The Argonauts Part 8

"No, dear; do you wish anything?"

Cara began in a loud voice:

"I wish immensely, immensely, Miss Mary, to go with you to England, to your father and mother. Oh, how I should like to be in that parsonage a while, where your sisters teach poor children and nurse the sick, and your mother makes tea at the grate for your father when he comes home after services. Oh, Mary, if you and I could go to that place! It is so pleasant there." In the blue light and in the silence her thin voice recalled the twittering of a lark.

"We will go there sometime, dear. Your parents will permit, and we will go. But sleep now."

"Very well, I will sleep. Good-night, Miss Mary--my dear, good Miss Mary."

She lay some minutes quietly thinking, till she sat up again in bed coughing. When the cough had pa.s.sed, she called in a low voice:

"Miss Mary! Miss Mary!"

There was no answer.

"She is sleeping," whispered Cara, and after a while she looked around, and, in a lower voice, called:

"Puffie! Puffie!"

At this call the little dog sprang from a neighboring chair, and in the twinkle of an eye was on the bed.

Cara stroked the silken coat of the dog, and bending toward him whispered:

"Puffie! Puffie! dear, little dog! lie here, sleep for thyself!"

She put him on her breast almost at her chin; with her hand on his coat, and with the whisper: "Puffie! good Puffie!" she fell asleep.

Then was heard the sound of a drozhky, coming quickly, with uproar in front of the house, and again there was an end to voices and movement. Two men ascended the stairway, one much older than the other, with a carefully brushed, but somewhat worn hat, in a fas.h.i.+onable but somewhat worn fur. He spoke in a low voice:

"Yes, yes! c'est quelque chose d'inoui! he commanded me to break off all relations with you, and to stop visiting his house."

"A thousand and one nights! Why is it? What is it for?" exclaimed the other.

Suddenly he stopped part way on the stairs, and asked with a half jeering, half pitying look at his companion:

"If he should find out?"

Kranitski turned his face away.

"My Maryan--with you--of that--"

"Painted pots!" laughed Maryan. "Do you take me for my great-grandfather? Well, has he found it out?"

With red spots on his cheeks and forehead Kranitski blinked affirmatively.

"Sapristi!" imprecated Maryan, and immediately he laughed again.

"And why? for what reason? Did he also believe in painted pots? I thought him modern."

"Alas!" sighed Kranitski.

They advanced in silence, pa.s.sed the first story of the house.

Maryan's bachelor chambers were on the second story.

"My dear old man, I am sorry for you, enormously sorry," began young Darvid again. "I have grown so accustomed to you. You will have to suffer, and poor mamma, too. Where did he get all this? A man of such sense! I thought that his head was better ventilated--"

He could not finish, for Kranitski threw himself on his neck at the very door of his apartments. He wept. Drying his eyes with his perfumed cambric handkerchief, he said:

"My Maryan, I shall not survive this blow! I love you all so much--you are--for me--as a younger brother--"

He tried to kiss him, but Maryan broke away from his embrace, and his tears, the moisture of which he felt on his face, with discomfort.

"But it is absurd!" exclaimed he. "Are we to break our relations because they displease someone? Are we slaves? Laugh at that, my dear. Come to me as before, but pa.s.s the night now with me, for it would be difficult for you to go home at this hour."

He touched the b.u.t.ton of the electric bell, and when the door opened at once, he said to his companion on the threshold:

"Bianca sings that aria from the 'Cavalier' gloriously, does she not? La, la, la----"

He tried to give the music, but his voice failed. So he disappeared behind the closing door, humming the aria of the splendid singer which he had just heard at supper.

Below, two clocks, one after the other, sounded out six. Through the great windows light began to enter from the snow-covered streets. That seemed the gradual and slow drawing aside of a dark curtain, from behind which came out with increasing distinctness, furniture, pictures, mirrors, candlesticks, vases, rugs, plushes, velvets, polish, gilt, mosaics, ivory, porcelain. Until all standing forth in the full light of that winter morning began like a pearl sh.e.l.l to interchange various colors and l.u.s.tres, and to drop from the walls and ceilings reflections of gold on the s.h.i.+ning floor.

CHAPTER III

Kranitski ascended a carpeted stairway, which was adorned with lamps and statues. His fur coat with a costly collar was over worn somewhat; his hat was s.h.i.+ning; his step free, and there was a cheerful smile under his mustaches, which were turned up at the ends carefully. The stairway was almost a street. People were pa.s.sing up and down on it, and whenever you met them and caught their eyes you noted freedom, self-confidence, elegance; you saw the eleventh commandment of G.o.d, which Moses, only through some inconceivable forgetfulness, neglected to add to the Decalogue.

Entering the antechamber he threw the servant his fur, from which issued the odor of excellent perfumes. From the pocket of his coat peeped the edge of a handkerchief. He arranged before a mirror his hair, thick yet above his forehead, but showing from behind a small, circular, bald spot. Hat in hand, and with a springy, self-confident tread, he entered the drawing-room. Only two red spots above his brow interrupted the whiteness of his forehead, which was slightly wrinkled; his eyes, usually gleaming or affable, were mist-covered.

In a door, opposite that by which Kranitski entered, stood Irene, under a crimson drapery of curtains, with an open book in her hand. Kranitski, with that light-swaying of the body, with which elegants are accustomed to approach ladies, approached Irene and, bending easily before her, kissed her hand.

"May one enter?" inquired he, indicating with his eyes the door of an adjoining; chamber.

"I beg you to enter, mamma is in her study."

The inclination of head, and sound of Irene's voice, contained only that measure of cordiality which was absolutely demanded by politeness, but that was her way always and with every one. Cold radiated from her, and such indifference that it was sometimes a contemptuous disregard for people and things. But when Kranitski, hat in hand, pa.s.sed two drawing-rooms she followed him with her glance, in which, besides disquiet, there was a kindly feeling, and more, perhaps, a feeling of pity. She was accustomed from childhood to see him; he was gentle, as ready as a slave to render service, as ready as a friend to oblige; he noted the wants not only of the lady of the house, but of each of her children. He had the subdued manner and pliancy of people who do not feel that they merit what they have, and are ever trembling lest they lose it. He had, besides, the gift of reading beautifully in various languages. For a number of years Irene could not remember pleasanter evenings than those which, free from society demands, she had pa.s.sed in her mother's study when Kranitski was present. Sometimes Cara and her governess took part in these domestic gatherings; sometimes, also, though more and more rarely, they were enlivened by the presence of Maryan, who, in the intervals of reading, chaffed with his sister and mother, and argued with Kranitski about various tendencies in taste and literature. Most frequently, however, Cara was occupied with lessons, and Maryan by society, and only she and Malvina, with artistic work in hand, listened in silence and thoughtfully to that resonant, manly voice, which rendered masterpieces of thought and poetry with perfect appreciation and feeling. During such evenings Irene was seized at moments by a dream of certain grand solitudes, pure, surrounded by cordial warmth, remote from the uproar of streets, the rustle of silks, the noise of vain words, whose emptiness and falsehood she had measured; but straightway she said to herself: "Painted pots, ideals! these have no existence!" and she made a gesture, as if driving from above her head a beautiful b.u.t.terfly, feeling convinced that that b.u.t.terfly was merely a phantom. To-day, from minute observation, the conjecture rose in her that something uncommon had happened, and that something more must happen, also; she was colder and more formal than ever, with a burning spark of fear in the depth of her blue, clear eyes. Her dress was of cloth, closely fitting, somewhat masculine in the cut of the waist, and on the top of her head was a j.a.panese knot of fiery hair, pierced by a pin with steel l.u.s.tres. In her hand was an open book, and she walked along slowly through the two s.p.a.cious drawing-rooms. She did not raise her eyes from the book, though she did not turn a page in it. At one door she turned immediately, at the other, which was closed, she stopped for a few seconds when she caught the sound of conversation, carried on beyond the door, in low voices, by two people. She did not wish to hear that conversation. Oh, she did not! How long ago was it since she had striven to be deaf as well as blind, and frequently so deal that no glance of the eye, no movement of the face might betray that she had sight or hearing.

But now, as often as a louder sound struck her ears from beyond the closed door she stood immovable, and her eyelids quivered like leaves stirred by wind. For a long time it had seemed to her that something terrible might happen in that house some day, something to which she would not be able to remain deaf and blind. Might it not happen just that day? With slow, even step along the gleaming floor, between purple, azure, and various shades of white, which filled the drawing-rooms, she walked, in her closely-fitting dress, from one door to the other, her eyes fixed on the book, her manner colder, more formal than ever, her delicate motionless face, above which the long pin threw out metallic gleams. Suddenly an outburst of silver laughter was heard at another door. Till that moment two female voices had been heard, speaking English, beyond this door, now thrown open with a rattle. Golden strips of light, cast in by the winter sun, were lying on the purple and white of the drawing-room. Into this drawing-room rushed a strange pair; a maiden of fifteen, in a bright dress, golden-haired, rosy, and tall, bent low; she held by the forepaws a little ash-colored dog, and with him went waltzing around the furniture of the room, humming as she moved the fas.h.i.+onable: La, la, la! La, la, la! A pair of small feet, in elegant slippers, and a pair of s.h.a.ggy, beast paws, whirled over the gleaming inlaid floor, around long chairs, tables, columns holding vases; swiftly, swiftly did she go till she met Irene at the door of the next drawing room. Cara raised the little dog from the floor, straightened herself, her eyes met the strange glance of her sister. Irene blinked repeatedly, as if some disagreeable light had struck her eyes.

"Always so gladsome, Cara!"

"I?" cried the girl. "Oh, so! Puffie made me laugh--and--the sun s.h.i.+nes so nicely. The day is beautiful, isn't it, Ira? Have you noticed how diamond sparks glitter on the snow? The trees are all covered with frost. Let us go with Miss Mary for a walk. I will take Puffie, but I will cover him with that blanket which I finished embroidering yesterday. Is mamma well?"

"Why do you ask about mamma?"

"Because, when I gave her 'good-morning,' I thought that she was ill, she was so pale--pale. I asked her, but she said: 'Oh, it is nothing, I am well.' Still it seems to me--"

"Let nothing seem to you!" Irene interrupted her almost angrily.

"The surmises of children like you have no sense in them most of the time. Where are you going?"