poets !
She had passed five years in this weary dream, as she called marriage without love, and suddenly freedom and love had appeared. She smiled and stretched out her arms to fold it in feverish embraces, and abandoned herself to her passion as a rider at a fast gallop abandons himself to his horse. He is borne along by the powerful beast, heedless of distance. Breathless, with all things racing past, with the wind blowing fresh in the face, the heart is almost overmastered by the voluptuous sensation. The romantic moment of life had come at last for her; she began to love that bitter-sweet shudder of the soul, to seek emotion for its own sake, to devise both torture and bliss for herself. She had become a slave to her passion, as men become the slaves of opium, and eagerly drank the sweet poison.
One evening Julia was already agitated by expectation. She stood at the window, and her impatience grew greater every minute. She was pulling a China rose to pieces and throwing the petals on to the ground in her vexation, but her heart failed her; it was one of her moments of torture. She played a mental game of question and answer; would he come or would he not, all the power of her mind was bent on solving that hard problem. If it gave an affirmative answer, she smiled, when it did not, she grew pale.
When Alexandr arrived, she had sunk pale and exhausted into an armchair, so powerfully her nerves wrought upon her. When he came up to her .... impossible to describe the look with which she met him, the rapture which lighted up every feature in an instant, as though they had not met for a year; though they had seen each other the evening before. Without speaking, she pointed to the clock on the wall; but he had hardly opened his lips to explain, before she accepted his words without listening to them and forgave him and, forgetting all the agony of suspense, gave him her hand, and they sat long talking and silently gazing at one another. Had not the servant reminded them, they would infallibly have forgotten to have dinner.
What blissfulness! Alexandr had never dreamed of such full perfection of ' sincere outpourings of the heart.' In the summer they took walks alone together out of the town; if people were thronging together anywhere attracted by music, or fireworks, they hovered afar off among the trees, walking hand in hand. In the winter Alexandr arrived at
A COMMON STORY
dinner-time and afterwards they sat side by side by the fire till midnight. Sometimes they ordered a sledge to be brought round, and after flying through the dark streets they hastened back to continue their unfinished conversation by the samovar. Everything that presented itself, every passing stir of thought or feeling—all was felt and done in common.
Alexandr feared meeting with his uncle above all things. He sometimes went to see Lizaveta Alexandrovna, but she never succeeded in moving him to confidences. He was always uneasy lest his uncle should appear and should make him figure in some scene of comedy again and so he always cut his visits short.
/ Was he happy ? Of other men in the like case one may answer yes and no at once, but of him one can only say no. With him love began with suffering. At moments when he succeeded in forgetting the past, he believed in the possibility of happiness, in Julia and in her love. At another time he would grow troubled in the midst of the fire of the most sincere outpourings, and would listen with apprehension to her passionate enthusiastic rhapsodies. He fancied that she must certainly change to him, or some other blow from destiny would lay waste his glorious world of bliss. Even while he was enjoying the moment of happiness, he knew that it must be bought with suffering, and melancholy took hold of him again.
The winter passed however, summer came, and his love still continued. Julia had become still more fervently devoted to him. There was no change on her part nor any blow from destiny; what did happen was altogether different His face grew more serene. He had grown used to the idea of the possibility of a permanent attachment. ' Though this love is not now so passionate,' he thought one day, as he looked at Julia, ' yet in compensation it is lasting, perhaps eternal! Yes, there is no doubt of it. Ah, at last I understand thee, Destiny! Thou wouldst atone to me for my past sufferings and lead me, after long wanderings, into a quiet harbour at last. So here is the haven of happiness—Julia !' he cried aloud.
She started. • 'What is it?' she asked.
' Nothing ! only—~ w
'Nothing! tell me; you had some idea.' Aiexandr was obstinate. She continued to press him.
' I thought that to make our happiness complete there is wanting '
' What?' she asked with anxiety.
'Oh, nothing! an idea occurred to me.' Julia was troubled.
' Ah ! don't torture me, tell me directly !' she said.
Aiexandr spoke musingly in an undertone as though to himself. 'To gain the right, not to leave her for an instant, not to go away home—to be everywhere and always with her. To be her rightful protector before the eyes of the world .... she to call me hers aloud, without blushing or turning pale .... and to be so all our lives, and to take pride in it for ever.'
Speaking in this lofty strain, a word at a time, he at last reached the word marriage. Julia trembled, then burst into tears.
She gave him her hand with a feeling of unutterable tenderness and gratitude, and they both revived and both began talking at once. It was decided that Aiexandr should talk to his aunt and beg for her aid in this complicated matter.
They did not know what to do for joy. It was a glorious, lovely evening. They started off to a place out of town, a wood, and succeeding after much pains in finding a little hillock, where they sat the whole evening looking at the setting sun, and fancying their future way of life, they made plans to limit themselves to a narrow circle of acquaintances and not to waste their time in useless visiting.
They then returned home and began to discuss the future arrangement of their house, the distribution of their rooms, and so on. They got as far as furnishing them. Aiexandr proposed to turn her dressing-room into his study so that it might be near their bedroom.
' What kind of furniture would you like in the study ? ' she said.
' I should like walnut-wood with blue velvet draperies.' 'That would be pretty and would not get dirty; one must be sure to choose dark colours for a man's study; light colours are so soon spoiled by smoking. But here, in the little passage which leads from your future study to the bedroom, I will arrange a conservatory—won't it be lovely ?
There I shall place one easy-chair, so that I could sit there to read or work and see you in the study.'
'I shall not have to part from you much longer/' said Alexandr at parting.
She put her hand over his mouth.
The next day Alexandr set off to see Lizaveta Alex-androvna, to disclose to her what she had long been aware of, and to beg her advice and assistance; begging her, till the matter was concluded, not to say a word about it to Piotr Ivanitch.
The summer was quickly over, and the dull autumn too dragged slowly to an end. Another winter had began. Adouev's visits to Julia were still as frequent.
It seemed as though she kept a strict account of the days, hours, and minutes which could possibly be spent together. She let no opportunity pass.
'Shall you start early for the office to-morrow?' she would ask sometimes.
'At eleven.'
' Then come to me at ten; we will have breakfast together. But could not you stay away altogether. As though they could not do without you !'
'What? duty to one's country,' Alexandr would begin.
' A fine idea! Vou must say that you love and are beloved./ Can it be that your chief has never loved ? If he has a heart, he will understand or bring your work here; who hinders you from working here ? '
Another time she would not let him go to the theatre, and as for seeing friends, she almost always absolutely prevented it. When Lizaveta Alexandrovna came to call on her, for long after Julia could not get over the discovery that Alexandras aunt was so young and handsome. She had imagined her as an aunt after her own fancy, elderly and plain, like the majority of aunts, and here, if you please, was, a woman of six or seven and twenty and a beauty ! She had a scene with Alexandr, and from that time permitted him very rarely to go to his uncle's !
But what was her jealousy and tyranny compared with Alexandr's tyrannising ! He was by now convinced of her attachment and saw that her nature did not admit of change or diminution of feeling and still .... was jealous;
