XXIV
Once more alone! He sat in his room, musing of her, recalling her dear features.
There was an album before him—portrait after portrait of her—naked, beautiful, calling to love, to the sweet solace of love. Would this white breast cease heaving? Would these clear eyes grow dim?
She died.
Trirodov closed the album. For a long time he remained immersed in thought. Suddenly there was a rustling behind the wall, which gradually grew louder—it seemed as if the whole house were alive with the movements of the quiet children. Someone knocked on the door; Kirsha entered, distraught. He said:
“Father, let us go into the wood as fast as we can.”
Trirodov looked at him in silence. Kirsha went on:
“Something terrible is happening. There, near the hollow, by the spring.”
Elisaveta’s blue eyes appeared to him suddenly as in a flame. Where was she? Was she in a difficulty? And his heart fell into the dark abyss of fear.
Kirsha made haste. He almost cried in his agitation.
They went on horseback. They whipped up their horses. They feared they might be too late.
Again the quiet, dark, intensely pensive wood. Elisaveta walked alone—tranquil, blue-eyed, simple in her dress, harmonious in the graceful harmony of her deep experiences. She fell into thought—she recalled things and mused upon them. Her dreams were revealed in the gleam of her blue eyes. Dreams of happiness and of passionate love were interwoven with a different, greater love; and these melted into one another in the fiery longing for noble activity and sacrifice.
What did she not recall? What did she not dream of?
Sharp swords were being forged. To whose lot would they fall?
The high standard of solitary freedom was fluttering.
Youths and maidens!
There, in the dark halls of his house, proud plans were being made.
What a beautiful environment of naked beauty!
There were the children—happy and beautiful—in the wood.
There were the quiet children in his house—radiant and lovable and touched with such sadness.
There was the strange Kirsha.
Portraits of his first wife—naked and beautiful.
Elisaveta’s blue eyes gleamed dreamily.
She recalled the details of the previous evening—the remote room in Trirodov’s house, the small gathering in it, the long discussions, the subsequent labours, the measured knock of the typing-machine, the damp pages put into portfolios.
Then she thought how she, Stchemilov, Voronok and someone else walked out into the various streets of the town to paste up the bills. They put the paste on while still walking. They always took a look round first to see that no one was in sight. Then they would pause and quickly stick the bill on the fence. They would go on farther. … The effort had been successful.
Elisaveta did not think where she was going; she had walked quite far out of her way, to a place that she had not been to before. She imagined that the quiet children were keeping guard over her. She walked trustfully in the forest silence, yielding her bare feet to the caresses of the moist forest grasses, and now listened, now ceased listening, in delicious drowsiness.
Something rustled behind the bushes, someone’s nimble feet were running behind the light undergrowth.
Suddenly she heard a loud laugh—almost at her ears; it broke into her sweet reverie with such a violent suddenness—like the trumpet of an archangel calling to wake the dear dead on Judgment Day. Elisaveta felt someone’s hot breath on her neck. A rough, perspiring hand caught her by her bared forearm.
It was as if Elisaveta had suddenly awakened from a pleasant dream. She raised her frightened eyes and paused like one bewitched. Two vigorous ragged men stood before her. They were both handsome young fellows; one of them was astonishingly handsome, swarthy, black-eyed. Both were barely covered by their dirty rags, the openings in which showed their dirty, perspiring, powerful bodies.
The men were laughing and crying insolently:
“We’ve caught you this time, pretty one!”
“We’ll fondle you to your heart’s content—you shan’t forget us so soon!”
They drew closer and closer to her and blew their hot breath upon her. Elisaveta suddenly came to herself, tore herself away with a quick movement and began to run. A horror akin to wonder swung the resounding bell in her breast—her heavily beating heart. It hindered her running, and there was a beating of sharp little hammers under her knees.
The two men quickly overtook her, and as they obstructed her passage they laughed insolently and said:
“Ah, my beauty! Don’t make a fuss!”
“You won’t get away anyway.”
They jostled one another as they pulled Elisaveta about, each towards himself; and acted altogether awkwardly, as if they did not know who should begin and how. Their sensual panting bared their white teeth, vigorous as those of a wild beast. The beauty of the half-naked, swarthy man tempted Elisaveta—it was a sudden piquant temptation acting like a poison.
The handsome man, his voice hoarse with agitation, shouted:
“Tear her clothes! Let her dance naked before us, and make our eyes glad.”
“She hasn’t much on!” the other responded with a gay laugh.
He caught the broad collar of Elisaveta’s dress with one hand and jerked it forward; he thrust the other hand, large, hot, and perspiring, under her chemise and pressed and squeezed her taut young breast.
“Two men against one woman—aren’t you ashamed?” said Elisaveta.
“Don’t be ashamed, my lass, and lie down on the grass,” exclaimed the handsome, swarthy one, with a laugh very much like a horse’s neigh. His white teeth gleamed, his eyes flamed with desire, as he tore Elisaveta’s clothes with his hands and his teeth. The red and the white roses of her body were soon bared.
The sensual breathing of the assailants was horrible and repugnant to her, and she found it no less horrible and repugnant to look at their perspiring faces, at the gleaming of their enkindled eyes. But their beauty was tempting. In the dark depths of her consciousness a thought struggled—to yield herself, to yield willingly.
Her dress and chemise, flimsy of texture, ripped with a barely audible noise. Elisaveta struggled desperately, and shouted something—she did not remember what.
All her
