CHAPTER IX. · 3

“Why did you not use your power? Why did you not strangle me? Murder me? That would have been better for me to-day than to have lost all that made my happiness,—it would have been better for me, and at least there would not have been the shame!”

I began to sob again, and I covered my face.

Just at that moment Macha and Sonia, wet and merry, ran up on the terrace, laughing and talking; but at the sight of us their voices were hushed, and they hurried into the house.

We remained where we were, for a long time, silent; after they were gone, I sobbed on until my tears were exhausted and I felt somewhat calmer. I looked at him. He was sitting with his head resting on his hand, and appeared to wish to say something to me in response to my glance, but he only gave a heavy sigh and put his head down again.

I went to him and drew his hand away. He turned then, and looked at me thoughtfully.

“Yes,” he said, as if pursuing his own thoughts, “for all of us, and particularly for you women, it is necessary that we should ourselves lift to our own lips the cup of the vanities of life, before we can taste life itself; no one believes the experience of others. You had not, at that time, dipped very deep into the science of those entrancing and seducing vanities. Therefore I allowed you to plunge for a moment; I had no right to forbid it, simply because my own hour for it was long since over.”

“Why did you let me live among these vanities, if you loved me?”

“Because you would not—nay, more, you could not—have believed me about them; it was necessary for you to learn for yourself; and you have learned.”

“You reasoned a great deal,” said I. “That was because you loved me so little.”

We were silent again.

“What you have just said to me is hard, but it is the truth,” he resumed, after a while, rising abruptly, and beginning to walk about the terrace; “yes, it is the truth! I have been to blame,” he went on, stopping before me.... “Either I ought not to have let myself love you at all, or I ought to have loved you more simply—yes!”

“Sergius, let us forget everything,” said I, timidly.

“No, what is gone never comes again, there can be no turning back...” his voice softened as he spoke.

“It has already come again,” said I, laying my hand on his shoulder.

He took the hand in his, and pressed it.

“No, I was not telling the truth, when I pretended not to regret the past; no, I do regret your past love; I bitterly mourn over it,—this love, which can no longer exist. Who is to blame? I do not know. Love there may even yet be, but not the same; its place is still there, but darkened and desolated; it is without savor and without strength; the remembrance has not vanished, nor the gratitude, but....”

“Do not speak so,” I interrupted. “Let it come to life again, let it be what it was.... Might that be?” I asked, looking into his face. His eyes were serene, quiet, and met mine without their old deep look.

Even as I asked the question I felt the answer, felt that my wish was no longer possible to realize. He smiled; it seemed to me an old man’s smile, gentle and full of peace.

“How young you still are, and how old I am already!” he said. “Why delude ourselves?” he added, still with the same smile.

I remained near him, silent, and feeling my soul grow more and more tranquil.

“Do not let us try to repeat life,” he went on, “nor to lie to ourselves. But it is something, to have no longer, God willing, either disquiet or distress. We have nothing to seek for. We have already found, already shared, happiness enough. All we have to do now is to open the way,—you see to whom....” he said, pointing out little Vania, in his nurse’s arms, at the terrace door. “That is necessary, dear love,” he concluded, bending over me and dropping a kiss on my hair.

It was no longer a lover, it was an old friend who gave the caress.

The perfumed freshness of night was rising, sweeter and stronger, from the garden; the few sounds audible were solemn and far off, and soon gave way to deep tranquillity; one by one the stars shone out. I looked at him, and all at once I became conscious of infinite relief in my soul; it was as if a moral nerve, whose sensitiveness had caused me keen suffering had suddenly been removed. Quietly and clearly I comprehended that the dominant sentiment of this phase of my existence was irrevocably gone, as was the phase itself, and that not only was its return impossible, but that it would be to me full of unendurable pain. There had been enough of this time; and had it indeed been so good,—this time, which to me had seemed to enclose such joys? And already it had lasted so long, so long!

“But tea is waiting,” he said, gently; and we went together to the drawing-room.

At the door I met Macha, and the nurse with Vania. I took the child in my arms, wrapped up the little bare feet, and, holding it close to my heart, barely touched its lips with a light kiss. Almost asleep as it was, it moved its little arms, stretched out the crumpled fingers, and opened its bewildered eyes, as if trying to find or remember something; all at once its eyes fell on me, a look of intelligence sparkled in them, and the pink pursed-up lips lengthened in a baby smile. “You are mine, mine!” thought I, with a delicious thrill running through me, and as I strained it to my heart I was half afraid of hurting it with my eager embrace. Over and over I kissed its cold little feet, its breast, its arms, and head with the scant covering of down. My husband came up to us, quickly drew the wrapping over the baby’s face, then, drawing it away again:

“Ivan Sergevitch!” he said with finger under the little chin.

But I, in my turn, covered up Ivan Sergevitch. No one should look at him so long, except myself. I glanced at my husband, his eyes laughed as they rested on mine, and it was long since I had met his with such happy joy.

This day ended my romance with my husband. The old love remained, and the dear remembrance of what could never come back to me; but a new love for my children and my children’s father, began another life and another way of happiness, up to this hour unending... for at last I know that in home, and in the pure joys of home will be found—real happiness!

THE END.

WAR AND PEACE. A Historical Novel, by Count Leon Tolstoï, translated into French by a Russian Lady and from the French by Clara Bell. Authorized Edition. Complete, Three Parts in Box. Paper, $3.00. Cloth, $5.25. Half calf, $12.00.