Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (817 page)

‘Why are your hands covered with blood?’

‘My hands covered with blood, my own? I stabbed your dogs; they barked too loud at a late guest. Come along!’

“We ran on again; we saw in the path my father’s horse, he had broken his bridle and run out of the stable; so he did not want to be burnt. ‘Get on it, Katya, with me; God has sent us help.’ I was silent. ‘Won’t you? I am not a heathen, not an unclean pagan; here, I will cross myself if you like,’ and here he made the sign of the cross. I got on the horse, huddled up to him and forgot everything on his bosom, as though a dream had come over me, and when I woke I saw that we were standing by a broad, broad river. He got off the horse, lifted me down and went off to the reeds where his boat was hidden. We were getting in. ‘Well, farewell, good horse; go to a new master, the old masters all forsake you!’ I ran to father’s horse and embraced him warmly at parting. Then we got in, he took the oars and in an instant we lost sight of the shore. And when we could not see the shore, I saw him lay down the oars and look about him, all over the water.

“‘Hail,’ he said, ‘stormy river-mother, who giveth drink to God’s people and food to me! Say, hast thou guarded my goods, are my wares safe, while I’ve been away?’ I sat mute, I cast down my eyes to my bosom; my face burned with shame as with a flame. And he: ‘Thou art welcome to take all, stormy and insatiable river, only let me keep my vow and cherish my priceless pearl! Drop but one word, fair maid, send a ray of sunshine into the storm, scatter the dark night with light!’

“He laughed as he spoke, his heart was burning for me, but I could not bear his jeers for shame; I longed to say a word, but was afraid and sat dumb. ‘Well, then, be it so!’ he answered to my timid thought; he spoke as though in sorrow, as though grief had come upon him, too. ‘So one can take nothing by force. God be with you, you proud one, my dove, my fair maid! It seems, strong is your hatred for me, or I do not find favour in your clear eyes! ‘ I listened and was seized by spite, seized by spite and love; I steeled my heart. I said: ‘Pleasing or not pleasing you came to me; it is not for me to know that, but for another senseless, shameless girl who shamed her maiden room in the dark night, who sold her soul for mortal sin and could not school her frantic heart; and for my sorrowing tears to know it, and for him who, like a thief, brags of another’s woe and jeers at a maiden’s heart!’ I said it, and I could bear no more. I wept.... He said nothing; looked at me so that I trembled like a leaf. ‘Listen to me,’ said he, ‘fair maid,’ and his eyes burned strangely. ‘It is not a vain word I say, I make you a solemn vow. As much happiness as you give me, so much will I be a gentleman, and if ever you do not love me — do not speak, do not drop a word, do not trouble, but stir only your sable eyebrow, turn your black eye, stir only your little finger and I will give you back your love with golden freedom; only, my proud, haughty beauty, then there will be an end to my life too.’ And then all my flesh laughed at his words....

At this point Katerina’s story was interrupted by deep emotion; she took breath, smiled at her new fancy and would have gone on, but suddenly her sparkling eyes met Ordynov’s feverish gaze fixed on her. She started, would have said something, but the blood flooded her face.... She hid her face in her hands and fell upon the pillow at though in a swoon. Ordynov was quivering all over! An agonising feeling, an unbearable, unaccountable agitation ran like poison through all his veins and grew with every word of Katerina’s story; a hopeless yearning, a greedy and unendurable passion took possession of his imagination and troubled his feelings, but at the same time his heart was more and more oppressed by bitter, infinite sadness. At moments he longed to shriek to Katerina to be silent, longed to fling himself at her feet and beseech her by his tears to give him back his former agonies of love, his former pure, unquestioning yearning, and he regretted the tears that had long dried on his cheeks. There was an ache at his heart which was painfully oppressed by fever and could not give his tortured soul the relief of tears. He did not understand what Katerina was telling him, and his love was frightened of the feeling that excited the poor woman. He cursed his passion at that moment; it smothered him, it exhausted him, and he felt as though molten lead were running in his veins instead of blood.

“Ach, that is not my grief,” said Katerina, suddenly raising her head. “What I have told you just now is not my sorrow,” she went on in a voice that rang like copper from a sudden new feeling, while her heart was rent with secret, unshed tears. “That is not my grief, that is not my anguish, not my woe! What, what do I care for my mother, though I shall never have another mother in this world! What do I care that she cursed me in her last terrible hour? What do I care for my old golden life, for my warm room, for my maiden freedom? What do I care that I have sold myself to the evil one and abandoned my soul to the destroyer, that for the sake of happiness I have committed the unpardonable sin? Ach, that is not my grief, though in that great is my ruin!  But what is bitter to me and rends my heart is that I am his shameless slave, that my shame and disgrace are dear to me, shameless as I am, but it is dear to my greedy heart to remember my sorrow as though it were joy and happiness that is my grief, that there is no strength in it and no anger for my wrongs!...”

The poor creature gasped for breath and a convulsive, hysterical sob cut short her words, her hot, laboured breath burned her lips, her bosom heaved and sank and her eyes flashed with incomprehensible indignation. But her face was radiant with such fascination at that moment, every line, every muscle quivered with such a passionate flood of feeling, such insufferable, incredible beauty that Ordynov’s black thoughts died away at once and the pure sadness in his soul was silenced. And his heart burned to be pressed to her heart and to be lost with it in frenzied emotion, to throb in harmony with the same storm, the same rush of infinite passion, and even to swoon with it. Katerina met Ordynov’s troubled eyes and smiled so that his heart burned with redoubled fire. He scarcely knew what he was doing.

“Spare me, have pity on me,” he whispered, controlling his trembling voice, bending down to her, leaning with his hand on her shoulder and looking close in her eyes, so close that their breathing was mingled in one. “You are killing me. I do not know your sorrow and my soul is troubled.... What is it to me what your heart is weeping over! Tell me what you want — I will do it. Come with me, let me go; do not kill me, do not murder me!..

Katerina looked at him immovably, the tears dried on her burning cheek. She wanted to interrupt him, to take his hand, tried to say something, but could not find the words. A strange smile came upon her lips, as though laughter were breaking through that smile.

“I have not told you all, then,” she said at last in a broken voice; “only will you hear me, will you hear me, hot heart? Listen to your sister. You have learned little of her bitter grief. I would have told you how I lived a year with him, but I will not.... A year passed, he went away with his comrades down the river, and I was left with one he called his mother to wait for him in the harbour. I waited for him one month, two, and I met a young merchant, and I glanced at him and thought of my golden years gone by. ‘Sister, darling,’ said he, when he had spoken two words to me, ‘I am Alyosha, your destined betrothed; the old folks betrothed us as children; you have forgotten me — think, I am from your parts.’

‘And what do they say of me in your parts? “Folk’s gossip says that you behaved dishonourably, forgot your maiden modesty, made friends with a brigand, a murderer,’ Alyosha said, laughing. ‘And what did you say of me?’

‘I meant to say many things when I came here’ — and his heart was troubled. ‘I meant to say many things, but now that I have seen you my heart is dead within me, you have slain me,’ he said. ‘Buy my soul, too, take it, though you mock at my heart and my love, fair maiden. I am an orphan now, my own master, and my soul is my own, not another’s. I have not sold it to anyone, like somebody who has blotted out her memory; it’s not enough to buy the heart, I give it for nothing, and it is clear it is a good bargain.’ I laughed, and more than once, more than twice he talked to me; a whole month he lived on the place, gave up his merchandise, forsook his people and was all alone. I was sorry for his lonely tears. So I said to him one morning, “Wait for me, Alyosha, lower down the harbour, as night comes on; I will go with you to your home, I am weary of my life, forlorn.’ So night came on, I tied up a bundle and my soul ached and worked within me. Behold, my master walks in without a word or warning. ‘Good-day, let us go, there will be a storm on the river and the time will not wait.’ I followed him; we came to the river and it was far to reach his mates. We look: a boat and one we knew rowing in it as though waiting for someone. ‘Good-day, Alyosha; God be your help. Why, are you belated at the harbour, are you in haste to meet your vessels? Row me, good man, with the mistress, to our mates, to our place. I have let my boat go and I don’t know how to swim.’

‘Get in,’ said Alyosha, and my whole soul swooned when I heard his voice. ‘Get in with the mistress, too, the wind is for all, and in my bower there will be room for you, too.’ We got in; it was a dark night, the stars were in hiding, the wind howled, the waves rose high and we rowed out a mile from shore — all three were silent.

“‘It’s a storm,’ said my master, ‘and it is a storm that bodes no good! I have never seen such a storm on the river in my life as is raging now! It is too much for our boat, it will not bear three!’

‘No, it will not,’ answered Alyosha, ‘and one of us, it seems, turns out to be one too many,’ he says, and his voice quivers like a harp-string. ‘Well, Alyosha, I knew you as a little child, your father was my mate, we ate at each other’s boards — tell me, Alyosha, can you reach the shore without the boat or will you perish for nothing, will you lose your life?’

‘I cannot reach it. And you, too, good man, if it is your luck to have a drink of water, will you reach the shore or not?’

‘I cannot reach it, it is the end for my soul. I cannot hold out against the stormy river! Listen, Katerina, my precious pearl! I remember such a night, but the waves were not tossing, the stars were shining, and the moon was bright.... I simply want to ask you, have you forgotten?’

‘I remember,’ said I. ‘Well, since you have not forgotten it, well, you have not forgotten the compact when a bold man told a fair maiden to take back her freedom from one unloved — eh?’

‘No, I have not forgotten that either,’ I said, more dead than alive. ‘Ah, you have not forgotten! Well, now we are in hard case in the boat. Has not his hour come for one of us? Tell me, my own, tell me, my dove, coo to us like a dove your tender word...’”

“I did not say my word then,” whispered Katerina, turning pale....

“Katerina!” A hoarse, hollow voice resounded above them. Ordynov started. In the doorway stood Murin. He was barely covered with a fur rug, pale as death, and he was gazing at them with almost senseless eyes. Katerina turned paler and paler and she, too, gazed fixedly at him, as though spellbound.

“Come to me, Katerina,” whispered the sick man, in a voice hardly audible, and went out of the room. Katerina still gazed fixedly into the air, as though the old man had still been standing before her. But suddenly the blood rushed glowing into her pale cheek and she slowly got up from the bed. Ordynov remembered their first meeting.

“Till to-morrow then, my tears!” she said, laughing strangely; “till to-morrow! Remember at what point I stopped: ‘Choose between the two; which is dear or not dear to you, fair maid!’ Will you remember, will you wait for one night?” she repeated, laying her hand on his shoulder and looking at him tenderly.

“Katerina, do not go, do not go to your ruin! He is mad,” whispered Ordynov, trembling for her.

“Katerina!” he heard through the partition.

“What? Will he murder me? no fear!” Katerina answered, laughing: “Good-night to you, my precious heart, my warm dove, my brother!” she said, tenderly pressing his head to her bosom, while tears bedewed her face. “Those are my last tears.

Sleep away your sorrow, my darling, wake to-morrow to joy.” And she kissed him passionately.

“Katerina, Katerina!” whispered Ordynov, falling on his knees before her and trying to stop her. “Katerina!”

She turned round, nodded to him, smiling, and went out of the room. Ordynov heard her go in to Murin; he held his breath, listening, but heard not a sound more. The old man was silent or perhaps unconscious again.... He would have gone in to her there, but his legs staggered under him.... He sank exhausted on the bed....

CHAPTER II

FOR a long while he could not find out what the time was when he woke. Whether it was the twilight of dawn or of evening, it was still dark in his room. He could not decide how long he had slept, but felt that his sleep was not healthy sleep. Coming to himself, he passed his hand over his face as though shaking off sleep and the visions of the night. But when he tried to step on the floor he felt as though his whole body were shattered, and his exhausted limbs refused to obey him. His head ached and was going round, and he was alternately shivering and feverish. Memory returned with consciousness and his heart quivered when in one instant he lived through, in memory, the whole of the past night. His heart beat as violently in response to his thoughts, his sensations were as burning, as fresh, as though not a night, not long hours, but one minute had passed since Katerina had gone away. He felt as though his eyes were still wet with tears — or were they new, fresh tears that rushed like a spring from his burning soul? And, strange to say, his agonies were even sweet to him, though he dimly felt all over that he could not endure such violence of feeling again. There was a moment when he was almost conscious of death, and was ready to meet it as a welcome guest; his sensations were so overstrained, his passion surged up with such violence on waking, such ecstasy took possession of his soul that life, quickened by its intensity, seemed on the point of breaking, of being shattered, of flickering out in one minute and being quenched for ever. Almost at that instant, as though in answer to his anguish, in answer to his quivering heart, the familiar mellow, silvery voice of Katerina rang out — like that inner music known to man’s soul in hours of joy, in hours of tranquil happiness. Close beside him, almost over his pillow, began a song, at first soft and melancholy... her voice rose and fell, dying away abruptly as though hiding in itself, and tenderly crooning over its anguish of unsatisfied, smothered desire hopelessly concealed in the grieving heart; then again it flowed into a nightingale’s trills and, quivering and glowing with unrestrained passion, melted into a perfect sea of ecstasy, a sea of mighty, boundless sound, like the first moment of the bliss of love.