Annouchka: A Tale

Here Gaguine, disconcerted, stopped short.

"Pray excuse me – pardon – I am not accustomed to interviews of this kind."

I took his hand.

"You wish to know if your sister pleases me!" I said to him firmly. "She does please me!"

Gaguine fixed his eyes upon me. "But, in short," replied he, hesitating, – "would you marry her?"

"How can I answer that question. I make you the judge of it. – Can I do it now?"

"I know it, I know it," cried Gaguine; "no, I have no right to expect an answer from you, and the question that I have asked you is unconventional in every particular, but force of circumstances compelled me to do so. It is not safe to play with fire! You don't understand what Annouchka is. She may fall ill, or run away, or even – or even give you a rendezvous. Another would know how to conceal her feelings and wait, but she cannot. It is her first experience, that's the worst of it! If you could have seen to-day the way in which she sobbed at my feet, you would share my fears."

I began to reflect. The words of Gaguine, "Give you a rendezvous," oppressed my heart. It seemed shameful to me not to answer his honest frankness by a loyal confession.

"Yes!" I at length said to him, "you are right. I received, about an hour ago, a letter from your sister; there it is." He took it, ran through it rapidly, and again let his hands fall upon his knees. The astonishment that his features expressed would have been laughable, if I could have laughed at that moment.

"You are a man of honor," he said. "I am not the less embarrassed to know what to do. How! She asks me to fly, and in this letter she reproaches herself for her imprudence! But when, then, did she have the time to write to you? and what are her intentions in regard to you?"

I reassured him, and we applied ourselves, with as much coolness as was possible, to discuss what we should do. This is the plan which we finally determined upon to prevent all unhappiness. It was agreed that I should go to the rendezvous and speak plainly with Annouchka. Gaguine promised to remain at home, without showing that he had read the letter; and it was decided, moreover, that we should meet in the evening.

"I have full confidence in you," he said, pressing my hand; "have consideration for her and for me; but, nevertheless, we will leave to-morrow," added he, rising, "since it is settled that you will not marry her."

"Give me until this evening," I replied.

"So be it! you will not marry her!"

He took his departure; I threw myself upon the divan and closed my eyes. I was dazed; too many thoughts at once crowded into my brain. I was angry with Gaguine for his frankness; I was angry with Annouchka: her love filled me with joy – and yet I was afraid of it.

I could not account for her having made a full confession to her brother. That which above all caused me great pain was the absolute necessity of making a sudden and almost instantaneous decision.

"Marry a girl of seventeen, with a disposition like that; it is impossible!" I cried, rising.

XV

At the hour agreed upon I crossed the Rhine, and the first person I met on the bank was the same little boy who had found me in the morning. He seemed to be waiting for me. "From Mademoiselle Anna," he said to me, in a low voice, and he gave me another note.

Annouchka announced to me that she had changed the place of the rendezvous. She told me to meet her in an hour and a half – not at the chapel, but at Dame Louise's; I was to knock at the door, enter, and go up three flights.

"Again Yes?" asked the little boy.

"Yes," I replied, and walked along the river bank. I had not time enough to return to my house, and did not wish to wander about the streets.

Behind the walls of the town stretched a little garden, with a bowling-alley covered with a roof, and some tables for beer-drinkers. I entered it.

Several middle-aged Germans were bowling; the balls rolled noisily along; exclamations could be heard from time to time. A pretty little waiting-maid, her eyes swollen from crying, brought me a jug of beer; I looked her in the face, she turned away bruskly and withdrew.

"Yes, yes!" muttered a stout German with very red cheeks, who was seated near me; "our Hannchen is in great distress to-day; her sweetheart is drawn in the conscription." I looked at her at this moment; retiring into a corner, she was resting her cheek upon her hand, and great tears slowly rolled between her fingers. Some one asked for beer; she brought him a jug, and went back to her place. This grief reacted upon me, and I began to think of my rendezvous with sadness and uneasiness.

It was not with a light heart that I was going to this interview. I must not give myself up to the joys of a reciprocal love. Must keep to my word, fulfil a difficult duty. "It is not safe to play with fire." This expression, which Gaguine had used in speaking of his sister, pierced me like a sharp arrow to the bottom of my soul. Yet three days before, in that boat carried along by the stream, was I not tormented by a thirst for happiness? Now I could satisfy it, and I hesitated. I thrust back this happiness; it was my duty to do so; the unforeseen something which it presented frightened me. Annouchka herself, with her impulsive nature, her education, this girl strange and full of fascination, I confess it, frightened me.

I struggled a long time with these feelings. The moment fixed upon approached. "I can not marry her," at last I said to myself; "she will not know that I have loved her."

I arose, put a thaler into poor Hannchen's hand (she did not even thank me), and proceeded towards the house of Dame Louise.

The shades of night were already in the air, and above the dark street stretched a narrow band of sky, reddened by the setting sun. I gently tapped at the door; it was immediately opened.

I crossed the threshold and found myself in complete darkness.

"This way," said a cracked voice, "you are expected."

I groped along in the dark a few steps; a bony hand seized mine.

"Is it you, Dame Louise?" I asked.

"Yes!" answered the same voice, "it is I, my fine young man."

The old woman took me up a very steep staircase, and stopped upon the landing of the third story. I recognized then, by the faint glimmer from a little garret window, the wrinkled face of the burgomaster's widow. A sly and mawkish smile half opened her toothless mouth, and made her dull eyes glitter. She pointed out a door. I opened it with a convulsive movement, and slammed it after me.

XVI

The little room in which I found myself was quite dark, and it was some moments before I saw Annouchka. She was seated near the window, enveloped in a large shawl, her head turned away and almost concealed, like a startled bird. I felt a deep pity for her. I approached; she turned away her head still more.

"Anna Nicolaëvna!" I said to her. She turned quickly and tried to fasten her look upon mine, but had not the strength. I took her hand; it was like a dead person's, motionless and cold in mine.

"I would like," said she, attempting to smile, but her pale lips would not allow of it; "I would like – no, impossible," she murmured. She was silent; indeed, her voice grew fainter at every word.

I sat down by her.

"Anna Nicolaëvna!" I said again, and, in my turn, I could say nothing more. There was a long silence. Retaining her hand in mine, I gazed at her. Sinking down, she breathed quickly, biting her lower lip, in order to keep back the tears which were ready to flow. I continued to gaze at her; there was in her motionless and timorous attitude an expression of weakness deeply touching. It was as if she had fallen crushed upon the chair and could not stir. My heart was filled with pity.

"Annouchka!" I said in a low voice. She slowly raised her eyes to mine. O the look of a woman whose heart has just opened to love! how find words to describe it? – They beseech, those eyes! they question, they give themselves up. – I could not resist them – a subtle fire ran through my veins. I bent over her head and covered it with kisses. – Suddenly my ear was struck by a trembling sound like a stifled sob. I felt a hand which trembled like a leaf pass over my hair. I raised my head and saw her face. – What a sudden transfiguration had come over it! – Fright had disappeared; her eyes had a far-away look that seemed to ask mine to join with them; her lips were slightly apart; her forehead was as pale as marble, whilst her curls floated behind her head, as if a breath of air had blown them back!

I forgot everything. I drew her towards me. She offered no resistance. Her shawl slipped from her shoulders, her head fell and rested gently upon my breast, under the kisses of my burning lips.

"I am yours!" she murmured feebly.

Suddenly the thought of Gaguine flashed across me.

"What are we doing?" I cried, pushing her from me convulsively. "Your brother knows everything; he knows that we are here together!"

Annouchka fell back upon the chair.

"Yes," I said, rising and going away from her, "your brother knows everything! I was forced to tell him all."

"Forced?" she stammered. She seemed hardly to understand me.

"Yes, yes," I repeated harshly, "and it is your fault, – yours, yours alone! What reason had you to give up your secret? Were you forced to tell your brother everything? He came to me this morning and repeated all you had told him."

I tried not to look any more at her, and paced the room.

"Now," I replied, "all is lost, – all, absolutely all."

Annouchka attempted to rise.

"Stay!" I cried. "Stay, I beseech you; fear nothing, you have to do with a man of honor! But, for heaven's sake, speak! What has frightened you? Have I changed towards you? As to myself, when your brother came to me yesterday, I could not do otherwise than tell him what our relations were."

"Why tell her all that?" I thought to myself, and the idea that I was a cowardly deceiver, that Gaguine was aware of our rendezvous, that all was disclosed – lost beyond redemption – immediately crossed my mind.

"I did not send for my brother last night," she said, with a choking voice, "he came of himself."

"But do you see what this has led to? Now you wish to go away."

"Yes, I must go," she said, in a very low voice. "I besought you to come here to say farewell."

"And you think, perhaps, that to part from you costs me nothing?"

"But why was it necessary to confide in my brother?" replied Annouchka in a stupefied tone.

"I repeat to you, I could not do otherwise. If you had not betrayed yourself" —

"I was shut up in my room," she replied naïvely. "I did not know that the landlady had another key."

This innocent excuse at the moment put me in a rage; and now I cannot think of it without deep emotion. Poor child, what an upright and frank soul!

"So all is at an end," I replied once more; "at an end – ; and we must part."

I looked at her furtively. The color mounted to her face; shame and terror – I felt it only too keenly – seized her. On my side, I walked to and fro, speaking as if in delirium.

"There was in my heart," I continued, "a feeling just springing up, which, if you had left it to time, would have developed! You have yourself broken the bond that united us; you have failed to put confidence in me."

While I spoke, Annouchka leaned forward more and more. – Suddenly she fell upon her knees, hid her face in her hands, and began to sob. I ran to her, I attempted to raise her, but she resisted obstinately.

Woman's tears thoroughly upset me. I cried out to her: —

"Anna Nicolaëvna! Annouchka, – pray, for heaven's sake, – calm yourself, – I beseech you."

And I took her hand in mine.

But at the moment when I least expected it, she suddenly arose, then, like a flash, ran towards the door and disappeared.

Dame Louise, who entered the room a few moments later, found me in the same place, as if struck by a thunderbolt.

I could not understand how this interview could have ended so abruptly, and in such a ridiculous manner, before I had expressed a hundredth part of what I had to say; before I even could foresee what the consequences of it were.

"Mademoiselle has gone?" Dame Louise asked me, raising her yellow eyebrows.

I looked at her with a stupefied air, and left.

XVII

I passed through the town and walked straight ahead to the fields. A feeling of vexed disappointment filled my heart. I loaded myself with reproaches. Why did I not appreciate the motive that had induced this young girl to change the place of our meeting? Why did I not appreciate how hard it would be for her to go to this old woman's house? Why, finally, did I not stay away?

Alone with her in that dark, isolated room, I had had the courage to thrust her away, and to remonstrate with her; and, now her image pursued me, I asked her pardon – her pale face, her eyes timid and full of tears; her hair in disorder, flowing over her bended neck; the touch of her forehead as it rested upon my breast; all these remembrances made me beside myself, and I thought I still heard her murmuring, "I am yours!"

I reflected: I have obeyed the voice of my conscience. – But no? it was false! for, most certainly, I should never have wished in my heart for such a dénouement. – And, then, to be separated from her, to live without her, shall I have the strength? – "Fool! miserable fool that I am!" I cried angrily.

In the meantime night was approaching. I directed my hurried steps towards the dwelling of Annouchka.

XVIII

Gaguine came out to meet me.

"Have you seen my sister?" he cried, from a distance.

"She is not at home then?" I asked him.

"No."

"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 passed 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."

"God be praised!" I cried, in a paroxysm of indescribable joy. "God 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 passed 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.

"You must be mistaken, it's impossible!" I stammered.

The servant looked at me vacantly, and began to sweep.

I opened the letter; it was from Gaguine. Not a line from Annouchka!

In beginning, he begged me to forgive him for this hasty departure. He added that when I was calmer I would approve, no doubt, of his determination. It was the only means of getting out of an embarrassing position, and one that might become dangerous.

"Yesterday evening," he said to me, "while we were waiting for Annouchka in silence, I was convinced of the necessity of a separation. There are prejudices that I respect; I can understand that you could not marry her. She has told me all, and for her sake I must yield to her urgent entreaties."

At the end of his letter he expressed regret at the breaking off of our friendly intercourse so soon; hoped that I would always be happy; pressed my hand, and begged me not to try and meet them again.

"A question of prejudices indeed!" I exclaimed, as if he could hear me. "Folly all that! What right has he to take her away from me?" I clutched my head wildly.

The servant began to scream for her mistress, and her fright brought me to my senses. I felt that I had but one object: to find them again; to find them again at any cost. To bear such a blow; to resign myself; to see things end in this way was truly beyond my strength! I learned from the landlady that they went at six o'clock to take the steamboat down the Rhine. I went to the office; they told me that they had taken places for Cologne. I returned to my house to pack up and immediately follow them.

As I passed Dame Louise's house I heard some one call me. I raised my head and perceived the burgomaster's widow at the window of the room where the previous evening I had seen Annouchka. Upon her lips hovered that disagreeable smile that I had noticed before. She beckoned to me. I turned away, and was about to go on, but she called out that she had something to give me. These words stopped me, and I entered the house. How can I express to you my emotion, when I found myself again in that little room.

"To tell the truth," began the old woman, showing me a note, "I should only have given you this if you had come to my house of your own accord; but you are such a fine young man – there!"

I took the note; I read upon a little piece of paper the following lines, traced in haste with a pencil: —

"Farewell! we shall see each other no more. It is not through pride that I go away; I cannot do otherwise. Yesterday, when I wept before you, if you had said to me but one word, a single word, I would have remained. You did not say it. – Who knows? Perhaps it is for the best that it is so. Farewell forever!"

She had expected but "one word!" Fool that I was! That word I said the previous evening again and again with many tears; I threw it to the wind; I cried it out in the midst of lonely fields: but I did not say it to her; I did not tell her that I loved her! Yes, it was then impossible for me to pronounce that word. In this fatal room, where I found myself face to face with her, I was not yet fully conscious of my love; it did not awaken even then, when in a dull and gloomy silence I stood near her brother, – it only burst forth, sudden and irresistible, a few moments after, when, terrified by the thought of a misfortune, I began to seek her, calling aloud; but then already it was too late! – It is impossible, they will tell me; – I know not if it is impossible, but I know that it was so. Annouchka would not have gone if she had had the least coquetry, if she had not found herself in an essentially false position. An uncertain position that any other woman would have accepted she found intolerable. This did not occur to me. My evil genius, then, at my last interview with Gaguine, under his dark window, had checked that confession which was upon my lips, and thus the last thread that I could have seized had broken in my hands.

I returned the same day to L. with my traps, and started for Cologne. I often remember that at the moment when the steamboat left the shore, and when I said farewell to all those streets, to all those places that I should never forget, I perceived Hannchen, the little servant-maid.

She was seated upon a bench near the river bank: though yet pale, her face was no longer sorrowful. A handsome young fellow was by her side and laughing with her, whilst at the other side of the Rhine my little Madonna, concealed in the dark foliage of the old ash, followed me sadly with her glance.

XXII

At Cologne I again came upon the track of Gaguine and his sister. I learned that they had gone to London. I immediately went to that city; all researches that I made there were in vain. For a long time I did not allow myself to be discouraged; for a long time I showed obstinate persistence, but finally was obliged to give up all hope of meeting them again.

I never saw them again! I never again saw Annouchka! – Later I heard some quite vague rumors of her brother; but as to her I have never heard her spoken of; I do not even know if she still lives.

Some years ago, while travelling, I caught sight for an instant, at the door of a railway-carriage, of a woman whose face had a little resemblance to those features that I shall never forget; but this resemblance was doubtless the result of chance. Annouchka lived in my memory as the young girl whom I saw at our last interview, pale and trembling, leaning upon the back of a wooden chair in the dark corner of a lonely room.