'Why?'

'I don't want to.'

'Oh, nonsense; you'll want to when....'

'What?' asked Masha, rapidly knitting her brows.

'When you're asked,' Tchertop-hanov went on, with some embarra.s.sment.

'Oh!'

She went out, soon came back with jam and vodka, and again sat by the window. There was still a line to be seen on her forehead; the two eyebrows rose and drooped like a wasp's antennae.... Have you ever noticed, reader, what a wicked face the wasp has? 'Well,' I thought, 'I'm in for a storm.' The conversation flagged. Nedopyuskin shut up completely, and wore a forced smile; Tchertop-hanov panted, turned red, and opened his eyes wide; I was on the point of taking leave....

Suddenly Masha got up, flung open the window, thrust out her head, and shouted l.u.s.tily to a pa.s.sing peasant woman, 'Aksinya!' The woman started, and tried to turn round, but slipped down and flopped heavily on to a dung-heap. Masha threw herself back and laughed merrily; Tchertop-hanov laughed too; Nedopyuskin shrieked with delight. We all revived. The storm had pa.s.sed off in one flash of lightning... the air was clear again.

Half-an-hour later, no one would have recognised us; we were chatting and frolicking like children. Masha was the merriest of all; Tchertop-hanov simply could not take his eyes off her. Her face grew paler, her nostrils dilated, her eyes glowed and darkened at the same time. It was a wild creature at play. Nedopyuskin limped after her on his short, fat little legs, like a drake after a duck. Even Venzor crawled out of his hiding-place in the hall, stood a moment in the doorway, glanced at us, and suddenly fell to jumping up into the air and barking. Masha flitted into the other room, fetched the guitar, flung off the shawl from her shoulders, seated herself quickly, and, raising her head, began singing a gypsy song. Her voice rang out, vibrating like a gla.s.s bell when it is struck; it flamed up and died away.... It filled the heart with sweetness and pain.... Tchertop-hanov fell to dancing.

Nedopyuskin stamped and swung his legs in tune. Masha was all a-quiver, like birch-bark in the fire; her delicate fingers flew playfully over the guitar, her dark-skinned throat slowly heaved under the two rows of amber. All at once she would cease singing, sink into exhaustion, and tw.a.n.g the guitar, as it were involuntarily, and Tchertop-hanov stood still, merely working his shoulders and turning round in one place, while Nedopyuskin nodded his head like a Chinese figure; then she would break out into song like a mad thing, drawing herself up and holding up her head, and Tchertop-hanov again curtsied down to the ground, leaped up to the ceiling, spun round like a top, crying 'Quicker!...'

'Quicker, quicker, quicker!' Nedopyuskin chimed in, speaking very fast.

It was late in the evening when I left Bezsonovo....

XXII

THE END OF TCHERTOP-HANOV

I

It was two years after my visit that Panteley Eremyitch's troubles began--his real troubles. Disappointments, disasters, even misfortunes he had had before that time, but he had paid no attention to them, and had risen superior to them in former days. The first blow that fell upon him was the most heartrending for him. Masha left him.

What induced her to forsake his roof, where she seemed to be so thoroughly at home, it is hard to say. Tchertop-hanov to the end of his days clung to the conviction that a certain young neighbour, a retired captain of Uhlans, named Yaff, was at the root of Masha's desertion. He had taken her fancy, according to Panteley Eremyitch, simply by constantly curling his moustaches, pomading himself to excess, and sn.i.g.g.e.ring significantly; but one must suppose that the vagrant gypsy blood in Masha's veins had more to do with it. However that may have been, one fine summer evening Masha tied up a few odds and ends in a small bundle, and walked out of Tchertop-hanov's house.

For three days before this she had sat crouched up in a corner, huddled against the wall, like a wounded fox, and had not spoken a word to any one; she had only turned her eyes about, and twitched her eyebrows, and faintly gnashed her teeth, and moved her arms as though she were wrapping herself up. This mood had come upon her before, but had never lasted long: Tchertop-hanov knew that, and so he neither worried himself nor worried her. But when, on coming in from the kennels, where, in his huntsman's words, the last two hounds 'had departed,' he met a servant girl who, in a trembling voice, informed him that Marya Akinfyevna sent him her greetings, and left word that she wished him every happiness, but she was not coming back to him any more; Tchertop-hanov, after reeling round where he stood and uttering a hoa.r.s.e yell, rushed at once after the runaway, s.n.a.t.c.hing up his pistol as he went.

He overtook her a mile and a half from his house, near a birch wood, on the high-road to the district town. The sun was sinking on the horizon, and everything was suddenly suffused with purple glow--trees, plants, and earth alike.

'To Yaff! to Yaff!' groaned Tchertop-hanov directly he caught sight of Masha. 'Going to Yaff!' he repeated, running up to her, and almost stumbling at every step.

Masha stood still, and turned round facing him.

She stood with her back to the light, and looked all black, as though she had been carved out of dark wood; only the whites of her eyes stood out like silvery almonds, but the eyes themselves--the pupils--were darker than ever.

She flung her bundle aside, and folded her arms. 'You are going to Yaff, wretched girl!' repeated Tchertop-hanov, and he was on the point of seizing her by the shoulder, but, meeting her eyes, he was abashed, and stood uneasily where he was.

'I am not going to Mr. Yaff, Panteley Eremyitch,' replied Masha in soft, even tones; 'it's only I can't live with you any longer.'

'Can't live with me? Why not? Have I offended you in some way?'

Masha shook her head. 'You've not offended me in any way, Panteley Eremyitch, only my heart is heavy in your house.... Thanks for the past, but I can't stay--no!'

Tchertop-hanov was amazed; he positively slapped his thighs, and bounced up and down in his astonishment.

'How is that? Here she's gone on living with me, and known nothing but peace and happiness, and all of a sudden--her heart's heavy! and she flings me over! She goes and puts a kerchief on her head, and is gone.

She received every respect, like any lady.'

'I don't care for that in the least,' Masha interrupted.

'Don't care for it? From a wandering gypsy to turn into a lady, and she doesn't care for it! How don't you care for it, you low-born slave? Do you expect me to believe that? There's treachery hidden in it--treachery!'

He began frowning again.

'There's no treachery in my thoughts, and never has been,' said Masha in her distinct, resonant voice; 'I've told you already, my heart was heavy.'

'Masha!' cried Tchertop-hanov, striking himself a blow on the chest with his fist; 'there, stop it; hush, you have tortured me... now, it's enough! O my G.o.d! think only what Tisha will say; you might have pity on him, at least!'

'Remember me to Tihon Ivanitch, and tell him...'

Tchertop-hanov wrung his hands. 'No, you are talking nonsense--you are not going! Your Yaff may wait for you in vain!'

'Mr. Yaff,' Masha was beginning....

'A fine _Mister_ Yaff!' Tchertop-hanov mimicked her. 'He's an underhand rascal, a low cur--that's what he is--and a phiz like an ape's!'

For fully half-an-hour Tchertop-hanov was struggling with Masha. He came close to her, he fell back, he shook his fists at her, he bowed down before her, he wept, he scolded.

...'I can't,' repeated Masha; 'I am so sad at heart... devoured by weariness.'

Little by little her face a.s.sumed such an indifferent, almost drowsy expression, that Tchertop-hanov asked her if they had not drugged her with laudanum.

'It's weariness,' she said for the tenth time.

'Then what if I kill you?' he cried suddenly, and he pulled the pistol out of his pocket.

Masha smiled; her face brightened.

'Well, kill me, Panteley Eremyitch; as you will; but go back, I won't.'

'You won't come back?' Tchertop-hanov c.o.c.ked the pistol.

'I won't go back, my dearie. Never in my life will I go back. My word is steadfast.'

Tchertop-hanov suddenly thrust the pistol into her hand, and sat down on the ground.

'Then, you kill me! Without you I don't care to live. I have grown loathsome to you--and everything's loathsome for me!'

Masha bent down, took up her bundle, laid the pistol on the gra.s.s, its mouth away from Tchertop-hanov, and went up to him.