XI

The naive, fascinating fairy-tale of our love lasted for almost a month, and those blazing sunsets, those dewy mornings so fragrant with honey and lily of the valley, so full of crisp freshness and the resounding hubbub of birds, those lazy June days, so warm and languorous, live on unfadingly in my soul, along with Olesya’s wonderful image. Never did boredom, weariness, or the eternal wanderlust, stir in my heart throughout that time. Like a heathen god or a young, strong animal, I revelled in light and warmth, in a conscious joy of life, and in my tranquil, healthy sensual love.

After my recovery old Manuilikha had become so peevish, met me with such frank hatred and, as I sat in the hut, moved the pots about in the stove with so much noisy bitterness that Olesya and I preferred to meet in the forest. And the majestic beauty of the green pines adorned our serene love like a precious setting.

I discovered daily with increasing amazement that Olesya, a girl who had grown up in the woods and who could not even read, in many instances displayed a sensitive delicacy and a special, innate tact. Love in its direct, coarse sense always has certain repellent aspects which cause torture and shame to nervous artistic natures. But Olesya knew how to avoid them, and she did so with such naive chastity that not once did an ugly comparison or a cynical moment insult our relationship.

Meanwhile the day was drawing near when I must leave. In fact, my official duties in Perebrod were finished and I was purposely putting off my return to the city. I had not yet said a word about it to Olesya, and I was afraid even to imagine what her reaction would be to the news of my coming departure. I was in a predicament. Habit had already taken deep root in me. It was more than a necessity for me to see Olesya every day, to hear her sweet voice and her ringing laughter, to feel the delightful tenderness of her caresses. On those rare days when rain prevented our meeting I felt forlorn, as if I had been robbed of what was most important to me in life. Any occupation would seem dull and useless, and all my being longed for the forest, for light and warmth, for Olesya’s sweet familiar face.

More and more often I thought of marrying Olesya. At first the idea came into my head only occasionally, as a possible, in the last resort, honest solution of our relationship. There was only one circumstance that deterred me: I did not dare to picture Olesya in a stylish dress, talking in my drawing-room with the wives of my colleagues – an Olesya snatched out of the enchanting setting of the old forest that was so full of legend and mystery.

But as the day of my departure approached I was beset by a deep sadness and a growing horror of solitude. My determination to marry Olesya grew firmer every day, and I no longer saw it as an audacious challenge to society. “After all, there are good and learned men who marry seamstresses and housemaids, aren’t there?” I reassured myself. “And they live very well together and to their last day bless the destiny which led them to take that decision. I hope my luck won’t be any worse.”

One day in mid-June I was waiting for Olesya as usual at the curve of a narrow forest path winding between hawthorn shrubs in bloom. I recognized from afar her light, quick footfall.

“Good evening, my love,” said Olesya, a little breathless as she put her arms round me. “Kept you waiting a long time, didn’t I? I could hardly get away. Had a quarrel with Granny.”

“Is she still carrying it on?”

“Oh, yes! ‘He’ll be your undoing,’ she says. ‘He’ll have his fill of fun with you and then throw you over. He doesn’t love you a bit.’ “

“Meaning me, eh?”

“Yes, darling. But I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Does she know everything?”

“I can’t say for sure. I think she does. I never talk to her about it – she does her own guessing. Oh, well, no need to worry. Come along.”

She broke off a hawthorn sprig with a rich cluster of white blossoms and stuck it in her hair. We started on a leisurely stroll along the path, to which the afternoon sun gave a touch of pink.

I had decided the night before that this evening I would speak at any cost. But a strange timidity tied my tongue. I wondered whether Olesya would believe me if I told her about my departure and my decision to marry her. Might she not take my proposal as a mere attempt to lessen, to assuage the first pain of the wound I was inflicting upon her? “I’ll begin as soon as we get to that barked maple,” I said to myself. We came alongside it, and, paling with agitation, I took a deep breath to speak, but unexpectedly my courage ebbed, resolving into a nervous, painful heart-beat and a cold sensation in the mouth. “Twenty-seven’s my lucky number,” I thought a few minutes later. “I’ll count to twenty-seven and then – ” And I began counting in my mind, but on reaching twenty-seven I felt that my resolution was not yet ripe. “No,” I told myself, “I’d better count on to sixty – that’ll make exactly one minute, and then I’ll certainly begin.”

“Is anything wrong, dear?” Olesya asked me all of a sudden. “You’re thinking of something unpleasant. What is it?”

Then I did speak, but it was in a tone hateful to myself, with an affected, unnatural carelessness, as though it were a question of some trifle.

“Yes, it is a little unpleasant – you guessed right, Olesya. You see, my service here is over, and my superiors want me back in town.”

Glancing sideways at Olesya, I saw her face drain of colour and her lips tremble. But she did not speak a word in reply. I walked on beside her for a few minutes. Grasshoppers were chirping loudly, and far off I could hear the monotonous crake of a landrail.

“Of course you understand, Olesya,” I began afresh, “that I can’t very well stay here, and I have no place to stay either. And then I mustn’t neglect my duties.”

“No, I suppose not – that’s clear enough,” she replied, with seeming calm but in so toneless and flat a voice that I felt a dread. “Since it’s your duty you must go – of course.”

She halted near a tree and leaned her back against it, pale as a sheet, with arms hanging limply at her sides, a miserable, painful smile on her lips. Her pallor frightened me. I rushed to her and gripped her hands.

“Olesya! What is it, Olesya, dear?”

“Never mind – I’m sorry – I’ll be all right. I just felt dizzy.”

She made an effort and stepped forward, without taking away her hand.

“You must have thought badly of me just now, Olesya,” I said reproachfully. “Shame on you! Do you, too, imagine that I could go and leave you? No, my dear. As a matter of fact, I started this talk because I want to tell your grandmother this very night that you’re going to be my wife.”

To my utter perplexity, she was hardly surprised to hear that.

“Your wife?” She shook her head, slowly and sadly. “No, Vanya dear, that’s impossible!”

“But why, Olesya? Why?”

“No, no. You know yourself it’s silly even to think of it. What sort of a wife would I make you? You’re a gentleman, you’re clever and educated, and I? Why, I can’t even read, and I don’t know how to behave. You’d be ashamed of me.”

“What nonsense, Olesya!” I remonstrated hotly. “You won’t recognize yourself in six months from now. You have no idea how intelligent and quick-witted you are. We’ll read lots of good books together, meet kind, intelligent people, see the whole wide world, Olesya. We’ll be together all our lives, just as we are now, and far from feeling ashamed of you, I’ll be proud of you, and grateful to you!”

In answer to my passionate speech she squeezed my hand with feeling, but stood firm.

“But that isn’t all! Perhaps you don’t know it. I’ve never told you. You see, I have no father. I’m illegitimate.”

“Stop it, Olesya. That’s my least worry. What do I care about your kin if you yourself are dearer to me than my own father or mother, dearer than the whole world? It’s all nonsense and petty excuses!”

She pressed her shoulder to mine in a gentle, submissive caress.

“My dear one! It would be better if you had never started this talk. You’re young and free. Do you think I could bind you hand and foot for life? What if you came to care for another woman afterwards? Then you’d hate me, and you’d curse the hour when I agreed to marry you. Don’t be angry, dear!” she cried entreatingly as she saw from my face that I was pained. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m only thinking of your happiness. And you forgot about Granny. Judge for yourself – would it be fair of me to leave her all alone?”

“Well, we’d find room for her too.” Frankly, the idea came as a shock to me. “And in case she didn’t care to live with us, there are homes in any town – they’re called alms-houses – where old women like her get all the rest and care they need.”

“Oh, no, that’s impossible. She won’t go anywhere away from the woods. She’s afraid of people.”

“Then think how to settle that best, Olesya. You’ll have to choose between Granny and me. Only remember that without you life will be torture to me.”

“My love!” she murmured with deep tenderness “Thank you just for saying that. You’ve warmed my heart. But still I shan’t marry you. I’d rather go with you as I am, if you’ll have me. Only please wait a little – don’t rush me. Give me a couple of days to think it over. I must talk to Granny too.”

“Look here, Olesya,” I said as a fresh idea suddenly occurred to me. “Isn’t it again that you’re afraid of church?”

I ought probably to have begun from that end. I argued with Olesya almost daily, trying to reassure her about the alleged curse weighing on her family because of the magic powers they possessed. Virtually every Russian intellectual is a bit of an enlightener. It is in our blood, it has been inculcated by Russian literature of the last decades. Perhaps if Olesya had been deeply religious, if she had strictly kept the fasts and had not missed a single service in church, I might have mocked – just a little, because I have always been religious myself – at her piety and worked to develop the critical inquisitiveness of her mind. But, the fact was that, with firm and naive conviction, she confessed her communion with dark forces and her estrangement from God, whom she was afraid even to mention.

My efforts to shake her superstition were futile. All my logic, all my mockery, at times rude and cruel, smashed against her meek faith in her mysterious and fatal mission.

“Ape you afraid of church, Olesya?” I asked again.

She silently bowed her head.

“You think God won’t accept you?” I went on, with mounting passion. “You think he won’t have mercy enough for you? He who, while commanding millions of angels, descended upon the earth and died a terrible, an ignominious death for the salvation of all men? He who didn’t disdain the repentance of the lowest woman and promised a robber and murderer that he would join him in paradise that same day?”

There was nothing new to Olesya in all that – we had talked about it before; but this time she would not even listen to me. With a swift movement she pulled off her shawl, crumpled it, and flung it in my face. A playful struggle began. I tried to snatch away her hawthorn blossom. In resisting me she fell and pulled me down with her, laughing happily and putting up to me her sweet moist lips, parted by fast breathing.

Late that night, when we had separated and gone a considerable distance from each other, I heard Olesya calling to me, “Vanya! Wait a moment. I want to tell you something!”

I walked back to meet her. She ran up to me. The indented silvery crescent of the new moon was in the sky, and by its wan light I saw that Olesya’s eyes were full of large tears.

“What is it, Olesya?” I asked anxiously. She seized my hands and began to kiss them in turn. “Darling! How good you are! How kind!” she said in a tremulous voice. “I’ve just been thinking how much you love me. And, you know, I want so much to do something very, very nice for you.” “Olesya, my wonderful girl, calm yourself!” “Tell me,” she went on, “would you be very glad if I went to church some day? Only tell me the truth, the real truth.”

I pondered. A superstitious thought occurred to me: might that not bring on some misfortune?

“Well, why don’t you speak? Tell me, quick, would you be glad, or wouldn’t you care?”

“How shall I put it, Olesya?” I stammered. “Well, yes, I suppose I’d be pleased. I’ve often told you, haven’t I, that a man may not believe, he may doubt, or even sneer. But a woman – a woman should be pious without question. I always feel there’s something movingly feminine and beautiful in the simple and sweet confidence with which she commits herself to God’s protection.”

I paused. Olesya made no reply, nestling her head against my chest.

“But why did you ask me about it?” I inquired.

She started.

“Oh, I just wanted to know. Forget about it. Well, goodbye, darling. Be sure to come tomorrow.”

She was gone. I peered for a long time into the darkness, listening to the rapidly receding footfall. Suddenly I was gripped by a dreadful foreboding. I felt an irresistible urge to run after Olesya, to overtake her and beg her, implore her not to go to church, or even demand it if necessary. But I checked my impulse, and said aloud as I turned to walk homewards, “You seem to have gone superstitious yourself, my dear Vanya.”

Oh, God! Why did I not yield then to the vague impulse of my heart which – I now believe in this absolutely! – never errs in its swift, secret presentiments?