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<h2> CHAPTER XXIV </h2> Raisky lay on the grass at the top of the cliff for a long time in gloomy meditation, groaning over the penalty he must pay for his generosity, suffering alike for himself and Vera. “Perhaps she is laughing at my folly, down there with him. Who is there?” he cried aloud, stung with rage. “I will have his name.” He saw himself merely as a shield to cover her passion. He sprang up wildly, and hurried down the precipice, tearing his clothes in the bushes and listening in vain for a suspicious rustling. He told himself that it was an evil thing to pry into another’s secret; it was robbery. He stood still a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow, but his sufferings overcame his scruples. He felt his way stealthily forward, cursing every broken branch that cracked under his feet, and unconscious of the blows he received on his face from the rebounding branches as he forced his way through. He threw himself on the ground to regain his breath, then in order not to betray his presence crept along, digging his nails into the ground as he went. When he reached the suicide’s grave he halted, uncertain which way to follow, and at length made for the arbour, listening and searching the ground as he went. Meanwhile everything was going on as usual in Tatiana Markovna’s household. After supper the company sat yawning in the hall, Tiet Nikonich alone being indefatigable in his attentions, shuffling his foot when he made a polite remark, and looking at each lady as if he were ready to sacrifice everything for her sake. “Where is Monsieur Boris?” inquired Paulina Karpovna, addressing Tatiana Markovna. “Probably he is paying a visit in the town. He never says where he spends his time, so that I never know where to send the carriage for him.” Inquiries made of Yakob revealed the fact that he had been in the garden up to a late hour. Vera was not in the house when she was summoned to tea. She had left word that they were not to keep supper for her, and that she would send across for some if she were hungry. No one but Raisky had seen her go. Tatiana Markovna sighed over their perversity, to be wandering about at such hours, in such cold weather. “I will go into the garden,” said Paulina Karpovna. “Perhaps Monsieur Boris is not far away. He will be delighted to see me. I noticed,” she continued confidentially, “that he had something to say to me. He could not have known I was here.” Marfinka whispered to Vikentev that he did know, and had gone out on that account. “I will go, Marfa Vassilievna, and hide behind a bush, imitate Boris Pavlovich’s voice and make her a declaration,” suggested Vikentev. “Stay here, Nikolai Andreevich. Paulina Karpovna might be frightened and faint. Then you would have to reckon with Grandmother.” “I am going into the garden for a moment to fetch the fugitive,” said Paulina Karpovna. “God be with you, Paulina Karpovna,” said Tatiana Markovna. “Don’t put your nose outside in the darkness, or at any rate take Egorka with you to carry a lantern.” “No, I will go alone. It is not necessary for anyone to disturb us.” “You ought not,” intervened Tiet Nikonich politely, “to go out after eight o’clock on these damp nights. I would not have ventured to detain you, but a physician from Düsseldorf on the Rhine, whose book I am now reading and can lend you if you like, and who gives excellent advice, says....” Paulina Karpovna interrupted him by asking him if he would see her home, and then went into the garden before he could resume his remarks. He agreed to her request and shut the door after her. Soon after Paulina Karpovna’s exit there was a rustling and crackling on the precipice, and Raisky wearing the aspect of a restless, wounded animal, appeared out of the darkness. He sat for several minutes motionless on Vera’s favourite bench, covering his eyes with his hands. Was it dream or reality, he asked himself. He must have been mistaken. Such a thing could not be. He stood up, then sat down again to listen. With his hands lying listlessly on his knees, he broke into laughter over his doubts, his questionings, his secret. Again he had an access of terrible laughter. Vera—and he. The cloak which he himself had sent to the “exile” lay near the arbour. The rogue had been clever enough to get two hundred and twenty roubles for the settlement of his wager, and the earlier eighty in addition. Sekleteia Burdalakov! Again he laughed with a laugh very near a groan. Suddenly he stopped, and put his hand to his side, seized with a sudden consciousness of pain. Vera was free, but he told himself she had dared to mock another fellow human being who had been rash enough to love her; she had mocked her friend. His soul cried for revenge. He sprang up intent on revenge, but was checked by the question of how to avenge himself. To bring Tatiana Markovna, with lanterns, and a crowd of servants and to expose the scandal in a glare of light; to say to her, “Here is the serpent you have carried for two and twenty years in your bosom”—that would be a vulgar revenge of which he knew himself to be incapable. Such a revenge would hit, not Vera, but his aunt, who was to him like his mother. His head drooped for a moment; then he rose and hurried like a madman down the precipice once more. There in the depths passion was holding her festival, night drew her curtain over the song of love, love ... with Mark. If she had surrendered to another lover, to the tall, handsome Tushin, the owner of land, lake, and forest, and the Olympian tamer of horses.... He could hardly breathe. Against his will there rose before him, from the depths of the precipice, the vision of Vera’s figure, glorified with a seductive beauty that he had never yet seen in her, and though he was devoured by agony he could not take his eyes from the vision. At her feet, like a lion at rest, lay Mark, with triumph on his face. Her foot rested on his head. Horror seized him, and drove him onward, to destroy and mar the vision. He seemed to hear in the air the flattering words, the songs and the sighs of passion; the vision became fainter, mist-enshrouded, and finally vanished into air, but the rage for revenge remained. Everywhere was stillness and darkness, as he climbed the hill once more, but when he reached Vera’s bench he saw a human shadow. “Who is there?” he cried. “Monsieur Boris, it is I, Paulina.” “You, what are you doing here?” “I came, because I knew, I knew that you have long had something to say to me, but have hesitated. Du courage. There is no one to see or hear us. Espérez tout....” “What do you want? Speak out.” “Que vous m’aimez. I have known it for a long time. Vous m’avez fui, mais la passion vous a ramené ici....” He seized her roughly by the hand, and pushed her to the edge of the precipice. “Ah, de gráce. Mais pas si brusquement ... qu’est-ce que vous faites ... mais laissez donc,” she groaned. Her anxiety was not altogether groundless, for she stood on the edge of an abrupt fall of the ground, and he grasped her hand more determinedly. “You want love,” he cried to the terrified woman. “Listen, to-night is love’s night. Do you hear the sighs, the kisses, the breath of passion?” “Let me go! Let me go! I shall fall.” “Away from here,” he cried, loosening his grasp and drawing a deep breath. Like a madman he ran across the garden and the flower garden into the yard, where Egorka was washing his hands and face at the spring. “Bring my trunk,” he cried. “I am going to St. Petersburg in the morning.” He ran water over his hands and washed his face and eyes before he turned to go to his room. He could not stay within the four walls of his chamber. He went out again and again, unprotected against the cold, to look at Vera’s window. It was hardly possible to see ten paces ahead in the darkness. He went to the acacia arbour to watch for Vera’s return, and was furious because he could not conceal himself there, now that the leaves had fallen. He sat there in torture until morning dawned, not from passion, which had been drowned in that night’s experiences. What passion would stand such a shock as this? But he had an unconquerable desire to look Vera in the face, this new Vera, and with one glance of scorn to show her the shame, the affront she had put on him, on their aunt, on the whole household, on their society, on womanhood itself. He awaited her return in a fever of impatience. Suddenly he sprang up with an evil look of triumph on his face. “Fate has given me the idea,” he thought. He found the gates still locked, but there was a lamp before the ikon in Savili’s room, and he ordered him to let him out and to leave the gates unlocked. He took from his room the bouquet holder and hastened to the orangery to the gardener. He had to wait a long time before it opened. The light grew stronger. When he looked over at the trees in the orangery, an evil smile again crossed his face. The gardener was arranging Marfinka’s bouquet. “I want another bouquet,” said Raisky unsteadily. “One like this?” “No, only orange blossoms,” he whispered, turning paler as he spoke. “Right, Sir,” said the gardener, recalling that one of Tatiana Markovna’s young ladies was betrothed. “I am thirsty,” said Raisky. “Give me a glass of water.” He drank the water greedily, and hurried the gardener on. When the second bouquet was ready he paid lavishly. He returned to the house cautiously, carrying the two bouquets. As he did not know whether Vera had returned in his absence, he had Marina called, and sent her to see if her mistress was at home or had already gone out walking. On hearing she was out he ordered Marfinka’s bouquet to be put on Vera’s table and the window to be opened. Then he dismissed Marina, and returned to the acacia arbour. Passion and jealousy set loose raged unchecked, and when pity raised her head she was quenched by the torturing, overmastering feeling of outrage. He suppressed the low voice of sympathy, and his better self was silent. He was shuddering, conscious that poison flowed in his veins, the poison of lies and deception. “I must either shoot this dog Mark, or myself,” he thought. He held the bouquet of orange-blossoms in his two hands, like a sacred thing, and drank in its beauty with a wild delight. Then he fixed his eyes on the dark avenue, but she did not come. Broad daylight came, a fine rain began to fall and made the paths sodden. At last Vera appeared in the distance. His heart beat faster, and his knees trembled so that he had to steady himself by the bench to keep from falling. She came slowly nearer, with her bowed head wrapped in a dark mantilla, held in place over her breast by her pale hands, and walked into the porch without seeing him. Raisky sprang from his place of observation, and hid himself under her window. She entered her room in a dream, without noticing that her clothes which she had flung on the floor when she went out had been put back again, and without observing the bouquet on the table or the opened window. Mechanically she threw aside her mantilla, and changed her muddy shoes for satin slippers; then she sank down on the divan, and closed her eyes. After a brief minute she was awakened from her dream by the thud of something falling on the floor. She opened her eyes and saw on the floor a great sheaf of orange blossoms, which had plainly been thrown through the window. Pale as death, and without picking up the flowers, she hurried to the window. She saw Raisky, as he went away, and stood transfixed. He looked round, and their eyes met. She was seized by pain so sharp that she could hardly breathe, and stepped back. Then she saw the bouquet intended for Marfinka on the table. She picked it up, half unconsciously, to press it to her face, but it slipped from her hands, and she herself fell unconscious on the floor. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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