"Spring is coming in beautifully. We keep the door on to the terrace
always open now, while the path to the orangery is dry and the
peach-trees are in full blossom. Only here and there is there a little
snow remaining. The swallows are arriving, and to-day Lubotshka brought
me the first flowers. The doctor says that in about three days' time I
shall be well again and able to take the open air and to enjoy the April
sun. Now, au revoir, my dearest one. Do not be alarmed, I beg of you,
either on account of my illness or on account of your losses at play.
End the crisis as soon as possible, and then return here with the
children for the summer. I am making wonderful plans for our passing of
it, and I only need your presence to realise them."
The rest of the letter was written in French, as well as in a strange,
uncertain hand, on another piece of paper. I transcribe it word for
word:
"Do not believe what I have just written to you about my illness. It is
more serious than any one knows. I alone know that I shall never leave
my bed again. Do not, therefore, delay a minute in coming here with the
children. Perhaps it may yet be permitted me to embrace and bless them.
It is my last wish that it should be so. I know what a terrible blow
this will be to you, but you would have had to hear it sooner or
later--if not from me, at least from others. Let us try to, bear the
Calamity with fortitude, and place our trust in the mercy of God. Let
us submit ourselves to His will. Do not think that what I am writing is
some delusion of my sick imagination. On the contrary, I am perfectly
clear at this moment, and absolutely calm. Nor must you comfort yourself
with the false hope that these are the unreal, confused feelings of a
despondent spirit, for I feel indeed, I know, since God has deigned to
reveal it to me--that I have now but a very short time to live. Will my
love for you and the children cease with my life? I know that that can
never be. At this moment I am too full of that love to be capable of
believing that such a feeling (which constitutes a part of my very
existence) can ever, perish. My soul can never lack its love for you;
and I know that that love will exist for ever, since such a feeling
could never have been awakened if it were not to be eternal. I shall no
longer be with you, yet I firmly believe that my love will cleave to
you always, and from that thought I glean such comfort that I await the
approach of death calmly and without fear. Yes, I am calm, and God knows
that I have ever looked, and do look now, upon death as no more than the
passage to a better life. Yet why do tears blind my eyes? Why should the
children lose a mother's love? Why must you, my husband, experience such
a heavy and unlooked-for blow? Why must I die when your love was making
life so inexpressibly happy for me?
"But His holy will be done!
"The tears prevent my writing more. It may be that I shall never see you
again. I thank you, my darling beyond all price, for all the felicity
with which you have surrounded me in this life. Soon I shall appear
before God Himself to pray that He may reward you. Farewell, my dearest!
Remember that, if I am no longer here, my love will none the less NEVER
AND NOWHERE fail you. Farewell, Woloda--farewell, my pet! Farewell, my
Benjamin, my little Nicolinka! Surely they will never forget me?"
With this letter had come also a French note from Mimi, in which the
latter said:
"The sad circumstances of which she has written to you are but too
surely confirmed by the words of the doctor. Yesterday evening she
ordered the letter to be posted at once, but, thinking at she did so in
delirium, I waited until this morning, with the intention of sealing and
sending it then. Hardly had I done so when Natalia Nicolaevna asked
me what I had done with the letter and told me to burn it if not yet
despatched. She is forever speaking of it, and saying that it will kill
you. Do not delay your departure for an instant if you wish to see the
angel before she leaves us. Pray excuse this scribble, but I have not
slept now for three nights. You know how much I love her."
Later I heard from Natalia Savishna (who passed the whole of the night
of the 11th April at Mamma's bedside) that, after writing the first part
of the letter, Mamma laid it down upon the table beside her and went to
sleep for a while.
"I confess," said Natalia Savishna, "that I too fell asleep in the
arm-chair, and let my knitting slip from my hands. Suddenly, towards one
o'clock in the morning, I heard her saying something; whereupon I opened
my eyes and looked at her. My darling was sitting up in bed, with her
hands clasped together and streams of tears gushing from her eyes.
"'It is all over now,' she said, and hid her face in her hands.
"I sprang to my feet, and asked what the matter was.
"'Ah, Natalia Savishna, if you could only know what I have just
seen!' she said; yet, for all my asking, she would say no more,
beyond commanding me to hand her the letter. To that letter she added
something, and then said that it must be sent off directly. From that
moment she grew, rapidly worse."
XXVI -- WHAT AWAITED US AT THE COUNTRY-HOUSE
On the 18th of April we descended from the carriage at the front door
of the house at Petrovskoe. All the way from Moscow Papa had been
preoccupied, and when Woloda had asked him "whether Mamma was ill" he
had looked at him sadly and nodded an affirmative. Nevertheless he had
grown more composed during the journey, and it was only when we were
actually approaching the house that his face again began to grow
anxious, until, as he leaped from the carriage and asked Foka (who
had run breathlessly to meet us), "How is Natalia Nicolaevna now?" his
voice, was trembling, and his eyes had filled with tears. The good, old
Foka looked at us, and then lowered his gaze again. Finally he said as
he opened the hall-door and turned his head aside: "It is the sixth day
since she has not left her bed."
Milka (who, as we afterwards learned, had never ceased to whine from the
day when Mamma was taken ill) came leaping, joyfully to meet Papa, and
barking a welcome as she licked his hands, but Papa put her aside, and
went first to the drawing-room, and then into the divannaia, from which
a door led into the bedroom. The nearer he approached the latter, the
more, did his movements express the agitation that he felt. Entering the
divannaia he crossed it on tiptoe, seeming to hold his breath. Even then
he had to stop and make the sign of the cross before he could summon up
courage to turn the handle. At the same moment Mimi, with dishevelled
hair and eyes red with weeping came hastily out of the corridor.
"Ah, Peter Alexandritch!" she said in a whisper and with a marked
expression of despair. Then, observing that Papa was trying to open the
door, she whispered again:
"Not here. This door is locked. Go round to the door on the other side."
Oh, how terribly all this wrought upon my imagination, racked as it was
by grief and terrible forebodings!
So we went round to the other side. In the corridor we met the gardener,
Akim, who had been wont to amuse us with his grimaces, but at this
moment I could see nothing comical in him. Indeed, the sight of his
thoughtless, indifferent face struck me more painfully than anything