Chapter M: VILLAGE, September 8, 1850 (2)

I remember I went home thinking of nothing in particular, but with a strange load at my heart, when I was suddenly struck by a strong familiar scent, rare in Germany. I stood still, and saw near the road a small bed of hemp. Its fragrance of the steppes instantaneously brought my own country to my mind, and stirred a passionate longing for it in my heart. I longed to breathe Russian air, to tread on Russian soil. ‘What am I doing here, why am I trailing about in foreign countries among strangers?’ I cried, and the dead weight I had felt at my heart suddenly passed into a bitter, stinging emotion. I reached home in quite a different frame of mind from the evening before. I felt almost enraged, and it was a long while before I could recover my equanimity. I was beset by a feeling of anger I could not explain. At last I sat down, and bethinking myself of my faithless widow (I wound up every day regularly by dreaming, as in duty bound, of this lady), I pulled out one of her letters. But I did not even open it; my thoughts promptly took another turn. I began dreaming--dreaming of Acia. I recollected that Gagin had, in the course of conversation, hinted at certain difficulties, obstacles in the way of his returning to Russia.… ‘Come, is she his sister?’ I said aloud.

I undressed, got into bed, and tried to get to sleep; but an hour later I was sitting up again in bed, propped up with my elbow on the pillow, and was once more thinking about this ‘whimsical chit of a girl with the affected laugh.…’ ‘She’s the figure of the little Galatea of Raphael in the Farnesino,’ I murmured: ‘yes; and she’s not his sister----’

The widow’s letter lay tranquil and undisturbed on the floor, a white patch in the moonlight.

V

Next morning I went again to L----. I persuaded myself I wanted to see Gagin, but secretly I was tempted to go and see what Acia would do, whether she would be as whimsical as on the previous day. I found them both in their sitting-room, and strange to say--possibly because I had been thinking so much that night and morning of Russia--Acia struck me as a typically Russian girl, and a girl of the humbler class, almost like a Russian servant-girl. She wore an old gown, she had combed her hair back behind her ears, and was sitting still as a mouse at the window, working at some embroidery in a frame, quietly, demurely, as though she had never done anything else all her life. She said scarcely anything, looked quietly at her work, and her features wore such an ordinary, commonplace expression, that I could not help thinking of our Katias and Mashas at home in Russia. To complete the resemblance she started singing in a low voice, ‘Little mother, little dove.’ I looked at her little face, which was rather yellow and listless, I thought of my dreams of the previous night, and I felt a pang of regret for something.

It was exquisite weather. Gagin announced that he was going to make a sketch to-day from nature; I asked him if he would let me go with him, whether I shouldn’t be in his way.

‘On the contrary,’ he assured me; ‘you may give me some good advice.’

He put on a hat à la Vandyck, and a blouse, took a canvas under his arm, and set out; I sauntered after him. Acia stayed at home. Gagin, as he went out, asked her to see that the soup wasn’t too thin; Acia promised to look into the kitchen. Gagin went as far as the valley I knew already, sat down on a stone, and began to sketch a hollow oak with spreading branches. I lay on the grass and took out a book; but I didn’t read two pages, and he simply spoiled a sheet of paper; we did little else but talk, and as far as I am competent to judge, we talked rather cleverly and subtly of the right method of working, of what we must avoid, and what one must cling to, and wherein lay the significance of the artist in our age. Gagin, at last, decided that he was not in the mood to-day, and lay down beside me on the grass. And then our youthful eloquence flowed freely; fervent, pensive, enthusiastic by turns, but consisting almost always of those vague generalities into which a Russian is so ready to expand. When we had talked to our hearts’ content, and were full of a feeling of satisfaction as though we had got something done, achieved some sort of success, we returned home. I found Acia just as I had left her; however assiduously I watched her I could not detect a shade of coquetry, nor a sign of an intentionally assumed rôle in her; this time it was impossible to reproach her for artificiality.

‘Aha!’ said Gagin; ‘she has imposed fasting and penance on herself.’

Towards evening she yawned several times with obvious genuineness, and went early to her room. I myself soon said good-bye to Gagin, and as I went home, I had no dreams of any kind; that day was spent in sober sensations. I remember, however, as I lay down to sleep, I involuntarily exclaimed aloud--

‘What a chameleon the girl is!’ and after a moment’s thought I added; ‘anyway, she’s not his sister.’

VI

A whole fortnight passed by. I visited the Gagins every day. Acia seemed to avoid me, but she did not permit herself one of the mischievous tricks which had so surprised me the first two days of our acquaintance. She seemed secretly wounded or embarrassed; she even laughed less than at first. I watched her with curiosity.

She spoke French and German fairly well; but one could easily see, in everything she did, that she had not from childhood been brought up under a woman’s care, and that she had had a curious, irregular education that had nothing in common with Gagin’s bringing up. He was, in spite of the Vandyck hat and the blouse, so thoroughly every inch of him the soft, half-effeminate Great Russian nobleman, while she was not like the young girl of the same class. In all her movements there was a certain restlessness. The wild stock had not long been grafted, the new wine was still fermenting. By nature modest and timid, she was exasperated by her own shyness, and in her exasperation tried to force herself to be bold and free and easy, in which she was not always successful. I sometimes began to talk to her about her life in Russia, about her past; she answered my questions reluctantly. I found out, however, that before going abroad she had lived a long while in the country. I came upon her once, intent on a book, alone. With her head on her hands and her fingers thrust into her hair, she was eagerly devouring the lines.

‘Bravo!’ I said, going up to her; ‘how studious you are!’ She raised her head, and looked gravely and severely at me. ‘You think I can do nothing but laugh,’ she said, and was about to go away.…

I glanced at the title of the book; it was some French novel.

‘I can’t commend your choice, though,’ I observed.

‘What am I to read then?’ she cried; and flinging the book on the table, she added--‘so I’d better go and play the fool,’ and ran out into the garden.

That same day, in the evening, I was reading Gagin _Hermann und Dorothea_. Acia at first kept fidgeting about us, then all at once she stopped, listened, softly sat down by me, and heard the reading through to the end. The next day I hardly knew her again, till I guessed it had suddenly occurred to her to be as domestic and discreet as Dorothea. In fact I saw her as a half-enigmatic creature. Vain, self-conscious to the last degree, she attracted me even when I was irritated by her. Of one thing only I felt more and more convinced; and that was, that she was not Gagin’s sister. His manner with her was not like a brother’s, it was too affectionate, too considerate, and at the same time a little constrained.

A curious incident apparently confirmed my suspicions.

One evening, when I reached the vineyard where the Gagins lived, I found the gate fastened. Without losing much time in deliberation, I made my way to a broken-down place I had noticed before in the hedge and jumped over it. Not far from this spot there was a little arbour of acacias on one side of the path. I got up to it and was just about to pass it.… Suddenly I was struck by Acia’s voice passionately and tearfully uttering the following words:

‘No, I’ll love no one but you, no, no, I will love you only, for ever!’

‘Come, Acia, calm yourself,’ said Gagin; ‘you know I believe you.’

Their voices came from the arbour. I could see them both through the thin net-work of leaves. They did not notice me.

‘You, you only,’ she repeated, and she flung herself on his neck, and with broken sobs began kissing him and clinging to his breast.

‘Come, come,’ he repeated, lightly passing his hand over her hair.

For a few instants I stood motionless.… Suddenly I started--should I go up to them?--‘On no consideration,’ flashed through my head. With rapid footsteps I turned back to the hedge, leaped over it into the road, and almost running, went home. I smiled, rubbed my hands, wondered at the chance which had so suddenly confirmed my surmises (I did not for one instant doubt their accuracy) and yet there was a great bitterness in my heart. What accomplished hypocrites they are, though, I thought. And what for? Why should he try to take me in? I shouldn’t have expected it of him.… And what a touching scene of reconciliation!

VII

I slept badly, and next morning got up early, fastened a knapsack on my back, and telling my landlady not to expect me back for the night, set off walking to the mountains, along the upper part of the stream on which Z. is situated. These mountains, offsets of the ridge known as the Hundsrück, are very interesting from a geological point of view. They are especially remarkable for the purity and regularity of the strata of basalt; but I was in no mood for geological observations. I did not take stock of what was passing within me. One feeling was clear to me; a disinclination to see the Gagins. I assured myself that the sole reason of my sudden distaste for their society was anger at their duplicity. Who forced them to pass themselves off as brother and sister? However, I tried not to think about them; I sauntered in leisurely fashion about the mountains and valleys, sat in the village inns, talking peacefully to the innkeepers and people drinking in them, or lay on a flat stone warmed by the sun, and watched the clouds floating by. Luckily it was exquisite weather. In such pursuits I passed three days, and not without pleasure, though my heart did ache at times. My own mood was in perfect harmony with the peaceful nature of that quiet countryside.

I gave myself up entirely to the play of circumstances, of fleeting impressions; in slow succession they flowed through my soul, and left on it at last one general sensation, in which all I had seen, felt, and heard in those three days was mingled--all; the delicate fragrance of resin in the forest, the call and tap of the woodpeckers, the never-ceasing chatter of the clear brooks, with spotted trout lying in the sand at the bottom, the somewhat softened outlines of the mountains, the surly rocks, the little clean villages, with respectable old churches and trees, the storks in the meadows, the neat mills with swiftly turning wheels, the beaming faces of the villagers, their blue smocks and grey stockings, the creaking, deliberately-moving wagons, drawn by sleek horses, and sometimes cows, the long-haired young men, wandering on the clean roads, planted with apple and pear trees.…

Even now I like to recall my impressions of those days. Good luck go with thee, modest nook of Germany, with thy simple plenty, with traces everywhere of busy hands, of patient though leisurely toil.… Good luck and peace to thee!

I came home at the end of the third day: I forgot to say that in my anger with the Gagins I tried to revive the image of my cruel-hearted widow, but my efforts were fruitless. I remember when I applied myself to musing upon her, I saw a little peasant girl of five years old, with a round little face and innocently staring eyes. She gazed with such childish directness at me.… I felt ashamed before her innocent stare, I could not lie in her presence, and at once, and once for all, said a last good-bye to my former flame.

At home I found a note from Gagin. He wondered at the suddenness of my plan, reproached me, asked why I had not taken him with me, and pressed me to go and see him directly I was back. I read this note with dissatisfaction; but the next day I set off to the Gagins.

VIII

Gagin met me in friendly fashion, and overwhelmed me with affectionate reproaches; but Acia, as though intentionally, burst out laughing for no reason whatever, directly she saw me, and promptly ran away, as she so often did. Gagin was disconcerted; he muttered after her that she must be crazy, and begged me to excuse her. I confess I was very much annoyed with Acia; already, apart from that, I was not at my ease; and now again this unnatural laughter, these strange grimaces. I pretended, however, not to notice anything, and began telling Gagin some of the incidents of my short tour. He told me what he had been doing in my absence. But our talk did not flow easily; Acia came into the room and ran out again; I declared at last that I had urgent work to do, and must get back home. Gagin at first tried to keep me, then, looking intently at me, offered to see me on my way. In the passage, Acia suddenly came up to me and held out her hand; I shook her fingers very slightly, and barely bowed to her. Gagin and I crossed the Rhine together, and when we reached my favourite ash-tree with the statuette of the Madonna, we sat down on the bench to admire the view. A remarkable conversation took place between us.

At first we exchanged a few words, then we were silent, watching the clear river.

‘Tell me,’ began Gagin all at once, with his habitual smile, ‘what do you think of Acia? I suppose she must strike you as rather strange, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ I answered, in some perplexity. I had not expected he would begin to speak of her.

‘One has to know her well to judge of her,‘ he observed; ’she has a very good heart, but she’s wilful. She’s difficult to get on with. But you couldn’t blame her if you knew her story.…’

‘Her story?’ I broke in.… ‘Why, isn’t she your----’ Gagin glanced at me.

‘Do you really think she isn’t my sister?… No,’ he went on, paying no attention to my confusion, ‘she really is my sister, she’s my father’s daughter. Let me tell you about her, I feel I can trust you, and I’ll tell you all about it.

‘My father was very kind, clever, cultivated, and unhappy. Fate treated him no worse than others; but he could not get over her first blow. He married early, for love; his wife, my mother, died very soon after; I was only six months old then. My father took me away with him to his country place, and for twelve years he never went out anywhere. He looked after my education himself, and would never have parted with me, if his brother, my uncle, had not come to see us in the country. This uncle always lived in Petersburg, where he held a very important post. He persuaded my father to put me in his charge, as my father would not on any consideration agree to leave the country. My uncle represented to him that it was bad for a boy of my age to live in complete solitude, that with such a constantly depressed and taciturn instructor as my father I should infallibly be much behind other boys of my age in education, and that my character even might very possibly suffer. My father resisted his brother’s counsels a long while, but he gave way at last. I cried at parting from my father; I loved him, though I had never seen a smile on his face … but when I got to Petersburg, I soon forgot our dark and cheerless home. I entered a cadet’s school, and from school passed on into a regiment of the Guards. Every year I used to go home to the country for a few weeks, and every year I found my father more and more low-spirited, absorbed in himself, depressed, and even timorous. He used to go to church every day, and had quite got out of the way of talking. On one of my visits--I was about twenty then--I saw for the first time in our house a thin, dark-eyed little girl of ten years old--Acia. My father told me she was an orphan whom he had kept out of charity--that was his very expression. I paid no particular attention to her; she was shy, quick in her movements, and silent as a little wild animal, and directly I went into my father’s favourite room--an immense gloomy apartment, where my mother had died, and where candles were kept burning even in the daytime--she would hide at once behind his big arm-chair, or behind the book-case. It so happened that for three or four years after that visit the duties of the service prevented my going home to the country. I used to get a short letter from my father every month; Acia he rarely mentioned, and only incidentally. He was over fifty, but he seemed still young. Imagine my horror; all of a sudden, suspecting nothing, I received a letter from the steward, in which he informed me my father was dangerously ill, and begged me to come as soon as possible if I wanted to take leave of him. I galloped off post-haste, and found my father still alive, but almost at his last gasp. He was greatly relieved to see me, clasped me in his wasted arms, and gazed at me with a long, half-scrutinising, half-imploring look, and making me promise I would carry out his last request, he told his old valet to bring Acia. The old man brought her in; she could scarcely stand upright, and was shaking all over.

‘“Here,” said my father with an effort, “I confide to you my daughter--your sister. You will hear all about her from Yakov,” he added, pointing to the valet.

‘Acia sobbed, and fell with her face on the bed.… Half-an-hour later my father died.

‘This was what I learned. Acia was the daughter of my father by a former maidservant of my mother’s, Tatiana. I have a vivid recollection of this Tatiana, I remember her tall, slender figure, her handsome, stern, clever face, with big dark eyes. She had the character of being a proud, unapproachable girl. As far as I could find out from Yakov’s respectful, unfinished sentences, my father had become attached to her some years after my mother’s death. Tatiana was not living then in my father’s house, but in the hut of a married sister, who had charge of the cows. My father became exceedingly fond of her, and after my departure from the country he even wanted to marry her, but she herself would not consent to be his wife, in spite of his entreaties.

‘“The deceased Tatiana Vassilievna,” Yakov informed me, standing in the doorway with his hands behind him, “had good sense in everything, and she didn’t want to do harm to your father. ‘A poor wife I should be for you, a poor sort of lady I should make,’ so she was pleased to say, she said so before me.” Tatiana would not even move into the house, and went on living at her sister’s with Acia. In my childhood I used to see Tatiana only on saints’ days in church. With her head tied up in a dark kerchief, and a yellow shawl on her shoulders, she used to stand in the crowd, near a window--her stern profile used to stand out sharply against the transparent window-pane--and she used to pray sedately and gravely, bowing low to the ground in the old-fashioned way. When my uncle carried me off, Acia was only two years old, and she lost her mother when she was nine.

‘Directly Tatiana died, my father took Acia into his house. He had before then expressed a wish to have her with him, but that too Tatiana had refused him. Imagine what must have passed in Acia’s mind when she was taken into the master’s house. To this day she cannot forget the moment when they first put her on a silk dress and kissed her hand. Her mother, as long as she lived, had brought her up very strictly; with my father she enjoyed absolute freedom. He was her tutor; she saw no one except him. He did not spoil her, that is to say, he didn’t fondle and pet her; but he loved her passionately, and never checked her in anything; in his heart he considered he had wronged her. Acia soon realised that she was the chief personage in the house; she knew the master was her father; but just as quickly she was aware of her false position; self-consciousness was strongly developed in her, mistrustfulness too; bad habits took root, simplicity was lost. She wanted (she confessed this to me once herself), to force _the whole world_ to forget her origin; she was ashamed of her mother, and at the same time ashamed of being ashamed, and was proud of her too. You see she knew and knows a lot that she oughtn’t to have known at her age.… But was it her fault? The forces of youth were at work in her, her heart was in a ferment, and not a guiding hand near her. Absolute independence in everything! And wasn’t it hard for her to put up with? She wanted to be as good as other young ladies; she flew to books. But what good could she get from that? Her life went on as irregularly as it had begun, but her heart was not spoiled, her intellect was uninjured.

‘And there was I left, a boy of twenty, with a girl of thirteen on my hands! For the first few days after my father’s death the very sound of my voice threw her into a fever, my caresses caused her anguish, and it was only slowly and gradually that she got used to me. It is true that later, when she fully realised that I really did acknowledge her as my sister, and cared for her, she became passionately attached to me; she can feel nothing by halves.

‘I took her to Petersburg. Painful as it was to part with her, we could not live together. I sent her to one of the best boarding-schools. Acia knew our separation was inevitable, yet she began by fretting herself ill over it, and almost died. Later on she plucked up more spirit, and spent four years at school; but, contrary to my expectations, she was almost exactly the same as before. The headmistress of the school often made complaints of her, “And we can’t punish her,” she used to say to me, “and she’s not amenable to kindness.” Acia was exceedingly quick-witted, and did better at her lessons than any one; but she never would put herself on a level with the rest; she was perverse, and held herself aloof.… I could not blame her very much for it; in her position she had either to be subservient, or to hold herself aloof. Of all her school-fellows she only made friends with one, an ugly girl of poor family, who was sat upon by the rest. The other girls with whom she was brought up, mostly of good family, did not like her, teased her and taunted her as far as they could. Acia would not give way to them an inch. One day at their lesson on the law of God, the teacher was talking of the vices. ‘Servility and cowardice are the worst vices,’ Acia said aloud. She would still go her own way, in fact; only her manners were improved, though even in that respect I think she did not gain a great deal.

‘At last she reached her seventeenth year. I could not keep her any longer at school. I found myself in a rather serious difficulty. Suddenly a blessed idea came to me--to resign my commission and go abroad for a year or two, taking Acia with me. No sooner thought than done; and here we are on the banks of the Rhine, where I am trying to take up painting, and she … is as naughty and troublesome as ever. But now I hope you will not judge her too harshly; for though she pretends she doesn’t care, she values the good opinion of every one, and yours particularly.’

And Gagin smiled again his gentle smile. I pressed his hand warmly.

‘That’s how it is,’ Gagin began again; ‘but I have a trying time with her. She’s like gun-powder, always ready to go off. So far, she has never taken a fancy to any one, but woe betide us, if she falls in love! I sometimes don’t know what to do with her. The other day she took some notion into her head, and suddenly began declaring I was colder to her than I used to be, that she loved me and no one else, and never would love any one else.… And she cried so, as she said it--’

‘So that was it,’--I was beginning, but I bit my tongue.

‘Tell me,’ I questioned Gagin, ‘we have talked so frankly about everything, is it possible really, she has never cared for any one yet? Didn’t she see any young men in Petersburg?’

‘She didn’t like them at all. No, Acia wants a hero--an exceptional individual--or a picturesque shepherd on a mountain pass. But I’ve been chattering away, and keeping you,’ he added, getting up.

‘Do you know----,’ I began; ‘let’s go back to your place, I don’t want to go home.’

‘What about your work?’

I made no reply. Gagin smiled good-humouredly, and we went back to L. As I caught sight of the familiar vineyard and little white house, I felt a certain sweetness--yes, sweetness in my heart, as though honey was stealthily dropping thence for me. My heart was light after what Gagin had told me.

IX

Acia met us in the very doorway of the house. I expected a laugh again; but she came to meet us, pale and silent, with downcast eyes.

‘Here he is again,’ Gagin began, ‘and he wanted to come back of his own accord, observe.’

Acia looked at me inquiringly. It was my turn now to hold out my hand, and this time I pressed her chilly fingers warmly. I felt very sorry for her. I understood now a great deal in her that had puzzled me before; her inward restlessness, her want of breeding, her desire to be striking--all became clear to me. I had had a peep into that soul; a secret scourge was always tormenting her, her ignorant self-consciousness struggled in confused alarm, but her whole nature strove towards truth. I understood why this strange little girl attracted me; it was not only by the half-wild charm of her slender body that she attracted me; I liked her soul.

Gagin began rummaging among his canvases. I suggested to Acia that she should take a turn with me in the vineyard. She agreed at once, with cheerful and almost humble readiness. We went half-way down the mountain, and sat down on a broad stone.

‘And you weren’t dull without us?’ Acia began.

‘And were you dull without me?’ I queried.

Acia gave me a sidelong look.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Was it nice in the mountains?’ she went on at once. ‘Were they high ones? Higher than the clouds? Tell me what you saw. You were telling my brother, but I didn’t hear anything.’

‘It was of your own accord you went away,’ I remarked.

‘I went away … because …--I’m not going away now,’ she added with a confiding caress in her voice. ‘You were angry to-day.’

‘I?’

‘Yes, you.’

‘Upon my word, whatever for?’

‘I don’t know, but you were angry, and you went away angry. I was very much vexed that you went away like that, and I’m so glad you came back.’

‘And I’m glad I came back,’ I observed.

Acia gave herself a little shrug, as children often do when they are very pleased.

‘Oh, I’m good at guessing!’ she went on. ‘Sometimes, simply from the way papa coughed, I could tell in the next room whether he was pleased with me or not.’

Till that day Acia had never once spoken to me of her father. I was struck by it.

‘Were you fond of your father?’ I said, and suddenly, to my intense annoyance, I felt I was reddening.

She made no answer, and blushed too. We were both silent. In the distance a smoking steamer was scudding along on the Rhine. We began watching it.

‘Why don’t you tell me about your tour?’ Acia murmured.

‘Why did you laugh to-day directly you saw me?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know really. Sometimes I want to cry, but I laugh. You mustn’t judge me--by what I do. Oh, by-the-bye, what a story that is about the Lorelei! Is that _her_ rock we can see? They say she used to drown every one, but as soon as she fell in love she threw herself in the water. I like that story. Frau Luise tells me all sorts of stories. Frau Luise has a black cat with yellow eyes.…’

Acia raised her head and shook her curls.

‘Ah, I am happy,’ she said.

At that instant there floated across to us broken, monotonous sounds. Hundreds of voices in unison and at regular intervals were repeating a chanted litany. The crowd of pilgrims moved slowly along the road below with crosses and banners.…

‘I should like to go with them,’ said Acia, listening to the sounds of the voices gradually growing fainter.

‘Are you so religious?’

‘I should like to go far away on a pilgrimage, on some great exploit,’ she went on. ‘As it is, the days pass by, life passes by, and what have we done?’

‘You are ambitious,’ I observed. ‘You want to live to some purpose, to leave some trace behind you.…’

‘Is that impossible, then?’

‘Impossible,’ I was on the point of repeating.… But I glanced at her bright eyes, and only said:

‘You can try.’

‘Tell me,’ began Acia, after a brief silence during which shadows passed over her face, which had already turned pale, ‘did you care much for that lady?… You remember my brother drank her health at the ruins the day after we first knew you.’

I laughed.

‘Your brother was joking. I never cared for any lady; at any rate, I don’t care for one now.’

‘And what do you like in women?’ she asked, throwing back her head with innocent curiosity.

‘What a strange question!’ I cried.

Acia was a little disconcerted.

‘I ought not to ask you such a question, ought I? Forgive me, I’m used to chattering away about anything that comes into my head. That’s why I’m afraid to speak.’

‘Speak, for God’s sake, don’t be afraid,’ I hastened to intervene; ‘I’m so glad you’re leaving off being shy at last.’

Acia looked down, and laughed a soft light-hearted laugh; I had never heard such a laugh from her.

‘Well, tell me about something,’ she went on, stroking out the skirt of her dress, and arranging the folds over her legs, as though she were settling herself for a long while; ‘tell me or read me something, just as you read us, do you remember, from _Oniegin_.…’

She suddenly grew pensive--

‘Where now is the cross and the branches’ shade
Over my poor mother’s grave!’

She murmured in a low voice.

‘That’s not as it is in Pushkin,’ I observed.

‘But I should like to have been Tatiana,’ she went on, in the same dreamy tone. ‘Tell me a story,’ she suddenly added eagerly.

But I was not in a mood for telling stories. I was watching her, all bathed in the bright sunshine, all peace and gentleness. Everything was joyously radiant about us, below, and above us--sky, earth, and waters; the very air seemed saturated with brilliant light.

‘Look, how beautiful!’ I said, unconsciously sinking my voice.

‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ she answered just as softly, not looking at me. ‘If only you and I were birds--how we would soar, how we would fly.… We’d simply plunge into that blue.… But we’re not birds.’

‘But we may grow wings,’ I rejoined.

‘How so?’

‘Live a little longer--and you’ll find out. There are feelings that lift us above the earth. Don’t trouble yourself, you will have wings.’

‘Have you had them?’

‘How shall I say … I think up till now I never have taken flight.’

Acia grew pensive once more. I bent a little towards her.

‘Can you waltz?’ she asked me suddenly.

‘Yes,’ I answered, rather puzzled.

‘Well, come along then, come along.… I’ll ask my brother to play us a waltz.… We’ll fancy we are flying, that our wings have grown.’

She ran into the house. I ran after her, and in a few minutes, we were turning round and round the narrow little room, to the sweet strains of Lanner. Acia waltzed splendidly, with enthusiasm. Something soft and womanly suddenly peeped through the childish severity of her profile. Long after, my arm kept the feeling of the contact of her soft waist, long after I heard her quickened breathing close to my ear, long after I was haunted by dark, immobile, almost closed eyes in a pale but eager face, framed in by fluttering curls.

X

All that day passed most delightfully. We were as merry as children. Acia was very sweet and simple. Gagin was delighted, as he watched her. I went home late. When I had got out into the middle of the Rhine, I asked the ferryman to let the boat float down with the current. The old man pulled up his oars, and the majestic river bore us along. As I looked about me, listened, brooded over recollections, I was suddenly aware of a secret restlessness astir in my heart.… I lifted my eyes skywards, but there was no peace even in the sky; studded with stars, it seemed all moving, quivering, twinkling; I bent over to the river--but even there, even in those cold dark depths, the stars were trembling and glimmering; I seemed to feel an exciting quickening of life on all sides--and a sense of alarm rose up within me too. I leaned my elbows on the boat’s edge.… The whispering of the wind in my ears, the soft gurgling of the water at the rudder worked on my nerves, and the fresh breath of the river did not cool me; a nightingale was singing on the bank, and stung me with the sweet poison of its notes. Tears rose into my eyes, but they were not the tears of aimless rapture.… What I was feeling was not the vague sense I had known of late of all-embracing desire when the soul expands, resounds, when it feels that it grasps all, loves all.… No! it was the thirst for happiness aflame in me. I did not dare yet to call it by its name--but happiness, happiness full and overflowing--that was what I wanted, that was what I pined for.… The boat floated on, and the old ferryman sat dozing as he leant on his oars.

XI

As I set off next day to the Gagins, I did not ask myself whether I was in love with Acia, but I thought a great deal about her, her fate absorbed me, I rejoiced at our unexpected intimacy. I felt that it was only yesterday I had got to know her; till then she had turned away from me. And now, when she had at last revealed herself to me, in what a seductive light her image showed itself, how fresh it was for me, what secret fascinations were modestly peeping out.…

I walked boldly up the familiar road, gazing continually at the cottage, a white spot in the distance. I thought not of the future--not even of the morrow--I was very happy.

Acia flushed directly I came into the room; I noticed that she had dressed herself in her best again, but the expression of her face was not in keeping with her finery; it was mournful. And I had come in such high spirits! I even fancied that she was on the point of running away as usual, but she controlled herself and remained. Gagin was in that peculiar condition of artistic heat and intensity which seizes amateurs all of a sudden, like a fit, when they imagine they are succeeding in ‘catching nature and pinning her down.’ He was standing with dishevelled locks, and besmeared with paint, before a stretched canvas, and flourishing the brush over it; he almost savagely nodded to me, turned away, screwed up his eyes, and bent again over his picture. I did not hinder him, but went and sat down by Acia. Slowly her dark eyes turned to me.

‘You’re not the same to-day as yesterday,’ I observed, after ineffectual efforts to call up a smile on her lips.

‘No, I’m not,’ she answered, in a slow and dull voice. ‘But that means nothing. I did not sleep well, I was thinking all night.’

‘What about?’

‘Oh, I thought about so many things. It’s a way I have had from childhood; ever since I used to live with mother--’

She uttered the word with an effort, and then repeated again--

‘When I used to live with mother.… I used to think why it was no one could tell what would happen to him; and sometimes one sees trouble coming--and one can’t escape; and how it is one can never tell all the truth.… Then I used to think I knew nothing, and that I ought to learn. I want to be educated over again; I’m very badly educated. I can’t play the piano, I can’t draw, and even sewing I do very badly. I have no talent for anything; I must be a very dull person to be with.’

‘You’re unjust to yourself,’ I replied; ‘you’ve read a lot, you’re cultivated, and with your cleverness--’

‘Why, am I clever?’ she asked with such naïve interest, that I could not help laughing; but she did not even smile. ‘Brother, am I clever?’ she asked Gagin.

He made her no answer, but went on working, continually changing brushes and raising his arm.

‘I don’t know myself what is in my head,’ Acia continued, with the same dreamy air. ‘I am sometimes afraid of myself, really. Ah, I should like.… Is it true that women ought not to read a great deal?’

‘A great deal’s not wanted, but.…’

‘Tell me what I ought to read? Tell me what I ought to do. I will do everything you tell me,’ she added, turning to me with innocent confidence.

I could not at once find a reply.

‘You won’t be dull with me, though?’

‘What nonsense,’ I was beginning.…

‘All right, thanks!’ Acia put in; ‘I was thinking you would be bored.’

And her little hot hand clasped mine warmly.

‘N!’ Gagin cried at that instant; ‘isn’t that background too dark?’

I went up to him. Acia got up and went away.

XII

She came back in an hour, stood in the doorway and beckoned to me.

‘Listen,’ she said; ‘if I were to die, would you be sorry?’

‘What ideas you have to-day!’ I exclaimed.

‘I fancy I shall die soon; it seems to me sometimes as though everything about me were saying good-bye. It’s better to die than live like this.… Ah! don’t look at me like that; I’m not pretending, really. Or else I shall begin to be afraid of you again.’

‘Why, were you afraid of me?’

‘If I am queer, it’s really not my fault,’ she rejoined. ‘You see, I can’t even laugh now.…’

She remained gloomy and preoccupied till evening. Something was taking place in her; what, I did not understand. Her eyes often rested upon me; my heart slowly throbbed under her enigmatic gaze. She appeared composed, and yet as I watched her I kept wanting to tell her not to let herself get excited. I admired her, found a touching charm in her pale face, her hesitating, slow movements, but she for some reason fancied I was out of humour.

‘Let me tell you something,’ she said to me not long before parting; ‘I am tortured by the idea that you consider me frivolous.… For the future believe what I say to you, only do you, too, be open with me; and I will always tell you the truth, I give you my word of honour.…’

This ‘word of honour’ set me laughing again.

‘Oh, don’t laugh,’ she said earnestly, ‘or I shall say to you to-day what you said to me yesterday, “why are you laughing?”’ and after a brief silence she added, ‘Do you remember you spoke yesterday of “wings”?… My wings have grown, but I have nowhere to fly.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said; ‘all the ways lie open before you.…’

Acia looked at me steadily, straight in the face.

‘You have a bad opinion of me to-day,’ she said, frowning.

‘I? a bad opinion of you!…’

‘Why is it you are both so low-spirited,’ Gagin interrupted me--‘would you like me to play a waltz, as I did yesterday?’

‘No, no,’ replied Acia, and she clenched her hands; ‘not to-day, not for anything!’

‘I’m not going to force you to; don’t excite yourself.’

‘Not for anything!’ she repeated, turning pale.

* * * * *

‘Can it be she’s in love with me?’ I thought, as I drew near the dark rushing waters of the Rhine.

XIII

‘Can it be that she loves me?’ I asked myself next morning, directly I awoke. I did not want to look into myself. I felt that her image, the image of the ‘girl with the affected laugh,’ had crept close into my heart, and that I should not easily get rid of it. I went to L---- and stayed there the whole day, but I saw Acia only by glimpses. She was not well; she had a headache. She came downstairs for a minute, with a bandage round her forehead, looking white and thin, her eyes half-closed. With a faint smile she said, ‘It will soon be over, it’s nothing; everything’s soon over, isn’t it?’ and went away. I felt bored and, as it were, listlessly sad, yet I could not make up my mind to go for a long while, and went home late, without seeing her again.

The next morning passed in a sort of half slumber of the consciousness. I tried to set to work, and could not; I tried to do nothing and not to think--and that was a failure too. I strolled about the town, returned home, went out again.

‘Are you Herr N----?’ I heard a childish voice ask suddenly behind me. I looked round; a little boy was standing before me. ‘This is for you from Fraülein Annette,’ he said, handing me a note.

I opened it and recognised the irregular rapid handwriting of Acia. ‘I must see you to-day,’ she wrote to me; ‘come to-day at four o’clock to the stone chapel on the road near the ruin. I have done a most foolish thing to-day.… Come, for God’s sake; you shall know all about it.… Tell the messenger, yes.’

‘Is there an answer?’ the boy asked me.

‘Say, yes,’ I replied. The boy ran off.

XIV

I went home to my own room, sat down, and sank into thought. My heart was beating violently. I read Acia’s note through several times. I looked at my watch; it was not yet twelve o’clock.

The door opened, Gagin walked in.

His face was overcast. He seized my hand and pressed it warmly. He seemed very much agitated.

‘What is the matter?’ I asked.

Gagin took a chair and sat down opposite me. ‘Three days ago,’ he began with a rather forced smile, and hesitating, ‘I surprised you by what I told you; to-day I am going to surprise you more. With any other man I could not, most likely, bring myself … so directly.… But you’re an honourable man, you’re my friend, aren’t you? Listen--my sister, Acia, is in love with you.’

I trembled all over and stood up.…

‘Your sister, you say----’

‘Yes, yes,’ Gagin cut me short. ‘I tell you, she’s mad, and she’ll drive me mad. But happily she can’t tell a lie, and she confides in me. Ah, what a soul there is in that little girl!… but she’ll be her own ruin, that’s certain.’

‘But you’re making a mistake,’ I began.

‘No, I’m not making a mistake. Yesterday, you know, she was lying down almost all day, she ate nothing, but she did not complain.… She never does complain. I was not anxious, though towards evening she was in a slight fever. At two o’clock last night I was wakened by our landlady; “Go to your sister,” she said; “there’s something wrong with her.” I ran in to Acia, and found her not undressed, feverish, and in tears; her head was aching, her teeth were chattering. “What’s the matter with you?” I said, “are you ill?” She threw herself on my neck and began imploring me to take her away as soon as possible, if I want to keep her alive.… I could make out nothing, I tried to soothe her.… Her sobs grew more violent, … and suddenly through her sobs I made out … well, in fact, I made out that she loves you. I assure you, you and I are reasonable people, and we can’t imagine how deeply she feels and with what incredible force her feelings show themselves; it has come upon her as unexpectedly and irresistibly as a thunderstorm. You’re a very nice person,’ Gagin pursued, ‘but why she’s so in love with you, I confess I don’t understand. She says she has been drawn to you from the first moment she saw you. That’s why she cried the other day when she declared she would never love any one but me.--She imagines you despise her, that you most likely know about her birth; she asked me if I hadn’t told you her story,--I said, of course, that I hadn’t; but her intuition’s simply terrible. She has one wish,--to get away, to get away at once. I sat with her till morning; she made me promise we should not be here to-morrow, and only then, she fell asleep. I have been thinking and thinking, and at last I made up my mind to speak to you. To my mind, Acia is right; the best thing is for us both to go away from here. And I should have taken her away to-day, if I had not been struck by an idea which made me pause. Perhaps … who knows? do you like my sister? If so, what’s the object of my taking her away? And so I decided to cast aside all reserve.… Besides, I noticed something myself.… I made up my mind … to find out from you …’ Poor Gagin was completely out of countenance. ‘Excuse me, please,’ he added, ‘I’m not used to such bothers.’

I took his hand.

‘You want to know,’ I pronounced in a steady voice, ‘whether I like your sister? Yes, I do like her--’

Gagin glanced at me. ‘But,’ he said, faltering, ‘you’d hardly marry her, would you?’

‘How would you have me answer such a question? Only think; can I at the moment----’

‘I know, I know,’ Gagin cut me short; ‘I have no right to expect an answer from you, and my question was the very acme of impropriety.… But what am I to do? One can’t play with fire. You don’t know Acia; she’s quite capable of falling ill, running away, or asking you to see her alone.… Any other girl might manage to hide it all and wait--but not she. It is the first time with her, that’s the worst of it! If you had seen how she sobbed at my feet to-day, you would understand my fears.’

I was pondering. Gagin’s words ‘asking you to see her alone,’ had sent a twinge to my heart. I felt it was shameful not to meet his honest frankness with frankness.

‘Yes,’ I said at last; ‘you are right. An hour ago I got a note from your sister. Here it is.’

Gagin took the note, quickly looked it through, and let his hands fall on his knees. The expression of perplexity on his face was very amusing, but I was in no mood for laughter.

‘I tell you again, you’re an honourable man,’ he said; ‘but what’s to be done now? What? she herself wants to go away, and she writes to you and blames herself for acting unwisely … and when had she time to write this? What does she wish of you?’

I pacified him, and we began to discuss as coolly as we could what we ought to do.

The conclusion we reached at last was that, to avoid worse harm befalling, I was to go and meet Acia, and to have a straightforward explanation with her; Gagin pledged himself to stay at home, and not to give a sign of knowing about her note to me; in the evening we arranged to see each other again.

‘I have the greatest confidence in you,’ said Gagin, and he pressed my hand; ‘have mercy on her and on me. But we shall go away to-morrow, anyway,’ he added getting up, ‘for you won’t marry Acia, I see.’

‘Give me time till the evening,’ I objected.

‘All right, but you won’t marry her.’

He went away, and I threw myself on the sofa, and shut my eyes. My head was going round; too many impressions had come bursting on it at once. I was vexed at Gagin’s frankness, I was vexed with Acia, her love delighted and disconcerted me, I could not comprehend what had made her reveal it to her brother; the absolute necessity of rapid, almost instantaneous decision exasperated me. ‘Marry a little girl of seventeen, with her character, how is it possible?’ I said, getting up.

XV

At the appointed hour I crossed the Rhine, and the first person I met on the opposite bank was the very boy who had come to me in the morning. He was obviously waiting for me.

‘From Fraülein Annette,’ he said in a whisper, and he handed me another note.

Acia informed me she had changed the place of our meeting. I was to go in an hour and a half, not to the chapel, but to Frau Luise’s house, to knock below, and go up to the third storey.

‘Is it, yes, again?’ asked the boy.

‘Yes,’ I repeated, and I walked along the bank of the Rhine. There was not time to go home, I didn’t want to wander about the streets. Beyond the town wall there was a little garden, with a skittle ground and tables for beer drinkers. I went in there. A few middle-aged Germans were playing skittles; the wooden balls rolled along with a sound of knocking, now and then cries of approval reached me. A pretty waitress, with her eyes swollen with weeping, brought me a tankard of beer; I glanced at her face. She turned quickly and walked away.