Elisaveta

“ A soothing mood took possession of Elisaveta. It struck her as strange that they should have quarrelled and stood facing one another like enemies. Why shouldn’t she love him? Why not give herself up to him, submit to the will of another, make it her will? Why all this noisy discussion, these fine, yet remote words about a struggle, about ideals?
Every one in the house, she thought, was tired—was it with the heat? With wrangling? With a secret sorrow inducing sleep, soothingness? The sisters went to their rooms somewhat earlier than usual. Fatigue and a languorous sadness oppressed them. ”

“ She looked attentively at the sisters. Elisaveta thought that she had heard the name somewhere in town—perhaps a tale in connexion with it, she could not remember exactly what. For some reason she did not mention this to Nadezhda. Perhaps it was a tragic history.
This fear of talking about the past occasionally came upon Elisaveta. Who knows what sorrow is hid behind a bright smile, and from what darkness has sprung the blossoming which gives sudden joy to a glance, elusively beautiful and born of unhappy worldly experience? ”

“ You do not love me, you are tempted by the beautiful Beast—my young body with its smiles and its caresses....”
And again ignoring what she said, Piotr asserted passionately:
“Elisaveta, dearest, love me! You surely do not love any one else! Isn’t that so? You do not love any one? You have had no time to fall in love, to fetter your soul to any one else’s. You are as free as man’s first bride, you are as superb as his last wife. You have grown ripe for love—for my love—you too are thirsty for kisses and embraces, even as I. O Elisaveta, love me, love me!” ”

“ Elisaveta’s body flamed all over, as though a fire had penetrated the whole sweet, sensitive flesh; and oh, how she wished to press, to cling, to embrace! If he would only come! Only by day he spoke to her his dead-sounding words of love, kindled by the kisses of the accursed Dragon. Oh, if he would only come by night to the secretly flaming great Fire of the blossoming Flesh!
Did he love her? Was his a final and a single-souled love conquering by the eternal spirit of the divine Aphrodite? Where love is there daring should be also. Is love, then, gentle, meek, obedient? ”

“ He burst out into loud, hoarse laughter—but it seemed more assumed than joyous, and rather abject and hideous. Elisaveta shivered.
“What a wicked person you are! Why do you think that?” said Elisaveta reproachfully.
The ragged one glanced at her crossly, and looked fixedly into her deep blue eyes; then he said with a broad smile:
“Why am I wicked? And are you two good? Wicked or not, the thing is to be just. But I may tell you, sir, that I like you,” he said as he turned suddenly to Trirodov. ”

“ Elisaveta put on a white sailor-jacket with a blue collar, and blue knee-breeches which revealed the beauty and grace of her sunburnt lower limbs; she put on a cap, took a fishing-rod and went to the river. Elisaveta looked like a rather tall stripling of fourteen in this dress.
It was quiet and bright on the river’s bank. Elisaveta sat down on a stone at the edge, lowered her feet into the water, and watched the float. A rowing-boat appeared. Elisaveta looked intently and saw that it contained Stchemilov. ”

“ A weariness comes on—what has become of love, that love which had prided itself on being stronger than death?”
“You have had a wife,” said Elisaveta. “You loved her. Everything here is reminiscent of her. She was beautiful.”
Her voice became dark, and the blue flashes under the moist eyelids lit up with a jealous flame. Trirodov smiled and said sadly:
“She left life before the time had come for weariness to make its appearance. My Dulcinea did not want to become Aldonza.”
“Dulcinea is loved,” said Elisaveta, “but the fullness of life belongs to Aldonza becoming Dulcinea.” ”

“ Trirodov looked at him steadily and said:
“Life is tragic. She destroys all illusions with the power of her pitiless irony. You know, of course, that Elisaveta’s soul is a tragic soul, and that a great boldness is necessary in order to approach her, and to say to her the great Yes of life. Yes, Elisaveta....” ”

“ It is his feet that show white in the grass. Fling the door wide open and run as you are to meet him.”
Elisaveta saw Trirodov coming. Her heart began to beat with such pain and such delight. She walked away from the window. She waited. She heard his footsteps on the sand under the window. Something flashed through the window and fell on the floor. The footsteps retreated.
Elisaveta picked up the letter, lit a candle, and read the beloved blue sheet of paper. The nocturnal enchantress whispered to her:
“He’s going away. Hurry. You will know how sweet are the first kisses of love. ”

“ It struck a deep note in Elisaveta, who was in a mood of expectancy. If only she could have met some one deserving of her love whom she might place at the crossings of all earthly and heavenly roads, and to whom she might do obeisance!
This tender devotion aroused young virginal intoxication in Elena also. She felt herself in love—not with any one in particular, but with everything: as the air loves in the springtime, kissing all in its gladness ”

“ Now he impetuously embraced Elisaveta, now Trirodov. He felt ashamed and bitter. He knew that Elisaveta did not even suspect his love, and that she looked at him as at an infant. Sometimes in his helplessness he hated her. He said to Piotr:
“I shouldn’t walk about with a long face if I were you. She is not worthy of your love. She puts on airs. Elena is much better. Elena is a dear, while the other fancies all sorts of things.” ”

“ He brought as a gift to Elisaveta a photograph he had taken of his first wife—upon her nude body was a bronze belt, its ends coming down to the knees being joined up in the front; upon her dark hair was a narrow round strip of gold. A slender, graceful body—a melancholy smile—intense dark eyes.
“Father knows,” said Elisaveta. “Father is glad. Let us go to him.”
When Elisaveta and Trirodov were once more alone, a dark thought came into Elisaveta’s mind. She became pensively sad, and asked:
“What of the sleeper in the grave?”
“He has awakened,” replied Trirodov. “He’s in my house. ”

“ It was all like a paradise—the twittering of the birds, the hubbub of the children, the rustle of the wind in the grass and in the trees, the murmur of the brook in the wood. Everything was innocent, as in Paradise—girls, scantily dressed, came up, spoke to them, and were not ashamed. Everything was chaste, as in Paradise. And cloudless, the sky shone above the forest glades.
Towards evening Elisaveta sat at Trirodov’s. They read poems. Elisaveta loved poems even before she met Trirodov. Who else should love them if not girls? Now she read poems avidly. ”

“ And he loved Elisaveta! He had loved her a long time, with a jealous and helpless love.
He loved! What sadness! The languor of the springtide and the joyousness of the morning breeze—the distant ringing of bells—tears in one’s eyes—and she will smile—pass by—the dear one! What sadness! How dark everything is upon this earth—love as well as indifference.
Suddenly Piotr saw Trirodov quite near him. Trirodov was walking straight upon Piotr, as if he did not see him; he moved quickly, almost automatically, like a mechanical doll. ”

“ Misha, too, wanted to be with Elisaveta, and it made him feel ashamed and depressed.
Miss Harrison did not express her opinion. Many things had already shocked her, and she grew accustomed to bear herself indifferently to everything that happened here. Trirodov, in her opinion, was an adventurer, a man with a doubtful reputation, and a dark past.
Elisaveta was the most tranquil of all.
Piotr’s gloomy appearance disturbed Rameyev. He wanted to comfort him if only with words. Luckily, people believe even in words! They must believe in something. ”

“ And actually no one was now visible in the bushes. Elisaveta persisted:
“But I did see a boy and a girl there. Both were quite white, not at all brown like the rest of you. They stood ever so quietly and looked.”
The cheery, dark-eyed lad looked attentively at Elisaveta, frowned slightly, lowered his eyes, reflected, then again eyed the sisters attentively and sadly, and said:
“In the main building, where Giorgiy Sergeyevitch lives, there are more of these quiet children. They are never with us. They are quiet ones. They do not play. They have been ill. ”

“ A number of horses’ heads suddenly appeared from among the trees quiet close to Elisaveta, and their dumb but good eyes looked on incomprehensibly. The crowd of young people began to run, and carried Elisaveta along with them. She was seized by a feeling of stupor. She thought:
“What’s the use of running? They’ll overtake us and drive us wherever they will.”
But she had not enough strength to pause. They were all running, and she with them. Another detachment of Cossacks appeared in front of them. Cries and wails went up from the crowd, which began to scatter in all directions. ”

“ Piotr’s voice trembled as he shouted in jealous rage:
“Elisaveta! Why do you mention Elisaveta?”
Trirodov looked steadily at Piotr. He asked rather slowly—in a strangely sounding voice:
“You are not afraid?”
“What is there to be afraid of?” replied Piotr morosely. “I am not at all a tragic person. My path is clear to me, and I know who guides me.”
“You don’t know that,” said Trirodov. “Besides, Elena is lovely. He who fears to take the grand and the terrible, he who loves tender melodies, for him there is Elena.” ”

“ Trirodov smiled affectionately—if sadly—and said:
“But he, like the eternal Don Juan, always seeks Dulcinea. And what is to him the poor earthly Aldonza, poisoned by the dream of beauty?”
“It is for that that he will love her,” replied Elisaveta; “because she is poor and has been poisoned by the exultant dream of beauty. The basis for their union will be creative beauty.” ”

“ Elena whispered:
“When the earth grows cold, men will die.”
“The earth will not die,” answered Elisaveta no less quietly.
The sisters fell into a sleep. They did not sleep long, and when both awakened quite suddenly, everything that had just happened seemed like a dream. They made haste.
“We must hurry home,” said Elena in an anxious voice.
They ran quickly. The door of the underground passage was open. Just outside the door, in the road, stood a cart. Kirsha sat in it and held the reins. The sisters seated themselves. Elisaveta took the reins. Kirsha spoke a word now and then. ”

“ Woman’s love, the fire of youth, the stirring of young hopes, remain for ever within the forbidden boundaries of unrealized possibilities—who knows?—perhaps unrealizable.”
The sad, flaming moments of silence were marked by the heavy beats of Elisaveta’s heart. She felt intensely vexed by these sad words of weakness and of dejection, and she did not believe them. But Trirodov went on speaking, and his beautiful but hopelessly sad words sounded like a taunt to her:
“There is so much labour and so little consolation. Life passes by like a dream—a senseless, tormenting dream.” ”

“ Rameyev interrupted in a conciliatory tone:
“You’re unjust. You can’t deny him everything.”
“Let us admit, then, that there’s something in his work not altogether bad,” continued Piotr. “Who is there nowadays who cannot put together some nice-sounding versicles! Yet what is there really I should respect in him? He’s nothing but a corrupt, bald-headed, ridiculous, and dull-sighted person—yet Elisaveta considers him a handsome man!”
“I never said anything about his being handsome,” protested Elisaveta. “As for his corruption, isn’t it purely town tattle?” ”

“ They splashed about gaily, and as they raised jewel-like spray with their feet they kept up a conversation.
“How puzzling it all is!” said Elena, the younger sister. “No one knows where his income comes from, what he does in his house, and why he has this colony of children. There are all sorts of strange rumours about him. It’s certainly a mystery.”
Elena’s words reminded Elisaveta of an article she had read lately in a philosophic periodical published at Moscow. Elisaveta had a good memory. ”

“ They are so petty! Or let us admit that they are significant. What I wish to say is that politics and all that separates us is only a light scum, a momentary froth on the broad surface of our life. In love there is revelation, there is eternal truth. He who does not love, he who does not strive towards union with a beloved, he is dead.”
“I love the people, I love freedom,” said Elisaveta quietly. “My love is revolt.”
Piotr, ignoring her words, went on:
“You know that I love you. I have loved you a long time. My whole soul is absorbed as with light with my love for you. ”

“ Old Elikonida was first engaged to nurse Kirsha; now she carried out the duties of a housekeeper. She had always been austere and never wasted a word in speaking with people. The sisters tried to draw her into conversation; they wanted to ask her things, about the ways of the house, the habits of Trirodov—they were such inquisitive girls! Elena asked many questions, although Elisaveta tried to restrain her ”

“ They should be taught to be joyous, to remake their religion and be the first in the new sect.”
Elisaveta could not sleep. Desire tormented her; she did not know what she wanted—was it to go?—to wait? She walked out on the balcony. The nocturnal coolness caressed her naked body. She stood there long; the contact of her naked feet with the warm, moist boards was pleasant. She looked into the pale light of the mist-wrapt garden dreaming there under the moon. She recalled at this moment the details of the day’s walk, and all that they had seen in Trirodov’s house ”