked in shamefaced astonishment.

"She is a very good woman," Pavel observed, gravely. "She is in sympathy with the movement, you know, although it was only the other day I brought her the first few things to read. If it isn't asking too much I should like to introduce you to her, Clara Rodionovna. She would be delighted."

He paused, but she maintained her air of respectful curiosity, so he went on. "She is very enthusiastic. She would like to know some of the Miroslav radicals, and I took the liberty of telling her about you. I need not tell you that I spoke in a very, very general way about you."

One afternoon the Palace, which the trunk-dealer's daughter had known all her life as a mysterious, awe-inspiring world whose threshold people of her cla.s.s could never dream of crossing, the Palace threw open its imposing doors to her, and she was escorted by Pavel up the immense staircase and into the favorite room of Countess Anna Nicolayevna Varoff. As it was an unheard-of thing for a Jewish girl to visit the Palace, it was agreed, as a safeguard against the inquisitiveness of the servants, that she should be known to them by such a typically Russian name as Daria Ivanovna Morosoff (Morosova).

Barring the two great statues and an ancient cabinet inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, the room was rather below her undefined antic.i.p.ations. Her preconceived notion of the place soon wore off, however, under a growing sense of venerable solidity, of a quiet magnificence that was a revelation to her.

"I'm awfully glad to know you, Clara Rodionovna, awfully," the countess said when the first formalities of greeting were over, and they were all seated. This Jewish girl was the first Nihilist she had ever met (indeed, Pavel was only "Pasha" after all), and she identified her in her mind with every revolutionary a.s.sa.s.sination and plot she had read about. She was flushed with excitement and so put out that she was playing with Pavel's fingers as she spoke, as a mother will do with those of her little boy. As to Clara, she had an oppressive feeling as though the pair of big musty statues, graceful, silent, imposing, were haughtily frowning on her presence under this roof. Pavel seemed to be a different young man. She scarcely seemed to be acquainted with him. Only the sight of Anna Nicolayevna fondling his fingers warmed her heart to both. On the other hand, her own smile won the hostess.

The countess released Pavel's hand, moved over to the other end of the sofa and huddled herself into the corner, thrusting out her graceful elbows and great pile of auburn hair. The presence of Pavel kept her ill at ease. Finally she said: "I think you had better leave us two women to ourselves, Pasha. We shall understand each other much better then, won't we, Clara Rodionovna?"

"I hope so," Clara answered, awkwardly.

Pavel withdrew. In his absence their embarra.s.sment only increased.

The next time Clara and Pavel met, in the trunk-shop, he asked her when she would call on his mother again.

"Oh, I don't know. The point is I don't know what to do with my hands there," she said, with a laugh. "I can't seem to shake off the feeling that I am in the house of--in 'the Palace,' don't you know."

It was a hot day, but the air in the bas.e.m.e.nt was quite cool. Motl was silently painting a trunk, and Pavel was conscious of the oppressive smell of the paint and of the impact of the brush against the wood as he answered, with pained stress in his voice.

"But my mother does not feel like a countess. She is above and beyond all such things."

"I know she is. Only I somehow don't manage to feel at home there."

"But it's only a matter of habit I am sure. You'll get over it. You won't feel that way next time. You must promise me to call to-morrow."

It was as if Clara's was a superior position in life and as if that superiority lay in this, that her home was a squalid trunk-shop, while his was a palace.

"If I do, my mind will be in a whirl again," she laughed.

"Oh, it isn't as bad as all that. You must promise me to call on her."

"Can't we put it off--indefinitely?"

"Clara Rodionovna!"

His imploring voice threatened to draw from him the great yearning plea that was waiting to be heard, but this same entreating voice of his thrilled her so that she hastened to yield.

"Very well," she said.

"Will you come? Oh, it's so kind of you. I am ever so much obliged to you--but I declare I am raving like a maniac," he interrupted himself with a queer smile that forthwith lapsed into an expression of rage.

"What I really want to say is that I love you."

The lines of her face hardened. Her rich complexion burst into flame.

She looked gravely at nothing, as he proceeded:

"It seems to me as though I had felt that way ever since that Pievakin episode, Clara Rodionovna. I owe so much to you. If it had not been for you I might still be leading the life of a knave and an idiot. What you did on that occasion served to open my eyes and showed me the difference between light and darkness. And now it seems to me that if you were mine, it would infuse great energy and courage into me. I have got so used to seeing you, I hate to think of being apart from you for a single moment. Oh, you are so dear to me, I am so happy to sit by your side, to be allowed to say all this to you."

"You are dear to me, too," she said in great embarra.s.sment.

He grasped her hand in silence, his face a burning amorous red.

On their way to the Beak, after another outburst from him, she spoke in measured accents, firm and sad, like the voice of fate.

"I don't know where this will lead us, for either of us or both may be arrested at any time, and then this happiness would add so much poison to the horrors of prison life. Besides, even if we are not arrested, as long as present conditions prevail our love would have to remain hidden underground, like our dear movement----"

"My mother will know it. I want her to know it; and if it is possible to tell your parents, too----"

"Oh, it would kill them. Theirs is an entirely different world."

"Then, for the present, let them be none the wiser for it. As to my mother, she likes you very, very much already and when she hears of it she will love you to distraction, Clara Rodionovna. My friends of the party will know it, too, of course, and what do we care for the rest of this wretched world? But oh, I do wish you could tell your mother, or could I speak to her?"

"Oh, that's absolutely impossible," she said in a voice vibrant with a suggestion of tears and the music of love at once. "Your mother may understand me. We can speak in the same language at least, but my poor parents--one might as well tell them I am dead. Well, when the Will of the People has scored its great victory and Russia is free, then, if we are alive, we shall announce it to my poor parents."

He picked up a stone and flung it with all his might. He was in a fidget of suppressed exultation. Now that his suspense was over, they changed parts, as it were. The gnawing gloom which had tantalised him during the past few weeks had suddenly burst forth in torrents of suns.h.i.+ne; whereas in her case the quiet light-hearted happiness which had been the colour of her love had given way to an infatuated heart filled with anguish.

He told his mother the news the very next morning. The explanation took place in the immense ball-room. It was a windy morning outside, and they were marching up and down the parquette of polished light oak, arm in arm. Presently they paused at one of the windows facing the garden. They could faintly hear the soughing of the wind in the trees. They stood gazing at the fluttering leaves, when he said, musingly:

"I have something to tell you, mother. I told Mlle. Yavner I loved her and I want you to congratulate me."

"Mlle. Yavner?" she asked, with a look of consternation.

"Yes, Mamma dear, I love her and she loves me and she is the dearest woman in the world and you are not going to look upon it in a manner unworthy of yourself, are you, dear little mamma mine?" He seized her fingers and fell to kissing them and murmuring: "My dear little mamma, my dear little mamma." His endearments were too much for her.

"Pasha, Pasha! What are you doing with yourself," she sobbed bitterly.

"Mamma darling! Mamma darling!" he shouted fiercely. "You are not going to give way to idiotic, brutal, Asiatic notions that are not really yours. Another year or two, perhaps less, and all Russia will be free from them and from all her chains, and then one won't have to be shocked to hear that a man and a woman who love each other and belong to each other are going to marry. Mamma dear, my darling little mamma! You are the n.o.blest woman to be found. You are not going to go back on your son because he is trying to live like a real human being and not like a hypocrite and a brute."

She dared not cry any more.

When Clara came, the countess, turning pale, clasped her vehemently, as though pleading for mercy. Clara felt bewildered and terror-stricken, and after some perfunctory kisses she loosened her arms, but the Gentile woman detained her in an impetuous embrace, as she said: "Be good to me, both of you. He is all I have in the world." As she saw an embarra.s.sed smile on Clara's beautifully coloured face, she bent forward with a sudden impulse and drew her to her bosom again, as though she had just made the discovery that the Jewish girl was not unlike other girls after all, that there was nothing preternatural about her person or speech.

Whereupon Clara kissed her pa.s.sionately and burst into tears.

The countess caressed her, poured out the innermost secrets of her heart to her. This Jewish girl whom she had only seen once before heard from her the story of her past life, of her childhood, of her two unhappy marriages, of her thirst for comrades.h.i.+p with her son, of her conversion. The two women became intimate friends, although Clara spoke comparatively little.