The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories Part 11

It was they; I had recognised them; those were the sounds... This is the way it had happened. I was returning home from a long stroll on the seash.o.r.e. I was walking swiftly along the street; night had long since descended,--a magnificent night, southern, not calm and sadly-pensive as with us, no! but all radiant, sumptuous, and very beautiful, like a happy woman in her bloom; the moon shone with incredible brilliancy; great, radiant stars fairly throbbed in the dark-blue sky; the black shadows were sharply defined against the ground illuminated to yellowness. On both sides of the street stretched the stone walls of gardens; orange-trees reared above them their crooked branches; the golden globes of heavy fruit, hidden amidst the interlacing leaves, were now barely visible, now glowed brightly, as they ostentatiously displayed themselves in the moonlight. On many trees the blossoms shone tenderly white; the air was all impregnated with fragrance languis.h.i.+ngly powerful, penetrating, and almost heavy, although inexpressibly sweet.

I walked on, and, I must confess,--having already become accustomed to all these wonders,--I was thinking only of how I might most speedily reach my inn, when suddenly, from a small pavilion, built upon the very wall of a garden along which I was pa.s.sing, a woman's voice rang out. It was singing some song with which I was unfamiliar, and in its sounds there was something so winning, it seemed so permeated with the pa.s.sion and joyous expectation expressed by the words of the song, that I instantly and involuntarily halted, and raised my head. There were two windows in the pavilion; but in both the Venetian blinds were lowered, and through their narrow c.h.i.n.ks a dull light barely made its way.

After having repeated "_vieni, vieni!_" twice, the voice became silent; the faint sound of strings was audible, as though of a guitar which had fallen on the rug; a gown rustled, the floor creaked softly. The streaks of light in one window disappeared... Some one had approached from within and leaned against it. I advanced a couple of paces. Suddenly the blind clattered and flew open; a graceful woman, all in white, swiftly thrust her lovely head from the window, and stretching out her arms toward me, said: "_Sei tu?_"

I was disconcerted, I did not know what to say; but at that same moment the Unknown threw herself backward with a faint shriek, the blind slammed to, and the light in the pavilion grew still more dim, as though it had been carried out into another room. I remained motionless, and for a long time could not recover myself. The face of the woman who had so suddenly presented itself before me was strikingly beautiful. It had flashed too rapidly before my eyes to permit of my immediately recalling each individual feature; but the general impression was indescribably powerful and profound.... I felt then and there that I should never forget that countenance. The moon fell straight on the wall of the pavilion, on the window whence she had shown herself to me, and, great heavens! how magnificently had her great, dark eyes shone in its radiance! In what a heavy flood had her half-loosened black hair fallen upon her uplifted, rounded shoulders! How much bashful tenderness there had been in the soft inclination of her form, how much affection in her voice, when she had called to me--in that hurried, but resonant whisper!

After standing for quite a long time on one spot, I at last stepped a little aside, into the shadow of the opposite wall, and began to stare thence at the pavilion with a sort of stupid surprise and antic.i.p.ation.

I listened .... listened with strained attention... It seemed to me now that I heard some one's quiet breathing behind the darkened window, now a rustle and quiet laughter. At last, steps resounded in the distance ... they came nearer; a man of almost identical stature with myself made his appearance at the end of the street, briskly strode up to a gate directly beneath the pavilion, which I had not previously noticed, knocked twice with its iron ring, without looking about him, waited a little, knocked again, and began to sing in an undertone: "_Ecco ridente_."... The gate opened ... he slipped noiselessly through it. I started, shook my head, threw my hands apart, and pulling my hat morosely down on my brows, went off home in displeasure. On the following day I vainly paced up and down that street for two hours in the very hottest part of the day, past the pavilion, and that same evening went away from Sorrento without even having visited Ta.s.so's house.

The reader can now picture to himself the amazement which suddenly took possession of me, when I heard that same voice, that same song, in the steppes, in one of the most remote parts of Russia.... Now, as then, it was night; now, as then, the voice suddenly rang out from a lighted, unfamiliar room; now, as then, I was alone. My heart began to beat violently within me. "Is not this a dream?" I thought. And lo! again the final "_vieni!_" rang out.... Can it be that the window will open? Can it be that the woman will show herself in it?--The window opened. In the window, a woman showed herself. I instantly recognised her, although a distance of fifty paces lay between us, although a light cloud obscured the moon. It was she, my Unknown of Sorrento.

But she did not stretch forth her bare arms as before: she folded them quietly, and leaning them on the window-sill, began to gaze silently and immovably at some point in the garden. Yes, it was she; those were her never-to-be-forgotten features, her eyes, the like of which I had never beheld. Now, also, an ample white gown enfolded her limbs. She seemed somewhat plumper than in Sorrento. Everything about exhaled an atmosphere of the confidence and repose of love, the triumph of beauty, of calm happiness. For a long time she did not stir, then she cast a glance backward into the room and, suddenly straightening herself up, exclaimed thrice, in a loud and ringing voice: "_Addio!_" The beautiful sounds were wafted far, far away, and for a long time they quivered, growing fainter and dying out beneath the lindens of the garden and in the fields behind me, and everywhere. Everything around me was filled for several minutes with the voice of this woman, everything rang in response to her,--rang with her. She shut the window, and a few moments later the light in the house vanished.

As soon as I recovered myself--and this was not very soon, I must admit--I immediately directed my course along the garden of the manor, approached the closed gate, and peered through the wattled fence.

Nothing out of the ordinary was visible in the courtyard; in one corner, under a shed, stood a calash. Its front half, all bespattered with dried mud, shone out sharply white in the moonlight. The shutters of the house were closed, as before.

I have forgotten to say, that for about a week previous to that day, I had not visited Glinnoe. For more than half an hour I paced to and fro in perplexity in front of the fence, so that, at last, I attracted the attention of the old watch-dog, which, nevertheless, did not begin to bark at me, but merely looked at me from under the gate in a remarkably ironical manner, with his purblind little eyes puckered up. I understood his hint, and beat a retreat. But before I had managed to traverse half a verst, I suddenly heard the sound of a horse's hoofs behind me.... In a few minutes a rider, mounted on a black horse, dashed past me at a swift trot, and swiftly turning toward me his face, where I could descry nothing save an aquiline nose and a very handsome moustache under his military cap, which was pulled well down on his brow, turned into the right-hand road, and immediately vanished behind the forest.

"So that is he," I thought to myself, and my heart stirred within me in a strange sort of way. It seemed to me that I recognised him; his figure really did suggest the figure of the man whom I had seen enter the garden-gate in Sorrento. Half an hour later I was in Glinnoe at my host's, had roused him, and had immediately begun to interrogate him as to the persons who had arrived at the neighbouring farm. He replied with an effort that the ladies had arrived.

"But what ladies?"

"Why, everybody knows what ladies," he replied very languidly.

"Russians?"

"What else should they be?--Russians, of course."

"Not foreigners?"

"Hey?"

"Have they been here long?"

"Not long, of course."

"And have they come to stay long?"

"That I don't know."

"Are they wealthy?"

"And that, too, we don't know. Perhaps they are wealthy."

"Did not a gentleman come with them?"

"A gentleman?"

"Yes, a gentleman."

The Elder sighed.

"O, okh, O Lord!"--he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed with a yawn.... "N-n-o, there was no .... gentleman, I think there was no gentleman. I don't know!"--he suddenly added.

"And what sort of other neighbours are living here?"

"What sort? everybody knows what sort,--all sorts."

"All sorts?--And what are their names?"

"Whose--the lady proprietors'? or the neighbours'?"

"The lady proprietors'."

Again the Elder yawned.

"What are their names?"--he muttered.--"Why, G.o.d knows what their names are! The elder, I think, is named Anna Feodorovna, and the other ... No, I don't know that one's name."

"Well, what 's their surname, at least?"

"Their surname?"

"Yes, their surname, their family name."

"Their family name.... Yes. Why, as G.o.d is my witness, I don't know."

"Are they young?"

"Well, no. They are not."

"How old are they, then?"

"Why, the youngest must be over forty."

"Thou art inventing the whole of this."

The Elder was silent for a while.

"Well, you must know best. But I don't know."

"Well, thou art wound up to say one thing!"--I exclaimed with vexation.

Knowing, by experience, that there is no possibility of extracting anything lucid from a Russian man when once he undertakes to answer in that way (and, moreover, my host had only just thrown himself down to sleep, and swayed forward slightly before every answer, opening his eyes widely with child-like surprise, and with difficulty ungluing his lips, smeared with the honey of the first, sweet slumber),--I gave up in despair, and declining supper, went into the barn.

I could not get to sleep for a long time. "Who is she?"--I kept incessantly asking myself:--"a Russian? If a Russian, why does she speak in Italian?.... The Elder declares that she is not young.... But he 's lying.... And who is that happy man?.. Positively, I can comprehend nothing... But what a strange adventure! Is it possible that thus, twice in succession ..... But I will infallibly find out who she is, and why she has come hither."... Agitated by such disordered, fragmentary thoughts as these, I fell asleep late, and saw strange visions.... Now it seems to me that I am wandering in some desert, in the very blaze of noonday--and suddenly, I behold in front of me, a huge spot of shadow running over the red-hot yellow sand... I raise my head--'t is she, my beauty, whisking through the air, all white, with long white wings, and beckoning me to her. I dart after her; but she floats on lightly and swiftly, and I cannot rise from the ground, and stretch out eager hands in vain.... "_Addio!_" she says to me, as she flies away.--"Why hast thou not wings?.. _Addio!_".... And lo, from all sides, "_Addio!_"

resounds. Every grain of sand shouts and squeaks at me: "_Addio!_"...

then rings out in an intolerable, piercing trill... I brush it aside, as I would a gnat, I seek her with my eyes ... and already she has become a cloud, and is floating upward softly toward the sun; the sun quivers, rocks, laughs, stretches out to meet her long golden threads, and now those threads have enmeshed her, and she melts into them, but I shout at the top of my lungs, like a madman: "That is not the sun, that is not the sun, that is an Italian spider. Who gave it a pa.s.sport for Russia? I 'll show him up for what he is: I saw him stealing oranges from other people's gardens."... Then it seems to me that I am walking along a narrow mountain path... I hurry onward: I must get somewhere or other as quickly as possible, some unheard-of happiness is awaiting me. Suddenly a vast cliff rears itself up in front of me. I seek a pa.s.sage; I go to the right, I go to the left--there is no pa.s.sage! And now behind the cliff a voice suddenly rings out: "_Pa.s.sa, pa.s.sa quei colli._"... It is calling me, that voice; it repeats its mournful summons. I fling myself about in anguish, I seek even the smallest cleft.... Alas! the cliff is perpendicular, there is granite everywhere.... "_Pa.s.sa quei colli_,"

wails the voice again. My heart aches, and I hurl my breast against the smooth stone; I scratch it with my nails, in my frenzy.... A dark pa.s.sage suddenly opens before me... Swooning with joy, I dash forward...