Annouchka Part 9

"Not returned?"

"No."

"No,--but I have something to confess," continued he: "in spite of the promise I made you, I couldn't help going to the chapel. I didn't find her there. Did she not go there, then?"

"No, not to the chapel."

"And you have not seen her?"

I was obliged to admit that I had seen her.

"Where then?"

"At Dame Louise's.--I left her about an hour ago; I thought she was about to return."

"We will wait for her," Gaguine said to me.

We entered the house, and I sat down beside him. We were silent; a painful constraint was on us both. On the alert for the least sound, sometimes we looked at each other stealthily, sometimes we cast our eyes upon the door.

"I can stay here no longer!" said he, rising; "she will kill me with anxiety. Come, let us look for her."

"Yes, let us do so!"

We went out; it was already night.

"Come, tell me what happened," demanded Gaguine, drawing his hat over his eyes.

"Our interview lasted but five minutes at the utmost, and I spoke to her as we agreed upon."

"Do you know," said he, "I think we had better separate. Let us look for her each on his own responsibility; that is the quicker way to find her; but in any case return to the house in an hour."

XIX.

I hastened down the path that pa.s.sed through the vineyards and entered the town; after hurrying through all the streets and looking in every direction, even at Dame Louise's windows, I came back to the Rhine, and ran along the river bank. Here and there was a figure of a woman, but none of them Annouchka's. It was no longer vexation that consumed me, but a secret terror; still more it was repentance that I felt, boundless pity, finally love--yes, the deepest love. I threw my arms about; I called Annouchka; at first, as the shades of night were deepening, in a low voice, then louder and louder; I repeated a hundred times that I loved her, swearing never to leave her; I would have given all that I possessed to press once more her cold hand, to hear once more her timid voice, to see her once more before me. She had been so near me; she had come to me with such resolution, in all the frankness of her heart; she had brought me her young life, her purity,--and I did not take her in my arms; I had foregone the happiness of seeing her sweet face brighten.--The thought drove me mad!

"Where can she have gone? what could she have done?" I cried, in the impotent rage of despair.

Something whitish suddenly appeared at the edge of the water. I recognized the place. There, above the grave of a man who drowned himself seventy years before, arose a stone cross, half sunken in the ground, covered with characters almost illegible. My heart was beating as though it would break. The white figure had disappeared.

"Annouchka," I cried, in such a fierce voice, that I even frightened myself.

But no one answered; I finally decided to go and find out whether Gaguine had not found her.

XX.

Quickly going up the vineyard road, I perceived a light in Annouchka's room. This sight calmed me a little. I approached the house; the entrance door was closed. I knocked. A window that had no light opened softly in the lower story, and Gaguine thrust out his head.

"You have found her?" I asked him.

"She has returned," he answered in a low voice. "She is in her room and is going to bed. All is for the best."

"G.o.d be praised!" I cried, in a paroxysm of indescribable joy. "G.o.d be praised! Then everything is all right; but you know we have not had our talk together."

"Not now," he answered, half closing the window; "another time. In the meanwhile, farewell!"

"To-morrow," I said, "to-morrow will decide everything."

"Farewell," repeated Gaguine.

The window closed.

I was upon the point of knocking at it,--I wished to speak to Gaguine one instant longer, to ask his sister's hand,--but a proposal of marriage at such an hour! "To-morrow," I thought, "to-morrow I shall be happy."

Happiness has no to-morrow; it has no yesterday; it remembers not the past; it has no thought of the future; it knows only the present, and yet this present is not a day, but an instant.

I know not how I returned to Z.--It was not my legs that carried me, it was not a boat that took me to the other side; I was wafted along, so to speak, by strong, large wings.

I pa.s.sed a thicket where a nightingale was singing. I stopped, listened a long time; it seemed to be singing of my love and my happiness.

XXI.

The next morning, on approaching the white house, I was astonished to see the windows open, also the entrance door. Some pieces of paper were scattered about the threshold; a servant, her broom in her hand, appeared at the door. I approached her.

"They have gone!" she exclaimed, before I could ask whether Gaguine were at home.

"Gone!" I repeated; "how is that? Where have they gone?"

"They went this morning at six o'clock, and did not say where they were going. But are you not Monsieur N----?"

"Yes."

"Very well! my mistress has a letter for you."

She went upstairs, and came back with a letter in her hand.

"Here it is," said she.