The least peculiar among us was Count Kamarowsky. Yet even he, I fancy, was not quite like other people. His was not a strong nature, like that of some men I had known. Perhaps the Slav blood is responsible for much that is abnormal and unconventional. Surely we are from the inmost depths of our nature strangely removed from the Teutonic, the Anglo-Saxon and even the Latin races, and our thoughts and actions must frequently appear to them singular and incomprehensible.
As for Paul Kamarowsky, his dread of suffering was so great that he preferred to know nothing that might cause him distress. In fear lest he should see aught that might displease him, he chose to shut his eyes to facts and truths, preferring voluntarily to tread the easy paths of a fool's paradise. I longed to open my heart to him, to unburden my travailed soul and clear my sullied conscience by a full confession; I was ready to abide by the result, even if it meant the loss of my last chance of rehabilitation, even should I forfeit thereby all hope of marriage with a man of honor, rank and repute. But he closed my lips; he sealed my heart; he firmly avoided all confidences and disclosures.
“Mura,” he said, “my life and yours have been too full of errors and of sorrow. Do not embitter this, our hour of joy. The past is buried; let it rest. Do not drag what is dead to the light of day again.”
I bowed my head in silence. But in the depths of my conscience I knew that my past had been buried alive.
Not in my spirit alone did I suffer agonies at this period; my frail body was racked with disease and my sufferings were continuous and intense. Day by day I felt my strength decline, I saw myself wax thinner and paler; rarely indeed did an hour pass that I could count free from pain. The deep-seated ill that since the birth of my little daughter Tania had struck its fiery roots into my inmost being now bore its toxic fruits, slowly diffusing its poison through my veins. Sometimes the pangs I suffered were so acute that I cried out in anguish, while beads of cold perspiration started to my brow. But as a rule I was tortured by a deep, dull, perpetual ache, a sense of utter weakness and weariness that stifled all hope in me and all desire to live.
Oh, daughters of Eve, my purer and stronger sisters, women who have not transgressed—you whose hatred and scorn have overwhelmed me, you whose white hands have been so quick to throw the wounding stone—you alone can comprehend the agony that racked my frame, the flaming sword that pierced me, the sacred ill of womanhood that girt my body as with a sash of fire. You who in such dark hours can shelter your sufferings in the protecting shadow of your home, you who can seek refuge in a husband's tenderness and hide your stricken brow upon a faithful breast, can you not summon one throb of sorrow to your womanly hearts, one gleam of pity to your gentle eyes, when you think of the tortures I dragged from hotel to hotel, seeking to conceal my martyrdom from the inquisitive or indifferent gaze of strangers, not daring to confide in the man who loved me but who yet was almost a stranger?…
Who can describe the minor and yet genuine torment of the tight garments cramping the aching body; the weight of the ornate head-dress on the throbbing brow; the irony of rouge and cosmetics on the ashen cheeks; and the nauseating distaste for the rich viands that one pretends to enjoy while the noise of voices and music pierces your brain, and the glaring electric lights stab your aching eyes like a hundred knife-thrusts?
How often, on returning from some brilliant banquet to the silence and solitude of a desolate hotel bedroom, have I wept aloud with vain longing for one great joy denied to me, one supreme privilege of a happy woman: that of being weary, ill, and miserable—and yet loved all the same! How keenly have I envied some women I have known—women who were not beautiful, not brilliant and not young, but by whose sick-bed in their hour of pain a husband watched in tenderness and pity, faithful throughout the years, throughout the changes that time brings, faithful to the sad and pallid woman who had the right to lay her faded cheek upon his breast.
None, none of those who vowed they loved me, would have loved me thus! Not Vassili, not Bozevsky, not Stahl, not Kamarowsky. Prilukoff perhaps? Who knows?
But Prilukoff was a thief, a fugitive, a criminal; and day and night I prayed that he might not cross my path again.
He had not replied to my agitated telegram informing him that Elise had unwittingly taken the money away. Nor did he, as I thought he would, join us in Vienna where we stayed several days, expecting yet dreading his arrival.
We were at a loss to know what to do with his stolen money. We did not dare to send it to him at Hyères, where I knew he had been staying under an assumed name and in constant terror of discovery. We did not dare to leave it in our rooms at the hotel. Elise carried it about with her day and night in the hated black leather satchel, which had become to us a nightmare, an incubus, an obsession. With a bitter smile I recalled the story of the English hunters in India who succeeded in capturing that most precious and sacred among all animals: a white elephant. And having captured it they knew not what to do with it. They trailed it after them across land and sea—ponderous, slow, magnificent; and nobody wanted it, and nobody knew what to do with it nor how to get rid of it. Prilukoff's stolen money was indeed a white elephant for us.
Kamarowsky with his little son had joined us in Vienna, bringing all our luggage with him. He was as boisterous as a schoolboy out for a holiday.
“There are no spies here, are there, Mura?” he laughed, kissing my cheek loudly. “No spies to drive us away!”
Again I was hurt that he should thus make light of the mysteries of my existence. Should he not have demanded an explanation of my flight from Hyères? Should he not have insisted upon knowing who had followed me there? What love was this that could voluntarily blindfold itself and evade all explanations?
Not this, not this was the love I had dreamed of and hoped for, the steadfast refuge for my wavering spirit, the longed-for haven for my storm-tossed soul.
We proceeded almost immediately to Orel. At this period I possessed no money at all of my own; what little I had had when I left Moscow had been spent; but not for a moment did I entertain the thought of touching Prilukoff's ill-gotten wealth. Paul Kamarowsky insisted upon providing all our traveling and hotel expenses; but it was embarrassing to be unable to tip a servant or to pay for even the smallest trifle that Tioka or I might want.
I made up my mind to lay frankly before my betrothed my deplorable financial situation. And I did so on the journey to Orel. He seemed much amused at my confession; and the fact of our utter dependence upon him seemed to afford him the greatest pleasure.
He filled my purse with gold, and made me promise that I would always ask him for anything I might need or desire.
How well I remember our arrival at Orel! It was a radiant afternoon in October. Count Kamarowsky accompanied us to our hotel, where flower-filled apartments awaited us; then he left us at once to go in search of a young friend of his, the son of the Governor of Orel, who had promised to see to our passports as soon as we arrived.
I was alone in our drawing-room when Elise knocked at the door.
“The children would like to go out; they say they feel cramped from the journey,” she said. “If madame allows, I will take them into the park; it is just opposite the hotel,” she added.
“Certainly, Elise.”
A moment later Tioka and Grania, ready to go out, came running to embrace me, and behind them Elise reappeared.