The Precipice Part 36

Neither did the young people who now often came to the house to dance, awaken any interest in Raisky or Vera. These two were only happy under given circ.u.mstances; he--with her, she--when unseen by anyone she could flit like a ghost to the precipice to lose herself in the under-growth, or when she drove over the Volga to see the pope's wife.

CHAPTER XVIII

The weather was gloomy. Rain fell unintermittently, the sky was enshrouded in a thick cloud of fog, and on the ground lay banks of mist.

No one had ventured out all day, and the family had already gone early to bed, when about ten o'clock the rain ceased, Raisky put on his overcoat to get a breath of air in the garden. The rustle of the bushes and the plants from which the rain was still dripping, alone broke the stillness of the night. After a few turns up and down he turned his steps to the vegetable garden, through which his way to the fields lay.

Here and there a glimmering star hung above in the dense darkness, and before him the village lay like a dark spot on the dark background of the indistinguishable fields beyond. Suddenly he heard a slight noise from the old house, and saw that a window on the ground floor had been opened. Since the window looked out not into the garden, but on to the field, he hastened to reach the grove of acacias, leapt the fence and landed in a puddle of water, where he stood motionless.

"Is it you?" said a low voice from the window. It was Vera's voice.

Though his knees trembled under him, he was just able to answer in the same low tone, "Yes."

"The rain has kept me in all day, but to-morrow morning at ten. Go quickly; some one is coming."

The window was closed quietly, and Raisky cursed the approaching footsteps that had interrupted the conversation. It was then true, and the letter written on blue paper not a dream. Was there a rendezvous? He went in the direction of the steps.

"Who is there?" cried a voice, and Raisky was seized from behind.

"The devil," cried Raisky, pus.h.i.+ng Savili away, "since when have you taken upon yourself to guard the house?"

"I have the Mistress's orders. There are so many thieves and vagabonds in the neighbourhood, and the sailors from the Volga do a lot of mischief."

"That is a lie. You are out after Marina, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

He would have gone, but Savili detained him.

"Allow me, Sir, to say a word or two about Marina. Exercise your merciful powers, and send the woman to Siberia."

"Are you out of your senses?"

"Or into a house of detention for the rest of her life."

"I'm much more likely to send you, so that you cease to beat her. What are you doing, spying here in this abominable way?" said Raisky between his teeth, as he cast a glance at Vera's window. In another moment he was gone.

Raisky hardly slept at all that night, and he appeared next morning in his aunt's sitting-room with dry, weary eyes. The whole family had a.s.sembled for tea on this particular bright morning. Vera greeted him gaily, as he pressed her hand feverishly and looked straight into her eyes. She returned his gaze calmly and quietly.

"How elegant you are this morning," he said.

"Do you call a simple straw-coloured blouse elegant?" she asked.

"But the scarlet band on your hair, with the coils of hair drawn across it, the belt with the beautiful clasp, and the scarlet-embroidered shoes.... You have excellent taste, and I congratulate you."

"I am glad that I meet with your approval, but your enthusiasm is rather strange. Tell me the reason of this extraordinary tone."

"Good, I will tell you. Let us go for a stroll."

He saw that she gave him a quick glance of suspicion as he proposed an appointment with her for ten o'clock. After a moment's thought she agreed, sat down in a corner, and was silent. About ten o'clock she picked up her work and her parasol, and signed to him to follow her as she left the house. She walked in silence through the garden, and they sat down on a bench at the top of the cliff.

"It was by chance," said Raisky, who was hardly able to restrain his emotion, "that I have learnt a part of your secret."

"So it seems," she answered coldly. "You were listening yesterday."

"Accidentally, I swear."

"I believe you."

"Vera, there is no longer any doubt that you have a lover. Who is he?"

"Don't ask."

"Who is there in the world who could desire your happiness more ardently than I do? Why have you confidence in him and not in me?"

"Because I love him."

"The man you love is to be envied, but how is he going to repay you for the supreme happiness that you bring him? Be careful, my friend. To whom do you give your confidence?"

"To myself."

"Who is the man?"

Instead of answering him she looked full in his face, and he thought that her eyes were as colourless as those of a watersprite, and there lay hidden in them a maddening riddle. From below in the bushes there came the sound of a shot. Vera rose immediately from the bench, and Raisky also rose.

"HE?" he asked in a dull voice. "It is ten o'clock."

She approached the precipice, Raisky following close at her heels. She motioned him to come no farther.

"What is the meaning of the shot?"

"He calls."

"Who?"

"The writer of the blue letter. Not a step further unless you wish that I leave here for ever."

She rapidly descended the precipice, and in a few moments had vanished behind the brushwood and the trees. He called after her to take care, but in reply heard only the crackling of the dry twigs beneath her feet.

Then all was still. He was left to torment himself with wondering who the object of her pa.s.sion could be.

It was none other than Mark Volokov, pariah, cynic, gipsy, who would ask the first likely man he met for money, who levelled his gun on his fellow-men, and, like Karl Moor, had declared war on mankind--Mark Volokov, the man under police supervision.

It was to meet this dangerous and suspicious character that Vera stole to the rendezvous--Vera, the pearl of beauty in the whole neighbourhood, whose beauty made strong men weak; Vera, who had mastered even the tyrannical Tatiana Markovna; Vera, the pure maiden sheltered from all the winds of heaven. It would have seemed impossible for her to meet a man against whom all houses were barred. It had happened so simply, so easily, towards the end of the last summer, at the time that the apples were ripe. She was sitting one evening in the little acacia arbour by the fence near the old house, looking absently out into the field, and away to the Volga and the hills beyond, when she became aware that a few paces away the branches of the apple tree were swaying unnaturally over the fence. When she looked more closely she saw that a man was sitting comfortably on the top rail. He appeared by his face and dress to belong to the lower cla.s.s; he was not a schoolboy, but he held in his hands several apples.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, just as he was about to spring down from the fence.

"I am eating," he said, after taking a look at her. "Will you try one?"

he added, hitching himself along the fence towards her.