And the hours dragged on and would not end. How long the night was!
Toward morning she fell asleep. She dreamed that her mother came to her bed, in a white dress and with large, beautiful wings, and whispered to her:
"Wake up, wake up, long sleeper; have you forgotten that to-day is your wedding-day? I have come down from heaven to dress you and to bless you!" And then she sprung out of her bed, and her mother dressed her.
Ah! how sweet it was to feel the soft, delicate hands once more about her as formerly! All at once her mother grew uneasy. "I cannot find your wreath," she murmured, and wandered round the room seeking the wreath, and wept bitterly.
"Here it is, little mother, there," cried Mascha, and handed her the wreath which she had worn to the ball. Then the mother was frightened and said:
"Oh, no, that is not your wreath, it is torn and red with shame; hide it, Maschenka, hide it. Your wreath must be white as my wings, and like a crown, so round and firm, a crown of thorns concealed under roses; that is the bridal wreath, thus we bind it for you poor mortals in heaven. I will bring you one from above, and will break out all the thorns for you, my treasure, my darling!" And her mother wished to spread out her wings and ascend, but she could not, her wings were broken. And she looked at Mascha with such large, helpless, sad, deathly, frightened eyes, and then turned away.
"Mother!" cries Mascha, in her sleep; "mother!" She awoke. The sunbeam which waked her every morning penetrated the curtains of her bed.
She hid her face in the pillow and wept.
* * * * *
If it had seemed to Barenburg, on the evening before the duel, that there could be no more endurable hours for him without Mascha, and as if the betrothal with Sylvia Anthropos, which had been forced upon him, must be broken off at the cost of the roughest brutality even, on the day after the duel, when he lay in bed with a wounded shoulder, he had other views.
The recollection of his adventure with Mascha filled him with vexation, almost with rage. If Mascha had formerly been for him the most peculiarly charming being whom he had ever met, she was now in his eyes nothing more than a pretty, badly watched, badly brought up being, whom in his magisterial Austrian manner he described as a true Russian.
The thought of his astonishing experiences with "young girls" in St.
Petersburg came to his mind, and did its share in throwing a distorting light on Mascha"s exaltation.
He is vexed at what has happened; more than that, he is ashamed of it; but he denies any obligation to expiate his precipitation by a marriage.
XVIII.
It is the Jeliagins" reception day. As usual, Mascha makes the tea. In vain has she begged to be excused from this to-day. Anna, who hates to do it, would hear nothing of this.
Eight days have pa.s.sed since she went to him; she is wholly without news of him. Only through strangers has she learned he is wounded, slightly, not dangerously.
Mechanically she fulfils her duty. She looks no one in the face; she does not hear if they speak to her.
The opening of a door, the entrance of a visitor, causes her each time a painful excitement. She does not know who comes, nor to whom she gives tea, nor what the people say. She has the same thought, the same feeling of being plunged in a black, miry abyss in which she can find no ground for her feet.
Sophie and Nita have both come to-day. Nita, who has visited Mascha many times already since Lensky"s departure, inquires after her health, and why she has not let herself be seen in the last week.
"How troubled you look to-day," whispers she, taking the child"s pale face--they are a little apart from the others--between her hands, "and how pale! Do you want anything, my angel? Are you vexed over anything?"
"No, no; I do not know what you mean," replies Mascha, irritably, and frees herself.
New guests come, Madame Jeliagin desires tea for a lady. Mascha again steps to the samovar.
Suddenly she hears Barenburg"s name.
"Have you seen Countess Barenburg yet, Madame Jeliagin?" asks a certain Mrs. Joyce.
"No; I did not think that she was in Paris."
"She is only here for a short time," continues Mrs. Joyce; "she has come from Vienna."
"To take care of her son?" asks Madame Jeliagin. "As I hear, he was wounded in a duel."
"Ah! that was nothing; he has already recovered. He indeed still carries his arm in a sling, but I met him yesterday in the Bois. The Countess has come here to her son"s betrothal. Barenburg is betrothed to Sylvia Anthropos."
"Since when?" asks Anna, sharply.
"Since about ten days; Sylvia told me to-day," says Mrs. Joyce.
"You know that the Countess Barenburg is an Englishwoman."
"Yes, Lady Banbury"s sister."
"And Lady Emily Anthropos"s cousin," says Mrs. Joyce. "She is charmed with the betrothal--an extremely suitable match. Barenburg has received a furlough. Day after to-morrow he goes with his mother and the Anthropos to England. The wedding is to be in June."
Then a short, crashing sound--a cup has fallen from Mascha"s hand and broken to bits.
"You are intolerably awkward," says Anna. "Fortunately, the cup was empty."
Mrs. Joyce looks up; her eyes rest on Mascha, who looks pitiable. Her lips are blue, she trembles in her whole frame.
"You have a chill, poor child," says Mrs. Joyce, compa.s.sionately.
But, blushing deeply, Mascha turns away her face.
"I begged you to let me stay up-stairs, Anna," she gasps out. "You know that I am ill." And, tottering, she leaves the room.
"She is laughable," murmurs Anna. The old Madame Jeliagin is confusedly silent.
Nita and Sophie took leave. "Poor child," remarked Sophie; "how could Lensky leave her with these people? They torment her crazy."
"Wait for me a little, I would like to see her," says Nita, and hurries up-stairs to the door of Mascha"s room. She opens it without knocking.
Mascha crouches in an arm-chair, trembling, her teeth chattering. "What do you want?" asks she of Nita.
"I was worried about you, my heart," says Nita. She kneels down near the child, and puts her arms round the trembling young form. "Mascha,"
whispers she, holding the girl closely to her, "tell me--with me you can speak as if I were your mother--are you ill only, or is there something else which torments you?"
But Mascha, who used so tenderly to lean on Nita, pushes her roughly and angrily from her. "Leave me," she cries, "I am ill, I wish to be alone--go!"
Without paying the slightest attention to Mascha"s repellant rudeness, Nita holds the girl still closer to her breast. "I cannot see you so silently martyr yourself, such a poor mite of seventeen, who has no one on whose breast she can really cry herself out! Confide in me. Your grief is certainly not worth the trouble. It is only because you shut it up so in your heart that it seems great to you, my pretty little mouse, my dear little bird!" And Nita kisses her on her curly hair, on both eyes.
All at once Maschenka begins to sob, but so convulsively, so hoa.r.s.ely and gaspingly, as Nita has never heard any one sob before. It goes to her heart.
"How stupid I was!" she thinks, suddenly. "It is Karl Barenburg"s betrothal which pains her. Is it really possible that this fiery, generous little heart wounds itself for the superficial dandy? Poor little goose!"