Part 13 (1/2)
The lamp seemed to go out and something warm lay over his eyes. The palm of a hand. Nina's words were calm at first; then they grew frantic.
”Leave her, leave her, darling! Come to me, to me who wants you! What if she doesn't love you? I do, I love you ...”
He was silent.
”You say nothing? I will give you all; you shall have everything!
Come to me, to me who will give to you so gladly! She is as dead; she needs nothing! Do you hear? You have me ... I will take all the suffering on myself ...”
The lamp streamed forth clearly again. A little grey clod of humanity fell on to the maiden's narrow bed.
It was so intensely dark that the blackness seemed to close in on one like a great wall, and it was difficult to see two paces ahead. Close to the barracks some men were bawling to the music of a mouth-organ.
Under cover of the gloom someone whistled between his fingers, babbling insolence and nonsense. The torches glowed through the tangled network of branches and leaves like globes of fire.
Agrenev walked along, carrying a lantern, by the light of which he mechanically picked his steps; close to his heels, Nina hurried through the darkness and puddles. On every side there was the rustling of pines, hundreds of them, their immense stems towering upwards into obscurity. Although invisible, their presence could be felt. The place was wild and dreary, odours of earth, moss, and pine- sap mingled together in an overpowering perfume; it was the heart of a vast primeval forest. Agrenev murmured as if to himself:
”No, Nina, I do not love you. I want nothing from you.... Anna ...
her father ordered her to marry me.... Ancient blood.... Anna told me she would never love.... Asya is growing up under her influence.... I love my little daughter ... yet she is strange too ... she looks at me with vacant eyes ... my daughter! I stole her mother out of a void! I go home and lie down alone ... or I go to Anna and she receives me with compressed lips. I do not want a daughter from you, Nina ... Why should I? To-morrow will ... be the same as yesterday.”
By the door of his house in the engineer's quarters, he remembered Nina, and all at once became solicitous:
”You will catch cold, my dear. It will be terrible for you getting back ...”
He stood before her a moment silently; then stretched out his hand:
”Well, the best of luck, my dear!”
A band of youths strolled by. One of them flashed a lantern-light on the doorway.
”Aha! Sky-larking with the engineers! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
They began chattering among themselves and sang in chorus a ribald doggerel:
”Once upon a time a wench Appeared before a judge's bench..”
III
Before he went to bed Agrenev laid out cards to play Patience, ate a cold supper, stood a long time staring at the light from under Anna's door, then knocked.
”Come in.”
He entered for a moment, and found her sitting at a table with a book, which she laid down upon an open copybook diary. When, when is he to know what is written there?
He spoke curtly:
”I go to Moscow the first thing to-morrow on Detachment. Here is some money for the housekeeping.”