The corpse was the baron, my father! I stood as though turned to stone.
Only then I realised that I had been led since early morning by some unknown forces, that I was in their power, and for some instants there was nothing in my soul but the never-ceasing crash of the sea, and dumb horror at the fate that had possession of me....
XV
He lay on his back, turned a little to one side, with his left arm behind his head ... the right was thrust under his bent body. The toes of his feet, in high sailor"s boots, had been sucked into the slimy sea-mud; the short blue jacket, drenched through with brine, was still closely b.u.t.toned; a red scarf was fastened in a tight knot about his neck. The dark face, turned to the sky, looked as if it were laughing; the small close-set teeth could be seen under the lifted upper lip; the dim pupils of the half-closed eyes were scarcely discernible in the darkened eyeb.a.l.l.s; the clotted hair, covered with bubbles of foam, lay dishevelled on the ground, and bared the smooth brow with the purple line of the scar; the narrow nose rose, a sharp white line, between the sunken cheeks. The storm of the previous night had done its work.... He would never see America again! The man who had outraged my mother, who had spoiled and soiled her life; my father--yes!
my father--of that I could feel no doubt--lay helplessly outstretched in the mud at my feet. I experienced a sensation of satisfied revenge, and of pity, and repulsion, and horror, more than all ... a double horror, at what I saw, and at what had happened. The wicked criminal feelings of which I have spoken, those uncomprehended impulses of rage rose up in me ... choked me. "Aha!" I thought, "so that is why I am like this ... that is how my blood shows itself!" I stood beside the corpse, and stared in suspense.
Would not those dead eyes move, would not those stiff lips quiver? No! all was still; the very seaweed seemed lifeless where the breakers had flung it; even the gulls had flown; not a broken spar anywhere, not a fragment of wood, nor a bit of rigging. On all sides emptiness ... only he and I, and in the distance the sounding sea. I looked back; the same emptiness there: a ridge of lifeless downs on the horizon ... that was all! My heart revolted against leaving this luckless wretch in this solitude, on the briny sand of the seash.o.r.e, to be devoured by fishes and birds; an inner voice told me I ought to find people, call them, if not to help--what help could there be now!--at least to lift him up, to carry him into some living habitation ... but an indescribable panic suddenly seized on me. It seemed to me that this dead man knew I had come here, that he had himself planned this last meeting. I even fancied I heard the indistinct mutter I knew so well.... I ran away ... looked back once.... Something glittering caught my eye; it brought me to a halt. It was a hoop of gold on the hand of the corpse.... I knew it for my mother"s betrothal ring. I remember how I forced myself to turn back, to go up, to bend down ... I remember the clammy touch of the chill fingers; I remember how I held my breath, and half-closed my eyes, and set my teeth, tearing off the obstinate ring....
At last, it was off ... and I was running, running away at full speed, with something flying behind me, upon my heels, overtaking me.
XVI
All I had felt and gone through was probably written on my face when I got home. My mother abruptly drew herself up directly I went into her room, and looked with such urgent inquiry at me, that, after an unsuccessful attempt to explain, I ended by holding out the ring to her in silence. She turned fearfully white, her eyes opened extraordinarily and looked dead, like _those_ eyes; she uttered a faint cry, s.n.a.t.c.hed the ring, reeled, fell on my breast, and fairly swooned away, her head falling back, and her blank wide-open eyes staring at me. I threw both my arms about her, and standing where I was, without moving, told her slowly, in a subdued voice, everything, without the slightest concealment: my dream, and the meeting, and everything, everything.... She heard me to the end without uttering a single word, only her bosom heaved more and more violently, and her eyes suddenly flashed and sank. Then she put the ring on her third finger, and, moving away a little, began getting her cape and hat. I asked her where she was going. She lifted eyes full of surprise upon me, and tried to answer, but her voice failed her. She shuddered several times, rubbed her hands, as though she were trying to warm them, and at last said, "Let us go there at once."
"Where, mother?"
"Where he is lying ... I want to see ... I want to know ... I will know...."
I endeavoured to persuade her not to go; but she almost fell into a nervous attack. I saw it was impossible to oppose her wish, and we set off.
XVII
And now I was again walking along the sand; but this time not alone. I had my mother on my arm. The sea had ebbed away, had retreated farther still; it was calmer, but its roar, though fainter, was still menacing and malignant. There, at last, rose the solitary rock before us; there was the seaweed too. I looked intently, I tried to distinguish that curved object lying on the ground--but I saw nothing. We went closer; instinctively I slackened my pace. But where was the black still object? Only the tangles of seaweed rose black against the sand, which had dried up by now. We went right up to the rock.... There was no corpse to be seen; and only where it had been lying there was still a hollow place, and one could see where the arms and where the legs had lain.... The seaweed around looked as it were crushed, and prints were visible of one man"s feet; they crossed the dune, then were lost, as they reached the heaped-up shingle.
My mother and I looked at each other, and were frightened at what we saw in each other"s faces....
Surely he had not got up of himself and gone away?
"You are sure you saw him dead?" she asked in a whisper.
I could only nod in a.s.sent. Three hours had not pa.s.sed since I had come upon the baron"s corpse.... Some one had discovered and removed it. I must find out who had done it, and what had become of it.
But first I had to look after my mother.
XVIII
While she had been walking to the fatal spot she had been in a fever, but she controlled herself. The disappearance of the dead body came upon her as a final blow. She was struck dumb. I feared for her reason. With great difficulty I got her home. I made her lie down again on her bed, again I sent for the doctor, but as soon as my mother had recovered herself a little, she at one desired me to set off without delay to find out "that man." I obeyed. But, in spite of every possible effort, I discovered nothing. I went several times to the police, visited several villages in the neighbourhood, put several advertis.e.m.e.nts in the papers, collected information in all directions, and all in vain! I received information, indeed, that the corpse of a drowned man had been picked up in one of the seaside villages near.... I at once hastened off there, but from all I could hear the body had no resemblance to the baron. I found out in what ship he had set sail for America; at first every one was positive that ship had gone down in the storm; but a few months later there were rumours that it had been seen riding at anchor in New York harbour. Not knowing what steps to take, I began seeking out the negro I had seen, offering him in the papers a considerable sum of money if he would call at our house. Some tall negro in a cloak did actually call on us in my absence.... But after questioning the maid, he abruptly departed, and never came back again.
So all traces were lost of my ... my father; so he vanished into silence and darkness never to return. My mother and I never spoke of him; only one day, I remember, she expressed surprise that I had never told her before of my strange dream; and added, "It must mean he really....", but did not utter all her thought. My mother was ill a long while, and even after her recovery our former close relations never returned. She was ill at ease with me to the day of her death.... Ill at ease was just what she was. And that is a trouble there is no cure for. Anything may be smoothed over, memories of even the most tragic domestic incidents gradually lose their strength and bitterness; but if once a sense of being ill at ease installs itself between two closely united persons, it can never be dislodged! I never again had the dream that had once so agitated me; I no longer "look for" my father; but sometimes I fancied--and even now I fancy--that I hear, as it were, distant wails, as it were, never silent, mournful plaints; they seem to sound somewhere behind a high wall, which cannot be crossed; they wring my heart, and I weep with closed eyes, and am never able to tell what it is, whether it is a living man moaning, or whether I am listening to the wild, long-drawn-out howl of the troubled sea. And then it pa.s.ses again into the muttering of some beast, and I fall asleep with anguish and horror in my heart.
POEMS IN PROSE
I
[1878]
THE COUNTRY
The last day of July; for a thousand versts around, Russia, our native land.
An unbroken blue flooding the whole sky; a single cloudlet upon it, half floating, half fading away. Windlessness, warmth ... air like new milk!
Larks are trilling; pouter-pigeons cooing; noiselessly the swallows dart to and fro; horses are neighing and munching; the dogs do not bark and stand peaceably wagging their tails.
A smell of smoke and of hay, and a little of tar, too, and a little of hides. The hemp, now in full bloom, sheds its heavy, pleasant fragrance.
A deep but sloping ravine. Along its sides willows in rows, with big heads above, trunks cleft below. Through the ravine runs a brook; the tiny pebbles at its bottom are all aquiver through its clear eddies. In the distance, on the border-line between earth and heaven, the bluish streak of a great river.
Along the ravine, on one side, tidy barns, little storehouses with close-shut doors; on the other side, five or six pinewood huts with boarded roofs. Above each roof, the high pole of a pigeon-house; over each entry a little short-maned horse of wrought iron. The window-panes of faulty gla.s.s shine with all the colours of the rainbow. Jugs of flowers are painted on the shutters. Before each door, a little bench stands prim and neat; on the mounds of earth, cats are basking, their transparent ears p.r.i.c.ked up alert; beyond the high door-sills, is the cool dark of the outer rooms.
I lie on the very edge of the ravine, on an outspread horse-cloth; all about are whole stacks of fresh-cut hay, oppressively fragrant. The sagacious husbandmen have flung the hay about before the huts; let it get a bit drier in the baking sunshine; and then into the barn with it. It will be first-rate sleeping on it.
Curly, childish heads are sticking out of every hayc.o.c.k; crested hens are looking in the hay for flies and little beetles, and a white-lipped pup is rolling among the tangled stalks.
Flaxen-headed lads in clean smocks, belted low, in heavy boots, leaning over an unharnessed waggon, fling each other smart volleys of banter, with broad grins showing their white teeth.
A round-faced young woman peeps out of window; laughs at their words or at the romps of the children in the mounds of hay.
Another young woman with powerful arms draws a great wet bucket out of the well.... The bucket quivers and shakes, spilling long, glistening drops.
Before me stands an old woman in a new striped petticoat and new shoes.
Fat hollow beads are wound in three rows about her dark thin neck, her grey head is tied up in a yellow kerchief with red spots; it hangs low over her failing eyes.
But there is a smile of welcome in the aged eyes; a smile all over the wrinkled face. The old woman has reached, I dare say, her seventieth year ... and even now one can see she has been a beauty in her day.
With a twirl of her sunburnt finger, she holds in her right hand a bowl of cold milk, with the cream on it, fresh from the cellar; the sides of the bowl are covered with drops, like strings of pearls. In the palm of her left hand the old woman brings me a huge hunch of warm bread, as though to say, "Eat, and welcome, pa.s.sing guest!"
A c.o.c.k suddenly crows and fussily flaps his wings; he is slowly answered by the low of a calf, shut up in the stall.
"My word, what oats!" I hear my coachman saying.... Oh, the content, the quiet, the plenty of the Russian open country! Oh, the deep peace and well-being!
And the thought comes to me: what is it all to us here, the cross on the cupola of St. Sophia in Constantinople and all the rest that we are struggling for, we men of the town?
A CONVERSATION