Marie Tarnowska. Annie Vivanti

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      The door opened. A doctor, who had been sent for by the manager of the hotel, entered with a resolute authoritative air. At the sight of him the women disappeared like a flight of startled sparrows. Of course they took Vassili with them.

      To the good old doctor I confided the secret which Vassili had disclosed to me and which was burning my heart.

      “I want to have a child, a little child of my own!” I cried.

      “Of course. Of course. So you shall,” said the old doctor, with a soothing smile. “There is no reason why you should not. You are a little anemic, that is all.”

      He scribbled some prescriptions on his tablets.

      “There. You will take all that. And you will go to Franzensbad. Within a year you will be asking me to act as godpapa.”

      I took all he prescribed. But I did not go to Franzensbad. Vassili wanted to go to Petersburg, so, of course, it was to Petersburg we went.

      The very first evening we were there a number of his friends came to call on him.

      I remember, among the rest, a certain German Grand Duke, who, after showing me an infinite amount of attention, drew Vassili aside and spoke to him in undertones. I heard him mention the name of a famous restaurant and the words: “A jolly supper-party to-night—some ravishingly pretty tziganes....” There followed names of men and women whom I did not know, and my husband laughed loudly.

      Then the Grand Duke turned to me, and bowing deeply and ceremoniously kissed my hand.

      For an instant a frenzied impulse came over me to clutch that well-groomed head and cry: “Wicked man! Why are you trying to lure my husband from me?” But social conventions prevailed over this elementary instinct, and when the Grand Duke raised his patrician head he found me all amiability and smiles.

      “She is indeed a bewitching creature!” I heard him mutter to Vassili. “Looks just like one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels. Well then, at eleven o'clock to-night, at the 'Hermitage.'”

      Promptly at a quarter to eleven Vassili, sleek, trim and immaculate, kissed my cheek gaily and went out.

      I was alone. Alone in the great drawing-room, gorgeous with lights and mirrors and gilded decorations. What was the good of being a bewitching creature? What was the good of looking like one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels?…

      V

      I rang for my maid, Katja, a good creature, ugly beyond words—and gladly chosen by me on that account—and I told her that she was to undress me for I was going to bed. While she was unfastening my dress I could hear her muttering: “If it were me, I should not go to bed. If it were me, I should put on my diamonds and my scarlet chiffon gown; I should take a good bottle of vitriol in my pocket, and go and see what they were up to.”

      “Katja, what are you mumbling? Do you mean to say that you—that you think I ought to go—?”

      “Of course,” she cried, and her small squinting eyes shot forth, to the right and left, fierce, divergent flashes of indignation. “Why should my lady not go?”

      Why should I not, indeed? Had I not the right—nay, the duty—to follow Vassili? Had I not most solemnly promised so to do, in the little church on the steppes a year ago? “Follow him!” With what tremulous joy had I repeated after the priest those two words of tenacity and submission. Had they no application to the Hermitage restaurant?

      “Perhaps I might venture to go,” I murmured, “but, Katja, do not other women always have rouge and powder to put on when they go out? I have nothing.”

      “Nothing but your eighteen years, madame,” replied Katja.

      She dressed me in the low-necked scarlet chiffon gown. She drew on my flame-colored stockings, and my crimson shoes. On my head she placed the diamond and ruby tiara, and about my shoulders she wound a red and gold scarf which looked like a snake of fire.

      “Alas, Katja!” I sighed as I looked at myself in the mirror; “what would my mother say if she were to see me like this? What do I look like?”

      “You look like a lighted torch,” said Katja.

      I made her come with me in the troika, which sped swiftly and silently through the dim snow-covered streets. I was shaking with fear at the thought of Vassili. Katja was mumbling some prayers.

      We drew up at the brilliant entrance of the restaurant.

      “Oh, heavens, Katja! What will my husband say?”

      “He will say that you are beautiful.”

      How did I ever venture across that threshold of dazzling light? How was I able to ascend the red-carpeted stairs, preceded and followed by bows and smiles and whispers? At the head of the wide staircase, in front of a double-paneled door of white and gold, I paused with beating heart, almost unable to breathe. I could hear the gipsy-music inside, and women's voices and men's laughter and the tinkling of glasses.

      An impassive head-waiter stood before me, calmly awaiting my orders.

      “Tell”—I stammered—“tell—” as I thought of Vassili my courage failed me—“tell his Highness the Grand Duke that I wish to see him.”

      Then I clung to the balustrade and waited. As the door opened and was quickly closed again, there came forth a puff of heat and sound which enwrapped me like a flame.

      Almost immediately the door opened again and the Grand Duke appeared upon the threshold, his countenance still elated by recent laughter. He stared at me in astonishment, without recognition. “What—what can I do for you?” he asked. Then his eyes widened in limitless astonishment. “Upon my word! It is the Botticelli angel!”

      I said “Yes,” and felt inclined to weep.

      “Come in, come in!” he cried eagerly, taking me by the arm and leading me to the door.

      A waiter threw it wide open. I had a dazzling vision of a table resplendent with crystal, silver, and flowers, and the bare jeweled shoulders of women.

      “Tarnowsky!” called the Grand Duke from the threshold. “Fortunate among men! Behold—the most glorious of your conquests!”

      Vassili had started to his feet and was looking at me with amazed and incredulous eyes. There was a deep silence. I felt as if I should die. Vassili came up to me. He took me brusquely by the hand, crushing my fingers in his iron clasp. “You are mad!” he said. Then he looked at me from head to foot—not with the gaze of a husband, nor yet with that of a lover, but with the cold curious scrutiny of the perfect connoisseur.

      “Come,” he said at last, drawing me towards the others who were in a riot of laughter. “I have always told my friends that you were a chilling, lily-white flake of snow. You are not!” And he laughed. “You are a blazing little firebrand! Come in!”

      Thenceforward my husband would always have me with him. My untutored adolescence was trailed from revelry to revelry, from banquet to orgy; my innocence swept into the maelstrom of a licentious life. I was forced to look into the depths of every depravity; to my lips was proffered every chalice of shame.

      Oh, if as I stood trembling on the confines of maidenhood, some strong and tender hand had drawn me into safety, should СКАЧАТЬ