I did not go to him. The terrible lessons he had taught me were bearing fruit; all I did when brought face to face with some new calamity was to take injection after injection of morphia; and thus I sank down again into the twilight world of unreality in which, during that entire period, I moved like one in a dream.
I seemed to be living under water, in a perpetual dimness—a fluid, undulating dusk.
No sooner did I find myself rising to the surface of consciousness, and the noisy harshness of life confronted me again, than my trembling hands sought the case that hid the little glass viper of oblivion—the hypodermic syringe of Pravaz.
Over the tremulous flame of a candle I heated the phial of whitish powder and watched it gradually dissolve into a clear crystalline liquid that the hollow needle thirstily drank up: then I bared my arm and thrust the steel point aslant into my flesh. Soothing and benumbing the morphia coursed through my veins; and I sank once more into the well-known beatific lethargy, the undulating dusk of unreality and sleep....
But one day a call thrilled through the enveloping cloud and reached my heart: it was the call of motherhood. Tioka! Tania! Where were my children? Why, why were my arms empty when these two helpless and beloved creatures were mine?
Horrified at myself and at the dream-like apathy in which I had strayed so long, I tore myself from the degrading captivity of narcotics and with trembling steps tottered towards the threshold of life once more.
With dazed eyes I beheld the altered world around me.
How everything had changed! I was no longer the Countess Tarnowska, flattered, envied and beloved. The women who had formerly been my friends turned their eyes away from me, while on the other hand men stared at me boldly in a way they had never dared to look at me before. Vassili—the frivolous, light-hearted Vassili—shut his door upon me, and secluded himself in grim and formidable silence as in the walls of a fortress. Vainly did I beat upon it with weak hands, vainly did I pray for pity. Inexorable and inaccessible he remained, locked in his scorn and his resentment. Nor ever have the gates of his home or of his heart opened to me again.
I took refuge with my children at Otrada.
My parents received us in sorrow and humiliation. Themselves too broken in spirit to offer me any consolation, they moved silently through the stately mansion, blushing for me before the servants, hiding me from the eyes of their friends.
Even my children hung their heads and crept about on tiptoe, mute and abashed without knowing why.
One day Tania, my little Tania, was snatched from my arms. Vassili took her from me, nor did I ever see her again.
I had gone out, I remember, sad and alone, into the wintry park. By my side trotted Bear, my father's faithful setter, who every now and then thrust his moist and affectionate nose into my hand. In my thoughts I was trying to face what the future might have in store for me.
“When my little Tioka grows up,” I said to myself, “I know, alas! that I shall lose him. He will want to live with his father: he will look forward to entering upon life under happy and propitious auspices. Yes, Tioka will leave me, I know. But my little girl will stay with me. Tania will be my very own. She will grow up, fair and gentle, by my side; I shall forget my sorrows in her clinging love; I shall live my life over again in hers. I shall be renewed, in strength and purity, in my daughter's stainless youth.”
As I thus reflected I saw my mother running to meet me, her gray head bare in the icy wind; she was weeping bitterly. Tania was gone! Vassili had taken her away!
Notwithstanding all my tears and prayers it was never vouchsafed to me to see my little girl again.
But when the day came in which they sought to tear my son from me as well, I fought like a maddened creature, vowing that no human power should take him from me while I lived. I fled with him from Otrada—I fled I knew not and cared not whither, clasping in my arms my tender fair-haired prey, watching over him in terror, guarding him with fervent prayers. I fled, hunted onward by the restlessness that was in my own blood, pursued by the bats of madness in my brain.
Thus began my aimless wanderings that were to lead me so far astray.
Alone with little Tioka and the humble Elise Perrier, I took to the highways of the world.
How helpless and terrified we were, all three of us! It was like living in a melancholy fairy tale; it was like the story of the babes lost in the wood. Sometimes, in the midst of a street in some great unknown city, little Tioka would stop and say: “Mother, let us find some one who knows us, and ask them where we are to go and what we are to do.”
“No, no! Nobody must know us, Tioka.”
Then Tioka would begin to cry. “I feel as if we were lost, as if we were lost!…” And I knew not how to comfort him.
One day—we were at Moscow, I remember—there appeared to me for the first time that lean and threatening wolf which is called—Poverty. Poverty! I had never seen it at close range before. I almost thought it did not really exist. I knew, to be sure, that there were people in the world who were in need of money; but those were the people whom we gave charity to; that was all.
Poverty? What had poverty to do with us?
During all my life I had never given a thought to money.
XX
“Elise, I cannot bear to see myself in this ugly black dress any longer. Write to Schanz and tell him to send me some new gowns. I want a dark green tailor-made costume, and a pearl-gray voile.”
“Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, Schanz says that he would like to be paid.”
“Well, let us pay him then.”
“Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, his bill is twenty-five thousand rubles.”
“Well, let him have them.”
“I am sorry, my lady, but we have not got twenty-five thousand rubles.”
It was true. We had not got twenty-five thousand rubles.
“Elise, Tioka wants to be amused. He would like a toy railway.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Mind,” cried Tioka, “it must be like the one we saw yesterday, with all those stations and canals, and a Brooklyn bridge.”
“Yes, Master Tioka.”
“Well, Elise, what are you waiting for?”
“Begging your ladyship's pardon, it costs eighty rubles.”
“Well?”
“We have not got them.”
True enough; we had not got eighty rubles.
“Elise, I have no more perfumes. Go and get me a bottle of Coty's Origant.”
“Yes, my lady. But—”
“But what?”
“It costs twelve rubles.”
“Well?”
“We have not got them.”
And indeed we had not got twelve rubles.
I thought it very sad not to have twenty-five thousand rubles, nor even twelve rubles, when I required them.
I resolved to telegraph to my mother.
Feeling sad and perplexed, I went to the telegraph office and sat down at a table to write my message:
“Mother, dear, we are unhappy and forlorn; Tioka and I want to come home and stay with you always. Please send us at once—”
I was meditating on what sum to mention, when I felt the touch of a hand upon my shoulder. Startled, I turned, and raised my eyes. Before me stood a man—dark, rather tall, with a brown mustache and pendulous cheeks. Surely I knew him! Where had I seen that face before? Suddenly there flashed into my mind the recollection of a crowded, brilliantly lighted restaurant. I saw Vassili, amid much laughter, counting the dark-eyed tziganes to see if one of them were missing—Prilukoff! “The Scorpion!” It was he who stood before me.
“Countess Tarnowska! Who would have dreamt of finding you here!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing in Moscow?”
“I—I do not know,” I stammered. I had in fact not infrequently asked myself what I was doing in Moscow.
“I have heard of all your misfortunes,” he said, lowering his voice, and gazing at me sympathetically. “I have read the papers and heard all the fuss. Come now, come,” he added, “you must not weep. Let us go and have tea at the Métropole; there we can talk together.” And he took me familiarly by the arm.