Doubtless he meant the tombs which spread around me in a livid semicircle; but to me it seemed that he could discern standing behind me all my dead—my mother and Stahl, and Bozevsky and little Peter.... I uttered a scream as I looked fearfully behind me.
“Why do you scream?” gasped Naumoff; and he also turned and looked round. Then he pointed to the grave in front of us. “Who was this?” he asked in a low voice. “Did he love you?” His eyes flickered strangely. There was horror and lust and frenzy in the gaze he fixed upon me.
I was silent.
“Did he love you? Did he love you?” He pressed closer to me, with parted lips and quickening breath.
Then I bent towards him, and a thrill such as I have never felt passed through me. “Swear—on the dead—that you will kill that man.”
“I swear it,” he gasped. “Terrible woman that you are, I swear it.”
“Go,” I whispered. “Go … at once.” But he sprang towards me and fastened his lips upon mine.
Amid all the horrors that haunt my memory, all the spectral visions which drift darkly through the labyrinth of my life, that frenzied embrace among the tombs in the crepuscular cemetery, still rises before me—a ghost of darkness and of shame.
He turned and left me. I heard his footsteps running along the gravel path, I saw his tall shadowy figure vanish in the gloom.... He was gone.
I was alone in the nocturnal churchyard, alone by Stahl's desolate grave.
“Nicolas Naumoff!” I cried. But no one answered me, and fear ran into my heart with thudding steps.
I hurried forward, down the narrow path bordered with tombs and turned to the right, down another wider avenue among other endless rows of the dead.... Where was I? In which direction lay the gate?… I turned and ran back. I must find Stahl's grave again, and then go to the left through the unconsecrated burial-ground of those who had died by their own hand.... With shuddering breath I stumbled forward, but nowhere could I find the dreary field of the unshriven dead. Tall sepulchers and mausoleums loomed dimly on either side of me, limitless rows of tombstones and statues … but Stahl's low, dreary mound was nowhere to be seen. Stay—behind the willows on the right, was that not the white cross standing on my mother's grave?… To reach it quickly I left the pathway and ran diagonally across the burial ground trampling the graves in my haste to reach that large cross shimmering in the gloom.... No, it was not my mother's grave. But further on, and further, other crosses glimmered and beckoned—and I ran on, crazed and terror-stricken, stumbling over mounds and hillocks, tripping in iron railings, trampling over flowers and wreaths … until I fell in the darkness and lay unconscious and silent amid the silent and unconscious dead.
A breath of soft morning air awoke me. I opened my eyes. Elise was bending over me with pale and anxious face. The room—my bedroom—whirled and swam before my dizzy sight.
“Elise!”…
Elise Perrier clasped her hands. “Thank God!” she murmured. “I feared you would never wake again.” Her face worked strangely, and she burst into tears.
“Elise—what has happened? What is to-day?” Before she could answer, another question sprang to my lips: “Where is Naumoff?”
“He has left, my lady,” whispered Elise in awestruck tones.
“Left?” A long silence held us. “Left? Where has he gone?”
Elise looked down at me with blanched and quivering countenance.
“To Venice,” she said in low tones.
I started up. “To Venice?” To Venice! My memory darted to and fro like a child playing hide and seek. “Elise! Elise! Elise!” I stretched out my hands like one sinking and drowning in the darkness. Elise wept. I watched the strange faces that Elise always made when she wept: funny, pitiful grimaces with puckered brow and chin.
“To Venice.” My memory flickers like a feeble light, then blazes into sudden flames that sear my soul with fire. “Elise! He must be stopped. He must not reach Venice! Elise, stop him, stop him—!”
“It is impossible, my lady.”
Yes, it is impossible.
(By this time the train which is carrying Naumoff on his mission of death has passed Warsaw and is hastening towards Brünn; hastening, ever hastening through the dawning hours and the noonday sunshine, hastening on into the twilight—and at dusk it rumbles and pants into the station at Vienna.)
I fall fainting back upon my pillows, and all through the day and the night I dream that I am speeding after the rushing train, catching up with it and losing it again, sweeping through the air, tearing along the unending rails, reaching it at last, and being struck down and crushed under its rolling wheels.
Day dawns once more.
“Elise, Elise, bring Naumoff back. Telegraph to him. Elise, for heaven's sake, bring him back!”
“It is hopeless, my lady.”
Yes, it is hopeless.
(At this hour the train is hurrying from Bozen to Verona, from Verona to Vicenza, from Vicenza to Padua.)
Night falls on my despair.
“Elise, Elise! Where are you? What is the time?”
“It is nearly dawn, my lady.”
“Elise, what day is this?”
“It is the third day of September.”
The third day of September!
“Elise,” I scream suddenly, “Elise! Telegraph to Kamarowsky. Warn him.... Quickly, oh, quickly! Why, why did we not do so before?”
“Hush, my lady, hush! You were delirious; you could only rave and weep.”
“Elise, Elise, telegraph to Kamarowsky....”
“It is too late, my lady.”
Yes, it is too late.
(At this very hour of dawn the train has reached Venice. Nicolas Naumoff is hastening from the Riva degli Schiavoni, across the empty piazza and the deserted streets. He hails a gondola. “Campo Santa Maria del Giglio!”
And the gondola, with soft plash of oar, glides slowly towards the doomed sleeper.
What dreams may the angel of rest have sent to him for the last time? Perhaps the tender vision of little Grania has gladdened him, while silent and inexorable in the closed gondola the youth with the golden eyes steals towards him through the mazes of the clear canals.
“Santa Maria del Giglio.”
Nicolas Naumoff springs from the gondola, crosses the empty Campo and reaches the house. He ascends the steps quickly, knocks, enters—and closes the door behind him.)
Yes, it is too late.
I hear myself shrieking with laughter as I fall back on my pillows. Soon I am surrounded by strangers who hold me down, who thrust opiates between my lips, who lay soothing hands and cooling compresses on my brow. Then I know nothing more.
Elise Perrier's terrified face surges out of the darkness: she is speaking quickly, she is bending over me, imploring and urging.... What does she say? She weeps despairingly, and ever through her tears she speaks, urging and imploring.
Finally, in her thin arms, she drags me from my bed; she dresses me; she wraps a cloak about me, and hurries backwards and forwards with traveling-bags and satchels. Now we are in a carriage—no, we are in a train. Elise Perrier sits opposite me, with ashen face and her hands in gray cotton gloves tightly folded. Her lips move. She is praying.
Suddenly I struggle to my feet: “Paul!…”
As I scream the name Elise springs upon me, covering my mouth with her cotton glove, pressing my head to her breast. “Silence! hush, hush, for the love of heaven! They will hear you. Hush!”
“Is he dead, Elise, is he dead?”
“No, no, he is not dead,” gasps Elise in a toneless whisper, “he is not dead. We are going to him. He is wounded … he has been telegraphing to you for three days, begging you to come. And you would not move, you would not understand....” Elise is crying again.