A Great Love

People :

Author : Alexandra Kollontai

Sections (TOC) :

• Part 1 : A Great Love
      27,572 Words; 164,175 Characters

• Part 2 : Sisters
      4,430 Words; 24,651 Characters

• Part 3 : The Loves of Three Generations
      12,760 Words; 74,529 Characters

Sections (Content) :

• Part 1 : A Great Love

Source: A Great Love, The Vanguard Press, New York, 1929;
Translated: Lily Lore;
First Published: 1923;
Online Version: marxists.org 2001;
Transcription/Markup: Sally Ryan.

I

ALL this happened long, long ago, at a time when humanity knew nothing of the horrors of war, and the monumental changes of the Revolution still lay in the dim and distant future.

It happened in those years when Russia still writhed in the clutches of darkest reaction, in the days of the Czar; the actors of this little drama were "emigrants," men and women who had been exiled, or had fled from their mother country because of political activity in behalf of the stricken masses of their native land.

Since then a new world has dawned in Russia, but these pitiful, human tragedies still exist.

It is for us to learn and to try to understand.

Seven months, seven long, endless months had passed since last she had seen him. When they had parted, it had been with the firm determination never to meet again.

His head buried in her shoulder and his eyes closed with the agony of their suffering, he had told her of his decision. He no longer had the strength to carry on the struggle, and to bear the constant conflicts their love had brought. His face was so thin, she thought, as she gazed at him, thin and worn with care and suffering, yet pathetically childlike and weak in its abject helplessness.

The doctors had found that his wife was suffering from a serious heart disease and must have absolute rest and freedom from excitement.

"I should feel like a criminal, no, like an executioner, if I caused her the slightest uneasiness. You understand, Natascha, that I must release her from this martyrdom of uncertainty, to give her every chance to recover? .... I can't carry on this deception any longer. Then there are the children. Sascha's sharp little eyes are beginning to suspect... the children must feel that I belong to them unstintingly, with all my heart and soul."

"But is that possible, Ssenja? Can you return to your family after all that has happened between us? Will you be able to forget how near, how dear we have been to each other? Where else will you find that complete, wordless understanding that has bound us together? Won't you be lonely without me?"

There was not a thought of herself in her anxious remonstrances – only of him, and of the life that lay before him.

"What else is there to do? I have no choice! Will I be lonely, Natascha? My heart will be cold and miserable – oh, more than I can tell you." He drew her close into his arms and closed his eyes in silence. "Natascha, I see no other way." As if to drive away the troubled thoughts, his lips sought hers with a man's searching, coaxing kisses, and her heart responded in anxious, troubled willingness.

It did not occur to her to resist his pleading caresses, although unconsciously she was disturbed, aye, almost offended by them.

On a dreary, rainy day they had parted. She had decided to leave on an early train and had already risen from the bed on which he still lay calmly asleep. She glanced at him occasionally as she automatically dressed and packed her belongings, and her soul was frozen and numb with bitterness.

"Already?" he asked in astonishment, when she came, in hat and coat, to bid him good-bye.

She sat down on the bed beside him and softly stroked his forehead, as a mother fondles her child when it is ill.

"Why this hurry to get away? Must you go this morning? Come, stay till this evening, and see me off. You can take the night train."

It was the whim of a man spoiled by the self-effacing adoration and rivalry of two loving women.

At any other time, she reflected, she would have responded to this plea for another hour of her presence, for a single hour of her time, with impassioned gratitude. Somehow, in this grim hour of leave-taking, however, his request struck her as unfair.

"You know why I must take the morning train. If I wait until this evening, I shall be late for the party meeting to-morrow."

"And what if you are? Would that be such a great misfortune? They will manage without you."

He drew her down to the bed and kissed her, but she refused to respond to his blandishments. A thrust, like that of a long, fine needle, had penetrated her heart. Would he never realize how cruelly such thoughtless remarks could hurt? How was it possible for a comrade to speak so slightingly of her work for their common cause, when he must feel that it, alone, would give her the strength to endure this last, irrevocable break, this final parting?

As she sat in the train that was bearing her away from him forever, looking out of the window through a fine net-work of rain into the unfamiliar landscape of a strange country, she still writhed under the restless, depressing hurt in her heart. His unkind words and the off-hand gesture with which he had dismissed her work overshadowed the anguish of this last, decisive parting.

So this was the importance he attached to her work for the cause? "They would get along without her!" The thought persisted, and would not be shaken off. Not until evening, when the shadows fell and the compartment emptied, as the travelers, one by one, arrived at their various destinations, did she begin to feel the misery of their parting. She sobbed bitterly at the thought that she would never see his tender, thoughtful, intelligent eyes again, and mourned for his smile, his gentle smile that sat so strangely on the face of this self-confident, universally admired man.

In parting they had promised not to write, and to make no attempt to see each other again.

"Only remember that I am in the world somewhere," she had tried to console him. "If ever you should need me. .. ." She had not been able to finish the sentence, but his deeply grateful look told her that he understood.

At the time it had all seemed so clear in its inevitability. Now she could not believe that it was true, as one cannot grasp the death of a beloved person until long after he is gone.

It was not the first time that they had decided to part. But always after two or three weeks of silence, a telegram or a letter filled with wild longing, self-reproach and urgent pleading had called her back to his side.

He needed her, he missed the hours of fruitful discussion with her that helped him to clear up his own ideas and to plan his work.

More than once, after such a parting, she had received a letter that plunged, without even the formality of an introductory salutation, into some difficulty that his task presented – a continuation, as it were, of some previously considered matter. Such letters invariably closed with a persuasive plea for a new rendezvous. How much of the romance of their love lay in this assurance that she was essential for his work!

This time, day had followed day, month followed month, without a line, without a message from him.

She plunged into her activities with rebellious pertinacity, trying to overcome the indifference that refused to be shaken off. Bit by bit, as her work threw her together with others similarly engaged, who lived for the same problems and responded to the same interests, her drooping spirits revived. Days came and went in which, she discovered with amazement, she did not once think of him, nor did she know whether or not to regret that this was so. Only late in the evening when she opened the door to her room, the lonely room of an "unattached" woman, after an exhausting day of intense application, the old, well-known nostalgia would take possession of her.

Sometimes, in spite of physical exhaustion, she would write to him, long, throbbing letters that reflected the weary body and the lonesome, forsaken soul that called to him for comfort. ... "Ssenjetschka, Ssenjetschka! You must feel how terribly alone I am! Why did you leave me? It is so disheartening to be so forsaken. Surely you might have remained my friend and comrade. I would gladly have given Anjuta all your solicitude, all your tenderness and your caresses for a little warmth, for a little human, friendly warmth...."

They were never sent to him, these letters, but it eased her heart, and gave her relief to pour out her woes to him. While she wrote she felt so convincingly that only outward, tangible considerations had come between them, that she would find warmth and understanding in his nearness if he were not so far away, if he but lived here in the same city with her, where they could meet as comrades and friends.

At such times Natascha forgot the restlessness that troubled her when she was with him, forgot that trouble and lonesomeness no longer vanished in his presence, that she would always have to stand alone, face to face with life, that she would always have to be strong for both of them, to bear their common burdens. She forgot that the days she spent with him demanded redoubled energy, that she always left him weary, exhausted, and glad to be able to return, unhampered, to the work she loved.

Strange how these chill hours of loneliness drew a rosy curtain over the frustrations of the past!

"I feel as if I were a widow," she wrote in one of these profitless letters. "I wander through the spots we visited together, where we worked and thought and felt as one. We were one, one in thought and one in soul, were we not, my dearest, in those days that will never return? ... It was this spiritual nearness that set fire to our hearts and inflamed our passion.... More than once I have been ready to curse this unholy love that has chastened the glorious, glowing, light-winged happiness that this friendship gave us. Had we remained friends instead of becoming lovers, Ssenja, you would not have had to leave me." But there were other hours too, hours of dismal disillusionment, when her faith in their oneness of mind and spirit tottered before the limitations of actuality. Memory recalled slighting disregard and cruel thoughtlessness until it would seem as if their friendship, too, had been a delusion.

"Did he ever really love me, love me, as I understand love?" Natascha would ask herself dismally in these wretched hours of self-analysis. "If he really loved me, could he have torn me out of his heart, cast me, homeless, out of his soul, so lightly? ... Is it possible that he does not feel how I am suffering? Was there no nearness, no understanding between us .... a figment of my imagination, an artificial product of my own desires? ...How much energy and strength, how much precious time this dream has devoured!" she would reflect angrily, when she recalled how her work, how the cause itself had suffered because she had held herself free for him, turning over work and responsibilities to others, missing important meetings and coming late to others so that she might be at his side. Her reputation as a faithful, conscientious worker had suffered irreparable harm because of this.

Deep down in her heart she upbraided him for the price this love of theirs exacted. In these long hours of self-communion she told him the full, unvarnished truth of her feeling toward him, of the bitterness that had collected and had been suppressed through all these years in her wounded, lacerated heart.

II

His photograph, an old one that he had given her in the early stage of their acquaintance, soon after she had met him at a literary gathering, stood among books, piles of paper and manuscripts that were everywhere in her room.

She often smiled when she recalled their first meeting. Familiar though she was with his name and work – she had written a number of pamphlets popularizing his theories and was generally regarded as one of his followers – she had never made his acquaintance.

"Do you know who is here this evening," the man who was her close friend at that time had asked her. "Your much admired Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch."

"Honestly? Show him to me, please. Where is he? Oh, I must see him!" She was radiant at the prospect of meeting him, and looked like a little girl in her eagerness.

"Hurry! Hurry! Where is he?"

"Calm yourself! You will probably be disappointed." Her friend was obviously displeased with her excitement. "I should call him a colorless sort of person, myself. As a man .. ."

"What does that matter? Am I interested in the man?"

She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "Sometimes you are very stupid."

"If you wish it, of course I shall bring him to you." Her friend departed while Natascha waited, smiling with pleasure and curiosity at the prospect of knowing in person this man whose thoughts had been so close to hers. She saw Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch struggle against her friend's attempts to bring him to her, and was highly amused when the latter finally took his unwilling victim by the arm and dragged him bodily toward her.

"He is bashful," she excused him in her thoughts. Ever afterwards she had looked on this Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch as a very exceptional sort of person, with awkward, but pathetically appealing manners.

She met him frequently after that, and each new meeting was suffused with the fragrance of an unconscious, spring-like happiness.

She had known no lonesomeness in that first year of their acquaintance. Courageous, strong and confident in her power to surmount every obstacle in her path. ... There had been cares, unpleasantness, even unhappiness, but it was all beautified, softened and rarified by a radiant exultation. ... Hindrances? ... Nothing could daunt her. The way of her life lay along a bold, precipitous path whose every winding enticed her hopefully onward – higher – higher. ...

"How can you live alone like this," friends often asked wonderingly, the women particularly. "Without a family, without a soul that belongs to you?"

She had broken off all relations with her friends with an abruptness that was foreign to her usual considerate nature.

"Isn't it depressing to live like this? I should become melancholy."

She laughed merrily in answer. No, quite the contrary. It was great to be alone again, free to come and go as one pleased. She was happy because her wings were not bound by distracting ,encounters, truly glad to be a single woman again. She had her work and needed nothing else. Life was so delightful, so exquisitely, captivatingly delightful!

Alone? Had she not her friends, who were close to her heart? "When she spoke of friends, however, she always thought of him, of him and of his wife and children. She loved them all because they were a part of him, and accepted Anjuta's pronounced femininity and her lack of comprehension for the standards by which she, the unmarried woman, directed her life, although she was occasionally shocked by her petit-bourgeois outlook. However, Anjuta was simple and good, and, above all, frank and honest. There was no room for prevarication in her scheme of things. Her tongue spoke what her mind thought, and she adored her husband with an almost religious devotion, a devotion Natascha understood and shared. How could one help but love him, this splendid, fearless, honest thinker!

At times, it is true, Anjuta's habit of displaying her marital felicity before Natascha, to tease her with her bachelordom, became slightly exasperating.

"I can't help but pity you, my dear. What is a woman's life without a man? It lacks the natural pivot about which a woman's life should turn. Oh, yes, I know, not everyone is fortunate enough to have a husband like Ssenja. Some marriages are anything but happy. But to a woman who lives as I do, in a sort of perpetual honeymoon after twelve years of marriage, the lot of a woman like yourself, whom no one needs for his happiness, seems empty indeed.... Imagine it.... Ssenja is still so ridiculously in love with me... just to show you. ... I know I shouldn't be telling this to another, but you are our friend..." and she would relate some intimate detail of her life with Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch to show Natascha how deeply he was still in love with her.

Natascha, who was always unpleasantly affected by these indiscreet intimacies, would interrupt them with a peculiar feeling of resentment not only toward Anjuta, but toward Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch as well. Somehow these pictures of the legitimate husband seemed to obscure the beloved face of the friend and thinker from her vision. For days after Anjuta told a story of this sort she would avoid him until the impression it created was gradually wiped out.

Occasionally it seemed to her as if Anjuta were telling her these cloying intimacies with a very definite purpose, perhaps even adding picturesque details of her own invention to torment Natascha. But these were pin-pricks, after all. They disappeared and were forgotten in the airy happiness of their growing intimacy which gave wings to her work and courage to fight for her place in life, while it illuminated the solitude of her little bachelor room.

Until there came this sudden, unexpected outburst of passion.... Had it, after all, been so sudden? Looking back, Natascha could see that it had germinated and grown in their hearts long before she became aware of its existence. She, with all her consummate faith in her knowledge of life, who had so often laughingly maintained that she would never be caught in the meshes of a romantic love-affair again, had lost her head. What did it matter that Natascha had sworn never to love again, that she had shunned its aches and wounds, this struggle and this failure of two people to understand each other; what mattered her protestations that she wanted only the friendship and understanding that came from common work and responsibilities?

Life had decided differently.

III

THEY were traveling together in a crowded third class railroad compartment to a party conference in another city. His wife who had been particularly loathe to let him go, had found countless excuses to keep him at home.

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch was still undecided when Natascha had gone to their home on the evening before to ascertain his intentions.

"As a matter of fact, it is positively inexcusable on my part to so much as think of staying away. If I stay away, they [the opposing party faction] will take advantage of my absence and our motion will be defeated.... Still.... It looks as if I should not be able to go. Witjuscha is ill and Anjuta can hardly stand on her feet, she is so worn out with the strain. I can't square it with my conscience to leave her here alone. However ... suppose you drop in to-morrow morning on your way to the station.... Perhaps...."

Her way to the station lay in an entirely different direction, to be sure, but Natascha came.

She was received by his wife's disgruntled face. The self-conscious expression on his features betrayed the altercation that must have gone before.

He had decided not to go, he told her. Yet in the same breath he proved to her, once more, how essential it was that he be present at the conference.

"My absence will have far-reaching consequences, you will see. I know even now that our motion will be defeated.... Still... on the other hand ... Witja is still feverish and Anjuta feels ill.., it is really most unfortunate just now, during this really important conference...."

"I am sure we will manage quite nicely," she reassured him. "We will do everything in our power to carry out your wishes, you may rest assured." Not for an instant had she guessed the real reason for his anxiety to go with her.

She hurried to the station, not at all displeased at the prospect of a few hours for undisturbed reflection in which she could decide on the details of the motion she was to present, and lay out a plan of action to secure its adoption.

Mid-winter frost was in the air. Natascha walked briskly up and down the chilly station platform, her hands thrust deep into her muff, her mind already busily engaged with the work before her. She was tense but self-confident; her spirits thrilled with the joy of approaching battle. She would fight for their motion to the bitter finish, to bring back the glad tidings....

"Natalja Alexandrowna! Natalja Alexandrowna!"

Natascha turned quickly.

"Here I am, after all."

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch stood before her, panting heavily, with a whimsical gleam of triumph in his eyes.

"I tore myself away, after all ... I was actually cruel. ... I'm sorry for Anjuta, but .. ." He took her arm familiarly while Natascha looked in wonderment at the strange expression of crafty exultation that persisted on his face.

The railway compartment was already overcrowded, and they were forced to sit very close to each other. Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch continued to gaze at Natascha with eyes that for the first time betrayed the man behind the gold-rimmed glasses.

Natascha was disconcerted, and it added to her confusion to notice that his hand trembled when he touched her. His agitation had already infected her calmness with its intensity. Eyes, seeking and precipitously avoiding each other, spoke their own language as the sweet, delirious current, tormenting and enticing alike, bound her more and more closely to the man who sat beside her.

At one of the longer stops they left the car for a breath of air. They breathed its keen, wintry freshness with a sigh of relief because they had escaped from this beautiful but disturbing dream. The smoke-darkened city was far away.

They spoke of indifferent, trivial matters, and the oppressive tension gradually vanished. Neither felt the desire to return to the crowded train.

But, back in the compartment once more, the mischievous boy with his arrow again began to exercise his magic. The sultry atmosphere and the enforced nearness of their bodies evoked an irresistible charm. Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch sought Natascha's hand and she did not withdraw it.

Hesitatingly he began to speak of his life at home, of his wife's suffering and ill-health, and of her inordinate jealousy. But although he spoke of Anjuta, they both understood that it was of his love for her, for Natascha, that he was telling. He had always pitied Anjuta more than he loved her; in fact he had married her because he felt sorry for her. She had never understood him. He had lived beside her like a stranger, locked up within himself, alone with his thoughts and his aspirations. Then Natascha had come and everything had changed. Life has become light and joyous, and he was no longer alone. She had the key to his soul. She was essential to his happiness. His love for her had passed through every stage of happiness and pain, but he had never dared to hope that she, too, could care for him. He had trembled before her like a love-sick school-boy. Did she know the jealous tortures he had suffered because of that friend who had introduced them, and how he had rejoiced when the break between them came – how he had loved her all these years, tenderly and hopelessly?

She listened to him in speechless astonishment, and was glad – yes, glad – despite the anxiety this confession caused her. But she no longer found the face of her friend, the thinker, in the impassioned features of this man beside her. How different he was, this new, strange Ssenja, from the thoughtful man with the childish smile of whom she had grown so fond!

The new Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch sat close beside her, and sought her eyes without evasion, now. What was to become of it all? Life without her was impossible. Yet there they were, his family and his children. Anjuta – he would never leave Anjuta.

"What shall we do? Why should we do anything? Have I asked for anything? It has been happiness enough for me to be your friend."

"My dearest!" Oblivious to the staring strangers about them, he threw his arms about her and kissed her temples. "It is so sweet to be with you ... so sweet."

Her lips smiled, but there were tears in her eyes.

"I am crying because I am so happy," she explained.

He pressed her close and whispered: "My precious, my beloved Natascha!"

At their destination they left the train in a daze, and were met by a number of comrades who escorted them first to the inn at which they were to stay, and thence to the conference. The first day passed without undue animosity. Natascha and Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch, keyed to the highest pitch with suppressed excitement, were taken back to the inn amid much banter and laughter by a group of sympathetic comrades. She loved them all, every one of them. Even the opponents were her dear friends and comrades that day. She was drunk with joy. She wanted to laugh, to be among others as happy as she; she wished this glorious day would never end. It would be different later – to-day she was happy. She would have to suffer for her love.

Ah, sooner than she expected.

It was on the last day of the conference.

The strain of three days of endless discussion followed by three sleepless nights was beginning to tell on Natascha. She found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on her work as secretary, to follow the thoughts of these strange speakers in their florid, frequently affected, oratorical flights and to record them correctly.

When she read her notes on the day's proceedings at the end of the session, it appeared that she had misquoted one of her opponents, so that the meaning of his words had been distorted. The opposition raged.

They insisted that it had been done as a clever maneuver on the part of the opposing party.

Natascha was helplessly confused.

Suddenly Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch plunged into the discussion with a bitter attack upon her for her carelessness. She understood, of course, that it was done to save his group from the aspersions of its opponents. He was placing the responsibility where it belonged – on Natascha's shoulders – in order to show that they, as a faction, had nothing to do with it.

After the session was over they all walked to the inn together, furiously discussing; Natascha alone was silent, trying hard to suppress her tears.

They were alone at last.

Crying bitterly she threw herself on his breast. She made no attempt to explain her tears; Ssenja would understand how she felt, since he, too, must feel unhappy over the situation into which her unfortunate error had forced them.

Had it been necessary to censure her quite so vigorously? Of course she realized that he must place the interests of their faction above her personal feelings.... She wanted to tell him that she understood. But he must express some regret, some contrition for having had to do it. Let the others believe, if they pleased, that she had tried to gain an unfair advantage by trickery. He must know that it had been a mistake, that only her extreme exhaustion was responsible.

"You understand, Ssenja, don't you? You understand... ?"

"Of course I understand, my poor little girl.... I know how hard it is for you to leave me. But what else can we do?"

Had she heard aright? Her tears ceased and she looked at him, uncomprehending.

"You know that the very thought of parting makes me suffer," he was saying. "But we will continue to love each other ... you will come to visit us as usual ... you must, or Anjuta will suspect that something has happened. Come, now, stop crying. Ah, how I longed for you all day long! Let me kiss you."

After that, could she tell him the reason for her tears? If he did not understand the cause of her misery, if he could find it in his heart to seek a last caress before they took leave from each other when she was so downcast and unhappy – could she hope to make him understand .. .?

He kissed away two great tears that ran across her cheeks.

"Don't cry, my little one. We will see each other often."

In the train they sat with a number of other comrades. At the station, back in the great, smoky city once more, they took formal leave ... as strangers.

IV

LOOKING back at it now, she understood the reason for her unhappiness more clearly than she had seen it at the time. Now she knew that the bitter tears she had shed when she had reached her room had not been the lonesome tears of a woman whose lover has left her for the first time. They were tears of sorrow over the first of many wounds that were yet to pierce her heart. Was it possible that Ssenja did not understand that a heart, wounded again and again, ceases to love, that love seeps slowly, drop after drop, out of the tiny wounds that never heal because they were made by thoughtlessness and misunderstanding?

After these seven months of lonely reflection, Natascha was beginning to understand the cause for her restlessness, to see what it was that left a residue of humiliation at the bottom of each cup of passion. Again and again she had come to him, honestly ready to bare her soul, but he saw only her, Natascha, and paid no heed to the voice that tried to reach him from within.... He took the woman into his arms while her soul, her innermost being, stretched out its arms to him in vain, and remained lonesome and forgotten. Had he ever known Natascha?

To be sure, his mind was always full of petty cares. Life had not been kind to him. He lived in an atmosphere of constant material misfortune and financial crises, of jealousy and suspicion, tormented by a nagging wife whose constant claims on his time and energy were hampering his efficiency.

"Yesterday Anjuta almost poisoned herself"...

Some such story overshadowed every one of the stolen hours they spent together. "I came in just in time to prevent her from swallowing the contents of a bottle of morphine. What can rye do, Natascha? Where is there a way out of it all?" Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch would bury his head in her lap while she softly fondled his beloved head. At first these tales of attempted suicide had shocked her, until their frequent repetition dulled her anxiety and made them seem ridiculous. She could not find it in her heart to laugh at Anjuta for these silly extravagances, however. She was too honestly sorry for her. But that she should rob him of his precious time, that she filled his mind so full of her everlasting petty cares that he had no time for serious concentration – that was unforgivable. Had she no comprehension of his greatness, that she refused to see that the energy and strength of a man like this were too precious to be wasted on everyday cares?

Natascha herself spared him wherever she could. She never told him of her cares and tribulations; before his own they bowed down and disappeared. With her he should always find tenderness and deepest, fullest understanding. She longed to take his-burdens upon her own shoulders, to free the thinker, the worker, for greater, more important responsibilities...

"How strong, how splendid you are," he said with a sigh. "You can stand alone in the world. You are so different from poor Anjuta. She would go under without my protection."

Natascha laughed at him as at a child. Dared she be weak where he was concerned? She must be his refuge, his comforter, the bringer of light and cheerfulness. After cares and tears and petty troubles at home he must find a holiday when he came to Natascha.

There were times, exasperating days, when mishap seemed to lurk in her path, when she lost patience with this, her self-imposed role, and a spirit of revolt would raise its head. Why did he always pity Anjuta? Surely Natascha's life was anything but easy. ... There was her work – hard, grinding, responsible work. Others saw and appreciated her worth. Had Ssenja ever given it a single thought?

"Oh, Ssenja, my dearest, I am so tired." Sometimes Natascha tried to win a bit of sympathy for her own aggravations. "They [the other faction] have instituted a veritable drive against me. Have you heard of their new resolution?"

"Please, don't let's talk about that. It really isn't worth getting excited about. Let me tell you the trouble I am in now. Anjuta is sick again, and the doctor says she must have absolute rest. I should have a nurse for the children, but how can I pay? You know the straits I am in as it is. Oh, Natascha, when I look at Anjuta and see how she works herself to skin and bone, how she gives herself completely to myself and the children, I realize what a criminal, what an egoist, what an entirely worthless scoundrel I am!"

Could Natascha think of herself when life was so bitter for him, for her idol, the light of her life?

There were rare occasions, moments of quiet relaxation from his own trials, when it would occur to Ssenja that Natascha was always, always the giver, that he was the receiver in their love for each other.

"Natascha, I know that our love is bringing you nothing but suffering. I am too selfish to love you as you deserve to be loved. Some day you will realize how I have misused your affection, and you will grow tired of me. Natascha, what will become of me then? You cannot know what your love means to me."

"I think I know, Ssenja. If I didn't, I don't believe I could bear it."

"I am your best friend, Natascha, though I may not always show it. I want you to believe that, dearest.... Sometimes there is a great chasm between us. ... I feel you withdrawing from me. You don't tell me everything about yourself. That is it, Natascha. It hurts. You must know that this close understanding between us, thiS absolute confidence and honesty is the most precious part of your love for me?"

"Yes, Ssenja, that is most important of all. We must understand one another. Each must know every thought that passes through the other's mind. You don't know how often I am hurt and unhappy because I miss this oneness between us.... At such times I grow cold and inexpressibly discouraged. I want you to care for more than just the woman in me."

"My little stupid."

"You were right, Ssenja. There are some things I haven't told you. Why? I don't know myself. I want to tell you everything."

"You must tell me. What is it? There is something, then, that you have kept from me?"

"No, you don't understand. It isn't a secret simply little, unimportant happenings that trouble me, and I hesitate to tell you about them."

"What, for instance, is troubling you now?"

"Well, then, these visits of Comrade Anton's. He has been coming to see me quite frequently of late, and then he sits and sits ... looking at me in such a peculiar way – oh, you know what I mean – for hours at a time. I hate it, but I can't refuse to let him come, can I? We are working together, and the poor fellow is lonesome. ... I'm a little sorry for him."

"What have his visits to do with your work together? I must admit, that is something I cannot understand. You will pardon me, but I find this pity of yours a bit overdone. He sits in her room and looks at her for hours with love-lorn eyes and she pities him! How am I to know how far this pity of yours will take you? It seems to me it should not be difficult to get rid of a person who annoys one with that sort of thing. Of course, if you like his courtship...."

"Ssenjetschka! How can you say that? ... how can you misunderstand me so?" Natascha laughed in spite of her indignation. Jealous,... and of Comrade Anton. The dear, delightful imbecile! Didn't he know after all these months with her that she idolized him? He dominated her every thought. Why, his figure with its slight studious stoop was dearer and more appealing to her than anything else in the world. Who was there that could compare with Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch? Who had his crystal-clear soul? Who could think as logically, as brilliantly as he? This jealousy of his was so amazingly naive that she could not be angry at him, although at times it became exceedingly disagreeable. Hadn't he been jealous of the violinist at the concert and sulked all the way home? Hadn't he talked himself into a rage and given her her "freedom?" Perhaps he had forgotten that disgraceful scene in the street car when she had exchanged a few bantering words with the conductor?

"Can't a woman look at a man without falling in love with him?" she demanded laughingly, when he came to his senses after one such incident. He had smiled a little shamefacedly, quite conscious of the wrong he had done her.

But Natascha felt that he distrusted her because of what he knew of her past.

"You yourself told me that you loved him the one with the black hair, I mean. How much did you love him? As much as you love me?"

"Much, much more, of course. ...Would I have sent him away so lightheartedly if I had loved him more? You know all about it. You saw it all. And still you do not believe that I love you? For all your cleverness you are sometimes exasperatingly stupid!"

"Other men are so much more persuasive than I, and know how to pay court to women. I shall never learn how to be a cavalier, Natascha."

"But that is exactly why I love you so much, Ssenjetschka. You are such a darling because you are like that."

"Darling! A fine darling you have picked for yourself!" he scoffed, embarrassed. But, nevertheless, he was soothed by her protestations.

In Natascha these scenes left traces of a vague hurt. She could not understand how he, he who had condemned others so unsparingly for the unhappiness their distrust had caused her, could himself so little control his jealousy. He had often comforted her in the earlier days of their acquaintance when she uttered vain regrets for the past, had been her haven of refuge when others had hurt and affronted her. He had been forbearance itself, he had ministered to her with an understanding one rarely finds, except where one woman understands and feels for another. She had teasingly called him Ssenjetschka-an echo of the past. ...

The Ssenja of those by-gone days, the friend and confidant, and this Ssenja, her illegal husband, were two different persons altogether. Natascha saw this more and more clearly in the seven months since they had parted.

Was it only this failure to think and feel with her that was driving them apart? As she recalled scenes of their life together, other ugly reminiscences forced their way forward. There were times when he had not even spared the woman in her. He who was mercy and thoughtfulness itself toward the Anjuta who so often abused and misused his goodness, could be incredibly ruthless where Natascha was concerned. No one had ever hurt her so cruelly, and the conviction that it was done unconsciously mitigated but could not wipe out the sense of outrage that persisted. It had begun in their first night together, in the little inn to which the comrades had brought them.

The comrades had departed at last and Natascha fled to her room, tremblingly assuring herself again and again that it was true. He loved her! This fearless thinker, this greatly admired, universally beloved revolutionist loved her! Sheer, great, immeasurable happiness!

She was preparing for bed when a knock at the door caught her with a tooth-brush in her hand. Before she could answer, Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch stepped into the room and turned the key in the lock.

Natascha, startled into immobility, stood gazing at him, a brush full of tooth-powder still in her mouth.

"How funny you look. Like a little boy!"

And disregarding Natascha's stunned perplexity he gathered her in his arms.

"You smell of peppermint," he laughed.

"Wait, let me ... at least let me wash this powder from my mouth."

She did not know what to say – she simply struggled to release herself from a position that was physically uncomfortable and distasteful to her. But he kissed her lips that were covered with powder, her neck and her bare shoulders with greedy, searching kisses. In that first night she felt no response to his caresses. They were strange, uncomfortable and unaccustomed. When she recalled his impetuous ardor in their first night together she remembered only the taste of peppermint toothpowder, and its disagreeable grittiness.

When he fell asleep at last, exhausted with burntout passion, she leaned over the head that rested on her shoulder with ineffable yearning. Not until then did the compassionate tenderness that was her love for him return to her. Worshipfully, just touching it gently with her lips, she kissed the high, thoughtful forehead of his proud, beautiful head.

At no time, neither then nor later, was there mere physical desire or flaming passion in the love she gave him. She gave her body with the deep, pure joy with which the priestess of old offered herself to the priest at the shrine of her temple. She was giving herself to her god. To him Natascha was the first woman to waken a great, passionate desire within him; he craved her passionate response. Not the god, but the man in him claimed her love.

V

IN these long months since she had left him she had often tried to understand her love for him. Had it brought her only suffering and resentment? Surely there had been breath-taking, delirious moments of unalloyed happiness as well!

She recalled long, sultry evenings in the first summer of their love, evenings she had spent with his family in the exotic strangeness of a southern landscape. He had brought his wife and children to the seashore near the little mountain village where she was spending a hard-earned vacation with a younger brother who was still at school. They were still trying to observe outward appearances, and she visited his family and met his wife at frequent intervals. He insisted on this, for Anjuta's sake. ... The old times, when it had been a precious privilege to enter his household, seemed to have returned again.

In these long summer evenings she experienced the spring-time of their love. They were frequently together, but always in the presence of others. A peculiar enchantment pervaded these meetings, a charm that enhanced their desire for one another and filled each day with the sweet torture of restless hope and expectancy. ... There were stolen hand-clasps, meaningful glances, half smiles that they alone caught and understood, and a longing exquisitely enhanced by their constant nearness and the impossibility of fulfillment.

They spoke much and happily of their work and the problems that engaged the movement at that moment. Sometimes they argued and quarreled as relentlessly as if they were strangers.

But the evenings – evenings on the porch – mysterious lights of a distant town, water throbbing in the rays of the moon....

What of those others, his wife and their friends, who sat beside them? Natascha and Ssenja were hardly conscious of their presence. They were alone together in the witchery of a southern summer night.

Natascha had only to throw herself back into her wicker chair and close her eyes to feel his nearness. She needed only to stretch out her hand to touch his body ... and dared not do it. Desire grew – her body was aflame with it, aflame with the knowledge that he, too, was being drawn to her, that he was longing to be with her. ... She would open her eyes in the moonlight, to catch a quick glance – a smile....

She laughed – she was so happy, so full of a sweet contentment no words could express.

Thus they would sit until midnight, fitfully speaking. Long silences, brisk discussions. And her soul trembled and sang, waiting, waiting and believing in a future full of joy and gladness.

"Time to go home!"

Natascha would sigh out of the fullness of her happiness as she rose to take her leave.

"We will see you home."

All together they would go with her along the road that lay milky-white in the silver of the moonlight. He, close beside her – a fleeting touch of his shoulder set her pulses racing faster and more madly than the most fervent caress when he was alone with her.

A last pressure of his hand at the gate, another quick, significant smile as they parted!

After they had all disappeared down the road into the darkness Natascha remained in the dim garden, unable, as yet, to bear the presence of others – her heart was too full, the night too marvelous, too irresistibly enchanting.... Ah, to be able to spread one's wings and fly into the darkly beckoning, star-lit sky! To run, swiftly, swiftly, down the hill to his house, to fall about his neck,....or...

Foolish, sweetly-mad, gusty, disconnected thoughts and desires.

Sweet, oppressive, all-pervading fragrance of southern night-blooms.

VI

A short, colorful summer. Short, and far-away as a dream.

Had there been no happiness in her love but this? Never again?

She tried to remember, tried hard; her brews furrowed darkly as she recalled the days that followed, for memory brought only painful, stolen, tainted hours, hours of hurt, hours of suffering.

Then her eyes grew light again.

Ah, yes, she remembered. She remembered. To think that she had forgotten!

The following spring ... she was engaged on her last larger piece of writing, working feverishly and without rest, completely oblivious to everything about her.

And then ... his telegram.

She took a case of books to the tiny room on the outskirts of the city where she kept her tryst with him, to fill with work the long, irksome hours between his visits that she would otherwise have spent in impatient idleness. There he would find her when he came to the little room among the acacia blossoms, engrossed in her task, cheeks flushed and the mist of authorship in her eyes.

That month had been one of unalloyed delight. What had made it so? – her love? – her work? At the time she neither thought nor asked...enough to know that it was beautiful, that her spirits soared, that there was life, the life that one feels only in childhood and early youth, in every fiber of her being.

At night she would get up from their bed to tear open the windows and admit the heavy fragrance of acacia blossoms, to look out at the fitfully-fantastic patterns the moon painted through the leaves on the grass, and on the table with the tea-cups that remained there from a late repast.

It seemed a pity to sleep, a pity not to feel the intense, throbbing wonder in her heart.

She recalled one night, just before they left – a hot, oppressive night.

Surrounded by dark-green shadows and fragrant flowers it seemed to Natascha as if she had never known before what life could mean.

She leaned far out of the window, drew a branch of acacia toward her and plucked a fragrant, tenderly-white cluster of blossoms.

"How beautiful it is! How beautiful!"

She wanted to laugh, to wake Ssenjetschka to tell him how much she loved him, how happy she was...

"Nataschka, where are you?"

"Ssenja, what a wonderful night. ... Look at these flowers, Ssenja. Do you smell them?" She bent over him tenderly holding the scent-laden flowers to his nostrils.

"My love, it is like the fragrance of your own sweet soul – tender and maddening." His lips touched the fingers that held the acacia-twig.

To Natascha it seemed as if her quivering heart were rising to unimagined heights. No, her love had brought her more than suffering: precious moments, sweet, inimitable hours that would never return had been hers as well – ephemeral, fragile happiness.

Would it never return? Never?

VII

THE last few weeks had overwhelmed Natascha I and her comrades with unexpected work demanding, intense, attentive application, and as always when the need arose, living, vital human beings, devoted to the cause, sprang up on every side to carry it through.

Natascha found a new satisfaction in the atmosphere of intense endeavor that surrounded her. For the first time she knew the satisfaction of being a tiny cog in a powerful mechanism beginning to rotate in resistless accomplishment. The frank devotion of her colleagues restored to Natascha some of her old vivacity and her laughter rang often and cheerily through the long, dark corridors of the dreary apartment in which they worked. Her comrades would smile indulgently.

"How happy our Natalja Alexandrowna has become!"

"She is probably in love," commented the comrade who worked at her side, matter-of-factly, and without looking up from his work he asked, "Is it true, Natalja Alexandrowna? Have you fallen in love?"

"And with whom, pray? With you, perhaps? Who else do I ever see, Wanjetschka?"

"Oh, these women are sly! Shakespeare already said ... you see how they are. Now she wants to put it all on me. No, my dear Nataschka, you won't fool me. I am not so easily led about by the nose. I see everything."

And throwing back his thick mane of hair, he looked at her out of mock-serious eyes, while Natascha continued to tease him. She was truly fond of Wanjetschka. In his gold-rimmed glasses and slow, thoughtful manner of speech there was something that reminded her of Ssenja.

It was late when Natascha hurried home that evening. Her back ached, her eyes burned and her throat was dry and parched, but a soul content and at peace forgets physical weariness. The first steps of the work they had launched were accomplished, and the movement was driving forward with gratifying swiftness under its own impulse, along well-ordered paths.

As she wearily climbed the stairs, she thought gratefully of the cup of tea and the new periodical with the much-discussed article of a greatly-admired comrade that awaited her. "After all," she reflected, "it is good to live alone. It gives one the moral right, after a hard day's work, to spend the evening as one pleases. If Ssenja were here, now, there would be this to do and that to attend to for him. I might have to start off, now, to the other end of the town to meet him, or have to fuss over a stupid supper at home."

As it was, a cup of tea and an hour's reading would bring the hard working-day to a perfect end.

"Has anyone been here?" she asked the landlady, as usual.

"Some books came this morning, and there is a telegram... ." "A telegram?" Her heart beat tumultuously. How silly of her ... something official, of course...

It lay on her desk near the package of books, and beside it a gray envelope with his thrilling, never-to-be forgotten handwriting.

Natascha's limbs trembled so violently that she had to sit down to steady herself.

Which should she open first? The telegram? The letter?

The telegram read: Arrive in H. on twenty-eighth, Expect you at station. Wire. Ssenja.

A year ago a message like this would have sent her whirling madly about the room. She would have counted the days, the hours. ...

Now the hand that held the telegram sank helplessly into her lap.

Not a line for seven long months. Not a single sign of life – and now this! Did he know what she was doing? He knew nothing of her life or her work, nothing of the thrilling months of grueling labor she had behind her. She might have been arrested, she might have died – he would have been none the wiser. "Come!" Just as if they had parted yesterday! As if nothing had happened between them, and he had not, with his own hand, inflicted a mortal wound to her love for him.

Should she go to him again to spend hours beside a man who was deaf to her inner voice, sit beside one who saw only her profile, never the whole Natascha? Should she lie in his arms and yet feel that she was far, far away from him because he saw only what he chose to see of her?

No, no. She would not go! She would not be caught again! Enough!

Natascha threw back her head with that characteristic gesture for which the comrades used to tease her, and took her pen to answer forthwith with a decisive refusal. But how to address it? His home was out of the question;his wife would plague him to distraction. To H.? He would not get there before the twenty-eighth. Suppose he were going there just to meet her again? The thought of his disappointment at finding her refusal there was almost more than she could bear. His letter would tell her what was taking him there.

As she read, her indignation wilted and disappeared and with it the feeling of neglect and hurt, giving place to a warm flood of tenderness for this gentle thinker with the tender soul who had written her these humbly pleading, abjectly self-reproachful lines. Far from being indifferent to her fate he had followed her activity from a distance, greedily collecting every hit of information he could get concerning her activity. He knew that she was engaged in difficult, responsible work and had rejoiced that she had found a congenial occupation to distract her thoughts from the pain he knew he had inflicted. ... He, however, had found that feelings are stronger than reason. It was useless to struggle against them. There had not been a day when he had not longed for her.

His relations with his wife were unchanged, worse, if anything. He had become more critical and more irritable, and his home life was becoming a veritable hell. Work, under those circumstances, progressed slowly. Recently, however, he had chanced on an interesting thought that seemed worth following up, and in search of material he had made the acquaintance of a professor in H. who had placed his library at Ssenja's disposal. For that reason, and because he must talk it over with Natascha, who would help him develop it more fully, he had decided to spend the next month and a half or two months in H.

Should they let this wonderful opportunity slip by without seeing each other again? Natascha must come! Secretly, of course, as always. No one must know where or for what purpose she was going (because of Anjuta). She would manage somehow. A postscript begged her to supply herself with the necessary funds, since his own finances were in a more than precarious condition. This was not new to her. She had always been financially better off than he, and they had always arranged their meetings on that basis, she palling the expenses that arose. Obviously he could not be expected to deprive his family at home for this purpose, particularly since the question of finances was always a sore one. His family life was the typical life of the Russian refugee of that period – irregular income and constant indebtedness. Natascha, on the other hand, had a regular income and steady employment.

"I am like a man who keeps a tryst with a strange woman, and naturally pays all expenditures of such an occasion," she thought with a slightly rueful smile.

This time Ssenja's demand brought her up short, however.

"Easy enough to write – supply yourself with the necessary funds! Where am I to get the money? The journey alone will cost more than I possess."

What was she to do? The party had been in urgent need of funds and she had given all she had, retaining just enough to provide for her frugal needs.

What was she to do?

Natascha was no longer in doubt as to her intentions. That question had decided itself irrevocably while she persued his letter. But she must find some way out of all the difficulties and hindrances that stood in the way of her going. Above all, this money question would have to be decided.

She began to calculate. What she had would just pay her trip to H. Where to get the rest – that was the question. Pawn her watch? She would get so little for it that it would not be worth the trouble. Telegraphing to her relatives was too distasteful to be considered – they would probably answer in a letter full of hints and recriminations.

A peculiar person, her Ssenja. Was she a millionairess? Did it never occur to him that it might be difficult for her to raise such a sum at a moment's notice? For an instant a feeling of resentment took possession of her. He paid no attention to her difficulties – ever. Like a child....

This comparison touched and softened her at once.

Exactly. A child, a great, over-grown child. Great minds were like that – like children in practical matters. That was natural.

She spent the rest of the evening, till far into the night, over her plans, but the more earnestly she reflected, the further it seemed to remove her from any way out of the difficulty.

Would she have to forego this visit to him because of a little stupid money?

Natascha sat up desperately in her bed and beat her hands together in her anguish.

Money was by no means the only consideration, of course. There were her work, and the responsibilities she had assumed. True, she had planned it so well that it was running smoothly on its own momentum. She would probably find someone to take her place for three or four weeks. But all this was more easily said than done. What would the comrades think of her? It was not pleasant to feel their disapproving eyes. A look of condemnation or an unfriendly malicious comment had more than once depressed her for a whole day. She would have to speak to Donzeff who, she knew, disapproved of her and called her "the fine lady" behind her hack. He would naturally resent this sudden departure and would see in it, not without justification, new proof of his contention that she was unreliable. "Just as I said. Natalja Alexandrowna is too much concerned with matters outside of the movement."

She could almost hear his unpleasant, grating voice as he walked from one corner of the room to the other with his slightly halting gait. She resolutely put him out of her mind, and refused to consider what would happen after she returned...That would take care of itself afterwards; now she must find some way out. Ssenjetschka must not be disappointed, and she herself... above everything else she must see him again. She felt that she would lose him irrevocably if she failed to answer his call at this time, and the thought, with its bitter finality, was more than she could bear.

Rather die than that!

When she came to the office earlier than was her wont on the following morning, her weary eyes fell with a gleam of hope on Wanjetschka, throning on a high chair, alone in the room in the midst of a cloud of cigarette smoke. He was underscoring a paragraph here and a sentence there in some newspapers that lay before him.

"I have the honor to report to her Highness Natalja Alexandrowna and to wish her the best of health," he mocked, without, however, raising his head.

"Good morning, Wanjetschka."

Wanjetschka caught a trace of self-pity in her voice and threw her a quick look over his glasses.

"What is troubling your Highness? Melancholy?"

"Oh, Wanjetschka, don't ask me."

Natascha gestured hopelessly. She felt herself so unfairly treated by life that even his laughing sympathy touched her.

"So, so," he exclaimed, more seriously now. "What is this? ... Something new? But why cry all your tears to yourself? Tell me about it, if things have come to such a pass."

He pushed his papers away, but, afraid of irritating Natascha with too great a show of curiosity, still persisted in this bantering pose of a friend ready to hear another's confession.

Natascha, hungry for a sympathetic ear, poured out a confused story of half-truths ... that she must leave town at once but that it was impossible for her to do so because of her work, that she had no money. On the other hand, if she did not go, a misfortune, a terrible misfortune might result....

"In short, it is a matter of life and death."

Tears ran from her eyes unashamed.

Wanjetschka knew Natascha as a thoroughly efficient worker, he knew her in her angry and in her despondent moods; that she could cry like an unreasonable child – that was an unexpected light on her character.

"Well, well, I wouldn't let my head hang in this fashion if I were you. Tears coin no money, you know. Now try to be sensible for a moment and tell me how much you need. Much?"

"That is just it, Wanjetschka. So much that it is practically out of the question."

And Natascha named the figure.

"Well, that is a round sum, I'll confess. We won't find it in our pockets. But why do you squander your own capital so thoughtlessly if you need money so badly. Of what use are these grand gestures when the party calls for funds if you yourself have to go begging afterwards?"

"But Wanjetschka, I don't need this for myself.... You don't seem to realize how important this is. If I don't go down there – if I don't get hold of this damned money somehow ... in a word, the life of a human being, perhaps of two, depends on it."

"So it's an escape you are talking about? You are trying to help someone get away from the police?" At last Wanjetschka believed he understood.

"Put it that way, if you will...."

"Why didn't you say so at once instead of beating about the bush with your 'personal reasons.' The lady must leave us, whether for a week or forever she doesn't say. If you had told me at once that it's a matter of conspiracy, would I have bothered you with questions? I am not curious. I know that one does not ask unnecessary questions in such affairs, and that what you do not tell me I am not supposed to know. But help ... ? If it is possible, of course I will help."

Natascha did not answer, but she was quite satisfied with Wanjetschka's interpretation of her predicament, particularly since he was evidently pondering on the possibility of procuring the desired funds for her. After all, was it a crime to deceive him concerning the purpose for which the money was to be used? She was merely trying to borrow on good security, and was fully prepared to pledge the royalties of her last literary work in return. The article was already in type.

"Never mind your financial schemes just now. First we must find someone who has money to give.... There is an old gentleman ... but I am afraid he has been too thoroughly plucked by our comrades in the past to be approachable. He will probably refuse to give again."

"Wanjetschka, I know whom you mean. Try it, please, for my sake. It will be easier if you go to him. Tell him that the money is to go through my hands, that I hold myself personally responsible for its repayment. ... I'll give you a note at once if you think it is best. .. ."

"Easy, easy, now. Not a cent within a mile of her and she is handing out receipts.... You are a financier, I must say. But here I am chattering away when I should be telephoning. ... Ah, Natalja Alexandrowna, a fine one you are to distract an honest workingman from his labor, tempting him from the straight and narrow path of duty."

Two days later Wanjetschka handed Natascha an envelope with great show of ceremony.

"Here you are. I have met the enemy and he is ours!"

"Wanjetschka, you darling!" She was ready to kiss him.

"What is all this ... darling and kisses, indeed! Such a fuss over a little, unimportant matter.

But now the receipt, my lady, if you please. The old man is a hard customer. He groaned...times are so bad and he has given so much that he has nothing for himself. Well, then I told him that you were ready to offer security and mentioned your willingness to give your personal receipt. He became soft at once. Here, here, don't put that envelope into your pocket without counting the money. How do you know I haven't cheated you? Perhaps I took half of it for myself."

"You would be welcome to every penny of it, Wanjetschka."

"This is a fine state of affairs. Why do you ask for twice as much as you need, pray, if one-half the amount is sufficient? Or do you intend to buy yourself a sable coat with the rest? Ah, your Highness, there is something mighty mysterious about this whole business. ...Who is this whose life is to be saved? ... Don't come to me to act as best man at a wedding, or to function at a christening when it is all over."

Natascha laughed happily and squeezed his hand.

"I am so grateful to you, Wanjetschka, so grateful."

At the door Wanjetschka turned back to her once more.

"In that case, you may send me a post-card from the place where you are going. It would be interesting to see it."

He laughed impishly at her evident discomfiture.

"I promise not to breathe a word to another mortal soul. I will keep it a secret to the end of my days ... but as to myself – I am interested. If you trust me, send me a card. Unless I receive one from you, you may consider our friendship at an end."

Wanjetschka pulled his fur cap over his forehead with an expression of severe grandiloquence and disappeared behind the door.

VIII

NATASCHA was in a fever of expectancy. Time in the railroad carriage was standing still. At times Natascha's heart expanded joyously at the prospect of meeting her lover, then it lay still, counting the minutes and hours that stretched between her and the moment when she would see him again. The last hours became exquisite torture. Suppose he did not come to the station! Where would she find him? Would she have to spend a wretched night in the dreary inn of a strange town – alone? When the station lights appeared outside the windows of the train at last, her heart beat so violently that she looked at her neighbors in alarm, so sure she was that they must have heard it. Tuk-tuk-tuk – it was causing her actual physical pain, and sent the blood like an unpleasant, icy douche through her veins. Her hands were tremblingly, uselessly numb as she leaned far out of the window for a glimpse of him.

Was he there? Was he there?

The station ... milling crowds ... people – so many of them! Would he be able to find her? Would he see her?

There he was. Of course, that was he.

Her heart beat louder still, but this time in exultant, joyous throbs.

In the long hours in the railroad compartment she had tried to picture their meeting. She would fall about his neck, disregarding the indifferent public about them.

How different this reality from her highly colored expectations.

Jumping hurriedly from the carriage-steps she stumbled and fell, umbrella, bag and purse flying ungracefully in different directions. She bent to pick up her scattered belongings and Ssenja helped her before he had a chance to greet her. Then he gave her his hand.

Natascha pressed it without a word, as if he were a stranger.

"Come quickly, Natascha ... all these people there may be someone who knows us. I shall go ahead. You follow."

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch marched to the exit of the station with studied unconcern, as if he had nothing in the world to do with Natascha who, trying hard to make herself believe that she had already seen him, hurried anxiously after him, lest she fall behind and lose sight of him.

In the fleeting glance she had been able to give him it had seemed to her that he was changed. There was something different, strange about him. Had he become stouter? Or was his beard longer than he was accustomed to wearing it? This fear of his of meeting chance acquaintances was not new to her; this was not the first of these disagreeable walks through a strange city where no one had ever seen them before. To-day Ssenja's foolish mania, and even more the fact that he had not found a word of welcome for her after these long months of absence irritated her unaccountably.

They crossed a large, empty plaza under blinking lanterns to a hotel where a uniformed porter received them and a boy with shining buttons took her bag. In the elevator that carried them up to their rooms Ssenja approached her familiarly for the first time and tried to take her hand. Instinctively she drew back with a warning look at the boy with the buttons.

"That is all right," he reassured her. "I told them that I was expecting my wife and took a room for two. ...We will move to another hotel later on. To-night.... You see, I have learned from experience."

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch chuckled as he looked at her archly through his gold-rimmed glasses. Natascha smiled a bleak little smile that drowned the light that had been glowing in her eyes all day so happily that her fellow-passengers had looked at her again and again. There had been so much dreamy bliss in those eyes. Now there was only anxious questioning.

Had she really met the man she so longed to see? Or was this man who stood beside her another – a stranger...?

The boy with the shiny buttons opened the door of a very ordinary hotel room with a flourish and bade them good-night after he had carried in her bag.

"Let me look at you. Thinner? Or are you worn out after the trip?"

He took her passionately into his arms.

"Ssenjetschka, wait a moment. Let me take off my hat."

Natascha struggled out of his embrace with hands upraised, trying vainly to remove the hat that resisted her efforts because the hatpin had become entangled with her veil.

"Senjetschka, please."

But Ssenjetschka paid no attention to her outcries. He pressed her to him and kissed her wildly.

"My sweet girl, my beloved. ... I wanted you so, I wanted you so!"

The hat was still on her head, but Natascha lay across the wide bed, his hot breath scorching her face. She felt only extreme discomfort. Her hat was pulling at her hair, hair-pins were boring into her head. ... Ssenja himself seemed far, far away.

Bruised and broken, the beautiful shining happiness that had brought her to him as if on wings. Bruised and broken by Ssenja with his impetuous, brutally-inconsiderate caresses.

"Let me kiss you, Natascha. Give me your lips. Why do you turn away? Do you love me?"

Natascha silently pressed his head to her breast, the dear head she loved so much.

She smiled, but there were tears in her eyes. Tears of happiness he thought.

Let him think as he wished. Natascha knew that her soul was weeping over the shattered fragments of another dream, that her heart was bleeding from another wound that would never, never heal.

He was asleep, and Natascha sat at the head of the bed staring steadily into the darkness before her, trying in vain to comprehend what had happened.

"He loves me. Is it me he loves, or the woman that is I? That in me which belongs to my sex, not me. Is it for this I left my work, and went into debt? Was it for this that I rushed, heaven alone knows where, excited, happy, believing in something fine and beautiful ... ? Oh, what a fool, what a fool I was!"

Something had happened that could never be undone. She wanted to wring her hands and burst into tears!

Had she ever possessed the Ssenjetschka of her fond memories, had this man with his passionate love ever been her friend, her comrade? Had it not always been Ssenja, the man, who loved Natascha, the woman?

Why had she come? A thousand miles away she had not been as lonesome as she was, here, at his side. A thousand miles away there had been memories,, dreams, hope ... here the dream was gone. Gone forever!

*****

When Natascha arose the next morning there was a strange coolness in her soul. She was indifferent, indolent....

"Tell me about everything that has happened to you since I saw you last."

They were sitting at their morning coffee in the disorderly – and to Natascha for that reason – most uncomfortable hotel room. Natascha had no desire to talk. Yesterday – ah, yesterday, in her way to him she had pictured it all in glowing colors. She felt that she would never finish her recital of the events of the months that had passed. They would sit together until late into the night, talking, planning. She had tried to recall every characteristic incident that might be of interest to him, had called back to mind the internal party life of the last half-year for discussions and problems that might have escaped his notice. She had even resolved to do penance for doubting his love for her, to abase herself before him and to drive away the hurt her confession would cause with tender words of deepest understanding. But first they must find each other again, must feel that their souls were swinging in the glorious harmony of love. Then, only then, as the great, final chord, their senses would break down all barriers and passion would burn up all that was strange and foreign between them in its hot, consuming flames.

That was their meeting as she had dreamed it. But after this bridal night Natascha had lost her desire to speak. Her answers were languid and disspirited.

"You seem to be out of sorts," he remarked, scanning her face intently.

"Not at all. I am simply tired. Not enough sleep."

"Poor little girl! What is to become of you if one night with me wears you out like this?"

There was a quizzically self-conscious smile on his face as he said this, that brought an unwilling frown to Natascha's brow. She struggled for self-control lest some unaccustomed, sharp word slip past her lips.

A knock at the door.

Ssenja hastened to open.

A telegram.

From Anjuta. It had been sent general delivery, but the hotel address had been reported to the postoffice. Kokotchka had the measles and was keeping Anjuta in constant attendance. She was just about worn out.

"As usual," Ssenja sighed.

As he stood before her with his legs spread and his head bowed down, there was something so childishly touching in his glum figure that Natascha's old tenderness for this man, who was so strong and determined in the big things of life and so weak and helpless in its trivialities, filled her entire being once more.

This, this was the Ssenja she loved, this poor, pathetic, touchingly helpless creature. ...

In an instant she was beside him, holding his head in her arms and gently kissing his eyes. ... Somehow she felt that she had just found him again, as if she had neither seen him nor been with him before.

"Wait a moment, Natascha. Not now, please."

Again he had misunderstood her innocent demonstrativeness. "We must think this over. What am I to do about this, do you suppose?"

He spoke with a discouraged movement of his hands and Natascha caught them, the dear, helpless, impractical hands, in her own and stammered:

"Just now I felt ... as if I had just this moment come back to you, Only just now! You are such a great man, Ssenja. All the world looks to you for advice and direction, and then some little thing like this occurs and you are so forlorn! I am so happy, so happy because I have found you again. I thought I had lost you forever ... that I had been deceived in you. That was so dreadful, Ssenja. But you are here, after all .. ."

*****

On the following day they went to another hotel. Natascha went first to register in the large, conventional hotel they had chosen, Ssenja taking a room on the same floor a few hours later. Since he had come to work, she had insisted on a comfortable, spacious room for him, while she contented herself with a small, unprepossessing cubbyhole, trying to make it as presentable as possible for his coming by changing the position of the tiny sofa, distributing the books she had brought, and buying a few flowers.

He came unexpectedly, as always, and found Natascha at the desk where she was writing the promised card to Wanjetschka.

"So this is where you are hiding. I've been wandering up and down corridors looking for your room for the last half hour. The room numbers are arranged in the most erratic fashion – 57, for instance, is directly beside 85...

"Your room is quite charming. I've been killing time by strolling about the city, and now, I suppose, it is too late to take a nap. Goodness, almost six o'clock. I will have to go to the professor's house at once."

"But why? Surely the morning will be time enough for that."

"No. No. Suppose Anjuta should write to him that I left home on the twenty-eighth?"

"In that case you will simply tell her that you did not go to him at once when you arrived. Surely that is simple enough. What under the sun should make her think that I am here, when she knows that we had definitely decided to see nothing more of one another?"

"As if that made any difference! Don't you know Anjuta? No, if I fail to report at the professor's house to-day, I will not have a peaceful hour while I am here. One can never tell how a thing like that will come out and cause no end of trouble. Whether you like it or not, Natascha, I must go to-day."

Natascha realized the uselessness of further protestations. His fear that Anjuta might suspect her presence in H. amounted to a positive mania. She said no more.

"What were you doing while I was away? Writing?"

"Yes. Writing."

His eyes had caught sight of the post-card on the table and returned with a frown to her embarrassed countenance. Correspondence from their meeting places was always strictly prohibited. They had made it a practice to send mail by way of an absolutely reliable third person. Yet there lay Wanjetschka's post-card, with the name of the town in Natascha's handwriting plainly visible over a picture of the locality.

"To whom are you sending that card?" Ssenja demanded, unpleasantly affected by the disturbance in Natascha's face. He bent over the table to read the address.

Trying vainly to conceal her discomfiture by a jocular pretense Natascha covered the card with her hand.

"I shall not tell you. I won't let you see it. This is my secret."

"Secret? Now I insist on seeing it. Give me that card at once. I demand it. If you do not give it to me willingly, I shall use force."

They struggled laughingly for a moment, but their faces betrayed the seriousness behind their play.

"Well, this is a fine state of affairs, I must say. When have you had secrets from me before?... You never used to hide your letters from me."

"I don't want you to read my letters. You have no right to ask it.... How dare you! This is tyranny!"

He had managed to pry apart the fingers that clutched the card, and held it in his hand.

"Don't you dare read that card! Don't dare, I tell you ... ! This is an outrage!" Natascha's voice was tense with fury as she snatched the card from his unsuspecting hand and tore it into bits before she threw it into the waste basket.

"Natascha!"

They looked at each other with angry, measuring eyes.

"This is an imposition, a vulgar, coarse imposition. Don't you dare read my letters! Don't you dare !"

Natascha was panting, her cheeks glowed and her lips unconsciously repeated the bitter words again and again.

"Natascha! Natascha! What does this mean? It is true, then?" He sank to the sofa and covered his face with his hands, a picture of tragedy.

"Is what true?" Natascha looked at him curiously.

"That you have already found another lover. That you left another man behind you, a man of whom you are fond... ?"

"Are you mad? ... What gives you the right to think that?"

"I received two anonymous letters with all sorts of details. .. ."

"And you believed them?"

"I burned them up at once ... but after this....what am I to think? Your embarrassment when I came in, your incredible stubbornness, this anger ... you never spoke to me in this tone before. Oh, Natascha, Natascha! Can it be true? How can I bear it? Why did you come if you care for another? Tell me openly. Anything is better than this uncertainty."

"Ssenja, please come to your senses. Think what you are saying. Why should I lie to you? What could bring me here to you if I loved an- Other?"

"Pity."

"Pity for you?"

"You have such a good heart."

His face was so drawn with pain, his eyes so full of genuine sorrow that Natascha could not help smiling.

"Dear, silly Ssenjetschka! How could you believe that for a moment? Don't you know what you are to me?"

Kneeling down before him she embraced and kissed him. He resisted at first and refused to be caught by her caresses and tricks.

"And the letter?" he demanded, distrustfully.

"The letter? ... Oh, Ssenja. Read it then, if you insist on being so stupid."

She hurried to the table, pulled out and overturned the basket so that the pieces lay on the floor before her. And while they crouched on the floor to fit the pieces together, she told him of her financial transactions and of the help that Wanjetschka had given her.

Ssenja knew Wanjetschka. This, to be sure, was no rival. The innocently pleasant tone of the postcard reassured him completely.

"You don't know how you frightened me, Nataschinka. Now, tell me if you please, what was the meaning of this senseless comedy? What made you act in this incomprehensible manner?"

His tone was gruff.

"I felt that you would be angry at me for writing from here. Still, could I have refused to do him this favor after all he did for us? He won't betray us, of that you may be sure. He would die rather than tell, after the promise he gave me."

"Yes, I understand. Nevertheless, Natascha, it is very careless of you to write from here. One never knows what may happen. The card may fall into indiscreet hands.... Furthermore, what will Wanjetschka think ... ?"

"Let him think what he pleases.'A romance' he will think. With whom? That does not concern him."

"No, don't say that. He may happen to find out that I was here – how can one tell? After that there would be guesses and talk. As you please, of course, but I beg you again, to write to no one from here, not even to Wanjetschka."

His tone as he said this was firm, almost commanding.

"If it displeases you, very well. I shall not send the card."

Ssenja sent another searching glance in her direction.

"But you are offended. Because you have found a master, I suppose, who permits himself to issue orders." He embraced her. "What is one to do with you women? One need only look the other way for a moment and you do things like this. What now? Offended again?"

He knew this gesture of hers – she had thrown back her head with an angry movement.

"Come, sweetheart, come. Don't be angry at me. I was just teasing. You know I'm not angry. On the contrary, I am happy and grateful to you for taking a load off my heart. You can't imagine how uneasy I have been, and how your fury just now frightened me. I ... I thought I had lost you. I can't live without you."

He embraced her and pressed his face caressingly to her breast.

"I am so contented when I am with you, Natascha, I want to stay near you always, ... Good heavens!

"The professor! Why, it's almost seven o'clock. I must run. Good-bye, Natascha. Till this evening." He hastened away while Natascha collected the fragments of the card to Wanjetschka from the floor and dropped them thoughtfully into the basket once more.

She was so tired. She wished she were back at home again, feeling somewhere in the background of consciousness: We have become strangers to one another.

IX

SENJA returned in a highly elated frame of mind, full of new thoughts his conversation with the professor had started. The professor's research work had recently taken him along the lines of Ssenja's own investigations.

"You can't imagine the thrill of finding someone to whom one can speak without expounding fundamentals, who shows by the way he approaches a subject that he understands it and forces one by the soundness of his observations to reevaluate one's own theses. ... As I talked with him I saw again and again where I had given the subject insufficient study. Other questions, I find, will require complete reorientation on my part. It is of vital importance to discuss these matters with someone who has real knowledge, and I am only just beginning to realize how starved I have been for intelligent intercourse as an inspiration and a help to my work."

Could Ssenja but have guessed that each word he uttered was piercing her heart like a long, fine needle, leaving a painful wound! In his eyes then, Natascha had never been an intelligent person with whom one might discuss one's problems? Poor deluded fool that she had been all these years, to have imagined that she inspired and helped his work, that she had become indispensable to him!

"What did the professor tell you that was so extraordinarily clever," she asked," that even you begin to doubt the validity of your own theses?" There was a sharp challenge in her voice, but Ssenja paid no attention to it. He was quite evidently in no mood to discuss his conversation with the professor with her. To-morrow – some other time, perhaps. But Natascha insisted. She asked questions and demanded answers with unusual pertinacity and defended Ssenja's erstwhile theses as passionately as if she herself and her mental integrity were being questioned.... Had Natascha allowed Ssenja to look into her heart he would have been astounded to discover the real cause for her strange agitation. Natascha was jealous, jealous, for the first time in her life – she who had never felt a trace of resentment over his exaggerated consideration for his wife, who had honestly shared his fear for Anjuta's health and life during her recent pregnancy and delivery – at a time when they already loved each other. This professor whom she had never seen, whom she might never know, was arousing a blind tormenting jealousy in her heart. It would be so easy for him to occupy the place she held in Ssenja's life, making her superfluous where she had believed herself irreplaceable.

With exasperating, superficial sketchiness Ssenja repeated the professor's contentions, as if they could be of no possible interest to her. His manner intimated that he was simply submitting to her unreasonable, childish curiosity. Natascha vindictively attacked what she considered a fallacy in the professor's logic and propounded her point of view extravagantly, but he bluntly declined to enter into the matter.

"You have simply failed to follow his line of thought, which is a great deal more complicated than you seem to realize," and with this he turned the conversation from the.subject with infuriating boredom in his voice. "I am really tired," he added with a yawn. "Time to go to sleep.... Goodnight, Natascha."

"Going already? I had been counting on a few hours with you this evening to talk matters over. I have hardly seen you all day."

"What is there to talk about? It is after midnight, and we can talk to-morrow. I've had practically no sleep for days, and need a good night's rest to be fresh for work to-morrow. The professor and I are going to the library together."

He kissed her dutifully but at the door he turned back to her once more.

"You know, Nataschka, this was a splendid idea of mine – to come here, I mean. This has been a gratifying, profitable day. Sleep well, Natascha." Nodding amiably once more, he went out.

Noisily Natascha pushed the bolt.

Gone – without a thought of her and the intolerable, lonesome day she had spent. "Splendid, profitable day," indeed. This condescending attitude when he spoke to her, as if she were a frivolous light-o-love instead of a comrade deeply interested in his work! This had never happened to her before, nor would she ever forget or forgive this humiliation. The assurance that he understood and approved of her opinions, that he was objectively interested in her work and valued her opinions had helped her to bear criticism, failure and attacks with equanimity. Was it possible that he had pretended interest in her work only because she was a woman who appealed to the man in him? Would he have shown her the same interested attention if she had been an unprepossessing frump, or would he have turned the conversation from her objections as he had done this evening?

"I shall go to him at once to tell him how I feel. To-morrow I will return to my comrades and my work. This is no life for a self-respecting woman, this endless chain of humiliations. I no longer love him. I believe I hate him."

Resolutely she went to the door, but as her hand touched the knob a picture of the probable outcome of her visit flashed across her mind as the futility of any attempt to make him understand dawned on her. She returned to bed in helpless anger.

It was becoming more and more impossible to break through the wall of misunderstanding that was arising between them. Words that escaped their angry lips clung to it making it more and more impenetrable.

Very well, then. Since he refused to listen to her, let matters remain as they were between them. She would try to explain no more. To-morrow she would tell him calmly and undramatically: "I am going home. They need me there." Let him stay here with his professor!

She tugged furiously at the laces of her shoes. She would go to sleep, to stop thinking. ... With the perversity of inanimate objects the laces had become twisted and tangled into an inextricable knot.

"Is that so?" she murmured grimly. "This is how I settle such affairs." In a wide are the torn laces flew to the floor; her dress was tumbled on the chair in a disorderly heap – let it rumple! She pulled at her hair with vindictive jerks, and clenched her teeth as she prepared for the night. Yet, unconsciously, she had been making herself as attractive as possible, and the sight of her figure in the glass, swathed in the brightly colored dressing gown that Ssenja had christened the "gown of Circe" when he first saw her in it, threw her once more into a fit of deepest depression. She couldn't leave without having shown herself in it again – she remembered how he loved to wrap her in its voluminous folds. She couldn't leave him – where would she find the strength to battle with life, if she were never to see him again?

What was more natural than that she should go to him, to appeal to him and make him the arbiter of his own shortcomings, that she might forgive him all the hurt that the blind Ssenja had inflicted on her this day? Not angrily, as she had wanted to go at first. ... He would listen to her and she would make him understand. What was it worth, this understanding they were so proud of, if she must conceal the thing that lay nearest her heart? She would not be able to sleep at any rate, until she had spoken to him.

Cautiously, lest she meet someone in the long corridor that led to Ssenjetschka'-s room, she crept along over the soft carpet into which her feet sank unpleasantly. Sixty-four, sixty-six, sixty-eight...here it was. ... Those were his shoes.

Should she go in ... better not, perhaps. More than an hour had passed since he had left the room; he would be fast asleep. But the desire to see him and to stroke his beloved head, the urgent need of banishing these unendurable doubts, to melt this ice that held her soul in its clammy embrace, impelled her to turn the knob of the door. It opened with a shrill squeak ... the light of the corridor fell across the sleeper's face.

"What is it? ... Who is it?" ... He blinked at her with his near-sighted eyes without recognition.

"It is I, Ssenjetschka."

She closed the door and knelt down beside his bed.

"You, Nataschka. Well, well, so you came after all..."

An undertone in his voice betrayed a smug masculine self-satisfaction that cut her to the quick.

"Ssenjetschka, I came because I felt so badly! I was so bitter and alone. .. ."

"Come, come, now, need you apologize for coming to me? You simply can't go to sleep, knowing that I am so close by. Ah, what is this you are wearing, temptress?" He gathered her into his arms and tried to draw her into his bed.

She resisted half-heartedly, but responded to his kisses.

"Let me go, Ssenjetschka. You mustn't. I didn't come for this.... There is something I must speak to you about. I came only to warm my heart – to be near you.

"Come, you with your 'I only came for this' and 'I only came for that!' You women are a peculiar lot – always looking for some excuse or pretense to hide the fact that you, too, have sinful desires. We men are always wicked seducers. Here this lady comes to me of her own free will, wakes me out of my sleep, and now, if you please, what a touch-me-not she pretends to be. ... Have I offended you? I was just teasing, little silly. You know how glad I am that you came to me, you sweet, wonderful creature.... Here my little girl comes to warm her heart and must sit on the cold floor. Come in here to me."

Natascha's negligee formed a brilliant splash of color on the hotel room carpet.

*****

"Not another word now. I want to sleep." Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch interrupted another attempt at what he called "her psychological dissertations." "The day is the time for talk. Now I want to rest. You forget that I must work to-morrow, and won't be able to, unless my head is clear."

He turned his face to the wall and wrapped the blankets about him; Natascha lay on her back, her hands under her head, disgust and resentment in her heart.

Always this offensive change in his attitude toward her – before and after. Coldness and strangeness while Natascha felt closer, nearer to him, the happier their union, the more ardent his caresses, the more fervent the assurance that they loved each other had been.

She looked sadly at his familiar neck ... the same, beloved head, the same, clever Ssenjetschka. Gently she kissed the nape of his neck and softly arose from his bed. But her soul was as cold and lonesome as before.

"Sleep well, Ssenjetschka. You will sleep more soundly if I go to my room. Won't you kiss me before I go?"

She bent over him.

"Haven't we kissed enough for to-night? That is something I can't understand in you ... sometimes you seem positively insatiable, it seems almost like an affliction!" Natascha drew back as if she had been struck. Was this the interpretation he put on her longing for a little warmth?

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch pressed his head into the pillow while she slowly dressed in the dark room before going through that endless corridor with its red, disagreeably soft carpet once more. At the corner where the corridor turned, the nightporter sat at his usual place by a small table.

When Natascha passed him he looked at her with a shamelessly derisive look and murmured a word whose insulting import she could only surmise.... Natascha shuddered.

X

THE days in H. had become a life of voluntary I solitary confinement. These periods of "retirement" during their carefully planned meetings had amused her hugely when they first entered upon their clandestine relations. She called Ssenja her "pascha" and herself his "harem odalisk." This sudden transition from a life of nervous, effervescent activity in constant human companionship to this complete isolation from life and people had appealed to her sense of the ludicrous.

The comrades had never expressed surprise at her sudden disappearances. Some of them believed that she was bound by family ties that forced these periodic absences upon her, while others attributed them to mysterious "conspiratic" activity.

These brief interruptions of her hurried, nerve-racking life had always been welcome periods of relaxation and repose. This time the role of odalisk oppressed and irritated her. She dared not leave the hotel, lest some chance acquaintance meet her on the street. She must not remain too long in the reading-room lest Ssenja, returning to her room, leave again without having met her. Ssenja's complete absorption in his work and even more – it seemed to Natascha – in the professor and his hospitable family, left her alone for long hours that dragged along in tedious, irksome and fruitless expectation of his coming. He drank his morning coffee with his eyes on the clock lest he be late for his appointment, he stayed at the professor's house for dinner and spent most of his evenings there.

Natascha had to content herself with fragmentary remnants of his busy days, stolen hours when he escaped the professor's house under the pretense of important letters to be written and notes to be filed. He always came to her in the best of spirits, but consistently steered conversation away from any but the most superficial topics. Most of all he liked to lie on the sofa while Natascha prepared tea, pretending to appreciate his enjoyment of it. He told her less and less about his work and was almost niggardly in his reports of conversations with the professor.

Her antipathy to the professor grew to even greater proportions in consequence. The old "archive rat" with his scholarship was deluding Ssenja into distrusting his own opinions.

"I'm amazed at your naivete," she once remarked to him. "What makes you so idiotically frank with the professor? You spread out your theses for him before you have satisfied yourself concerning them. By the time you are ready to write he will have used them for his own purposes, with the added advantage of his own professional intellectuality."

The off-hand manner in which she spoke was calculated to irritate Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch out of his placidity.

"How childish that is, Natascha. You are becoming almost as bad as Anjuta. Since when do colleagues make it a practice to steal each other's ideas?"

"Of course, you will not believe that such things happen. You have never heard of an incident of that kind! Just the same, if I were in your place, I should be just a little more discreet ... not quite so naive..."

Though Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch objected, she felt that the seed of distrust so cleverly planted had taken root, and the thought gave her a momentary glow of satisfaction.

But after he had gone she relapsed into deep depression. She was aghast at the depths of vileness she had uncovered in her own nature. Was this despicable desire to hurt the professor's standing in her lover's eyes the fruit of her jealousy? She was beginning to understand some of Anjuta's inexplicable meannesses of the past.

Thenceforth she schooled herself to listen to her lover's praise of the professor and his family without comment. More, she tried to stifle the seeds of distrust she herself had planted in his soul by openly enthusing over the professor's intelligence and character. But she knew that the germ was still alive.

Morning after morning she left her bed with the unspoken hope – "to-day he will stay here with me...well, not a whole day, of course, but a few hours, at any rate, to give us a chance for an honest heart-to-heart talk." But day after day passed in discouraging sameness. There were kisses, light badinage at tea-time, there were caresses at night but never a moment's close communion. Natascha tried to work. She had promised to write a pamphlet whose date of delivery was drawing uncomfortably near, but her work refused to progress. It dragged heavily from an unwilling pen, and each day found her increasingly dissatisfied with the results of the previous day's sterile efforts. Ssenja did not once ask her how her work was progressing. Time ran through her fingers like sand, squandered for useless, senseless futilities.

By way of the forwarding address she had left behind, Natascha had received a large bundle of letters, some personal, others connected with party affairs, the latter with the disturbing news that two prominent comrades were "ill" (arrested) and expressing the fear that their illness would be prolonged, possibly with serious, threatening consequences. Natascha's subsequent days were overshadowed with the portent of disaster. What right had she to remain here in H.? Yet she could not tear herself from Ssenja's side while this feeling of strangeness between them persisted. "If I leave now," she assured herself over and over again, "I shall consume myself in self-reproach. ... I must come to some understanding with him before I leave."

She had made up her mind to force the issue that evening, but he returned even later than usual from a formal supper that had been given in his honor, slightly intoxicated and in a highly gratified state of good humor. He did not notice the clouds on Natascha's face.

"I ate and drank so much I can hardly move. I believe I am a bit under the weather, too, but that will pass off in a little while. Have you been longing for me? Come, a little kiss behind your pretty ear...."

"Please don't, Ssenja." – She withdrew impatiently. "I have more important things to think of. I have letters.... Katerina Petrowna and Nikanor have been arrested."

"You don't say. ... This is bad business."

"It affects me particularly. ... I can't begin to tell you how badly I feel." Suddenly, to her own wonderment, she burst into tears, not so much because her comrades were in prison as for herself.... Would life never bring her anything but failure and this endless chain of sorrow and aggravation? ... What was to become of the work they had so hopefully launched, now these two were gone? If only she herself had remained at her post they would be needing her there.

"Well, look here, Natascha, this won't do at all. You mustn't let go like that! Head up, little girl, this is no time for tears." There was a suggestion of reproof in his tone – he was thoroughly tired of women's tears. "In all probability it is only half as bad as it seems. You'll see, everything will come out nicely in the end."

"It isn't only of them I'm thinking. Everything – what is the sense of living? Nothing but unhappiness!"

"Do you know, that time I worked by the Volga. .. ." Ssenja tried to distract her thoughts by telling her of an episode out of his revolutionary experiences that seemed just the thing for the purpose. Natascha knew every one of them by heart and listened absently. What had all this to do with it? She wanted to speak of her doubts and suffering!

"So you see the difficulties one encounters...and I am still here to tell about it. ... I haven't even lost my enthusiasm for charming women, as you see. Natascha, I don't believe you've heard a word I've spoken!"

"I've been listening, Ssenja. But there is something I must speak to you about.... I'm going to leave to-morrow. I haven't the peace of mind to stay here any longer."

"Nonsense. To go now would be to court danger. I won't allow it. You, with your temperamental nature, are bound to get into trouble.Wait until things have calmed down again. After all they don't need you nearly as much as you think. You may be sure they will manage very nicely without you."

Natascha objected strenuously, trying eagerly to make him appreciate the importance of her person to the movement at this particular moment.

"Please, Natascha, don't be childish. Do you want me to believe they won't he able to find anyone to attend to that? They will take care of it – better than you..."

She read a number of letters to him, every one of them urging her to return, but they failed to impress him.

"And who is it that writes these letters? The hysterical Marja Michailowna ... all woman's talk. If Donzeff had written, I would believe the matter to be serious enough ... but Marja Michailowna don't pay any attention to it. There isn't the slightest excuse for excitement."

Unwittingly Ssenja had touched her sorest spot. Why had not Donzeff written to her? If he had called her to her post even Ssenja would have seen how indispensible she was. In that case she would have left at once, without another thought.

Ssenja should have realized how Donzeff's failure to recall her had pained her. Must he underscore it? He never tried to understand what was going on in her mind, never took the trouble to consider what wounds his careless words inflicted.

When Ssenja left her for his room she was distant and cool, but he paid no attention to it. Alone, dejection and fear laid hold of her once more, fear of her own unwept, unspoken suffering.

She would speak and if Ssenja still failed to understand the break between them would inevitably follow. Anything was better than this hunger for understanding. She would beat her wings against his indifference no longer.

Over the unpleasantly soft carpet of the corridor once more, quickly ~at first but going more slowly as she approached his door. She stopped and listened. All was silent. He was probably fast asleep – he usually slept as soon as his head touched the pillow. She reached for the knob, only to withdraw her hand with a dark flush – so vividly had the picture of his sleep-drenched eyes and his questions at her last visit recalled themselves to her mind.

No, no, anything but that! She could not bear to be misunderstood to-night, and the thought of what was sure to follow.... She hurried along the corridor, past the astonished night porter and back to her room once more. "Now what in the world made her change her mind," the man in the corner wondered curiously. "Quarreled, I suppose," he decided.

XI

AGAIN and again Natascha opened the door of her room to peer anxiously down the corridor, dimly illuminated by a shadowy night light. Everything was empty and still.

A distant cough or the glimpse of a manly figure at the turn of the long hall made her heart leap – no, it was not he. What could it mean? He had never returned as late as this before. Had he met with an accident?

She went to his room once more in the faint hope that he had gone directly to bed without having first stopped in to see her. The porter watched her maneuvers inquisitively, and grinned wickedly whenever she passed him. There was something unspeakably impertinent in his demeanor, but to-day Natascha paid no attention.

Ssenja had left the hotel early that morning, and the fact that he had not, as was his invariable custom, come back for at least a brief visit in the course of the day, served only to increase her uneasiness.

If something had happened to him, he would have telephoned. It was unthinkable that he had stayed at the professor's house so late that he had remained for the night! If that were the case, his lack of consideration for her was unforgivable. It must have occurred to him that she would worry. Would he have left Anjuta in this position?

Natascha threw herself on her bed, only to jump up again and again whenever she thought she heard a sound in the corridor. But there was always the same unfriendly hotel, the same dreary, dimly lighted expanse of carpeted emptiness. But for this beastly carpet she would have heard his foot-steps...someone was snoring ... a cough!

Everything was quiet and empty once more. A church-tower clock in the distance....Dinn. Dinn. Dinn. Dinn.

Half past four. Would this awful night never end?

She clung desperately to a single, forlorn hope...the morning would bring a contrite Ssenja, who would explain in his usual ridiculously childish manner that he had thoughtlessly permitted the professor to detain him until it had been too late to return to the hotel.

"How could I telephone," he would argue. "The professor would have guessed at once. ..."

He would look at her uncertainly, expecting the curtain lecture that usually accompanied such occurrences at home, and would breathe a sigh of relief when Natascha smiled instead, smoothing his recalcitrant hair and kissing his troubled brow. "Don't apologize, Ssenja," she would say, "of course I understand."

"You are so good, so understanding."

Both would breathe easily once more and she would be able to laugh over her foolish fears of the night.

"It's all because of my silly nerves. I shall go to sleep at once, and will probably be fast asleep when he comes. I must leave the door unlocked."

She forced herself to lie down and actually succeeded in falling to sleep, but in her troubled dreams she continued to listen for him. A movement in the corridor found her sitting up in bed, listening with a madly beating heart. No, that was in the next room. Someone was scrubbing the floor and two chamber-maids were conversing in undertones. The gray, misty shimmer of early morning came in through the lowered shades. What time was it? Shortly after eight o'clock.

Natascha got up and dressed with deliberate slowness, listening to every sound and once more opening the door to look out on the corridor, gray and more hopeless still now that the light was out. Better not to have looked out at all, she chided herself, to look out again a moment later because something told her that his familiar figure in its dear, shabby, old hat with its wide brim was at this moment turning the corner of the corridor.

To think that she had doubted her love for him! This night had proved to her how much she loved, how much she needed him. She was prepared to reprove herself severely for the reproaches she had heaped on him for his absence that night, for her ill-tempered resentment and every trace of ill-feeling she had entertained against him. If only he would come! If only nothing had happened to him! Perhaps he had been to her room after she had fallen asleep – the sudden hope robbed her of all caution; with streaming hair, oblivious to the comb in her hand, she ran along the corridor. Hotel guests who met her stepped aside in surprise, and the scrub-woman who was wiping up the floor pushed her pail aside grumbingly. Natascha had stumbled over it in her haste, slopping some of the water over the carpet.

"I'm sorry."

Ssenja's room was empty, the bed untouched.

She sat down on his bed and decided to wait for him there. She felt closer to him in his room; his possessions were there – an old pair of trousers hung over the hack of a chair. Suppose Anjuta had arrived in H. and poor Ssenja had lost his head at the dread thought that they might meet? How could she reassure him? Let him know that he might bring Anjuta to the hotel without fear?

Should she telephone to the professor's house? Perhaps Anjuta was there.

The thought that Anjuta might have arrived drove her precipitously from the bed to examine the room with keen, searching eyes for tell-tale evidence of her own presence. Books? Personal belongings? Finding nothing she returned to her room.

Ten o'clock...half past ten...eleven half past eleven ... one o'clock. Natascha no longer listened for his foot-steps. She assured herself that she had long-ago ceased to expect him at all, that every hope of ever seeing Ssenja again had died. Perhaps he was dead ... that alone would explain his failure to find some way of allaying the fear he must know was driving her mad. Perhaps he had been arrested. But why? Here? Still, this complete silence... something terrible, something incomprehensibly awful must have happened.

Natascha closed her eyes. The light of day blinded and tormented her. Throughout the endlessly long night she had longed for daylight ... because she had hoped. ... And then, just as she had decided to look for him no longer, someone knocked loudly at the door.

"Come in."

A messenger offered her a letter. Her trembling hands could hardly open the envelope.

"I have been through an unexpected and disagreeable experience. At dinner, yesterday, I was seized with such violent abdominal pains that my host put me to bed at once and sent for a physician. My temperature was so high that he at first feared an attack of appendicitis. He gave me two morphine injections to allay the pain which was indescribably severe. To-day, however, I am feeling much more comfortable, and the doctor who was just here assures me that everything is satisfactory and hopes there will be no need of an operation. My temperature is lower, but still above normal; I still suffer pain, but it is bearable. Above all I must have rest, absolute rest ... don't worry about me.

"You can't conceive of kindlier care than that which I am receiving here. The professor and his family took turns at my bed-side all through the night. As a pretext for writing to you I am sending for some books. I told them of a Russian family I had met at the hotel who would get them from my room for me. Please remember, under no circumstances are you to write or to telephone. I kiss your hands.

"Your Ssenja."

"Poor Ssenja." "Any answer?" The messenger was still waiting for her to finish reading the letter.

"Yes ... that is ... wait a moment. I'll get the books at once." She hurried to Ssenja's room as if to get something there, still trying to adjust herself to this new state of affairs. Could she write him a single line telling him of her anxiety and of her love, of her boundless, endless love for him? Could she not reassure him, tell him not to worry about her, that she was satisfied to know that he was alive, that he was there, that he was free.

She would have liked to slip a little note into the package, but dared not. Someone might see, and Ssenja would have to explain. He was so awkward at finding explanations, poor fellow.

She gave the books to the messenger and was alone in her room once more. Her luncheon coffee stood on the table before her, as cold and tasteless as the dejected mood that had overtaken her.

Three long, empty days and restless nights with fantastic, enervating dreams. More than once she woke with a shocked feeling of disaster. "Ssenja! What is happening to him?"

Once she distinctly heard his voice calling to her, and shuddered with a horrified sense of evil premonition.

Several times each day she inquired whether a message – a telegram, perhaps, or a telephone-call, had been left for her. "No, nothing! Was the gentleman keeping the room?"

Of course – the gentleman was ill, and therefore staying with friends where he would receive better care than was possible in a hotel room. ... Why had she given this explanation, as if her position required justification? What did it matter? Did anything matter? Ssenja's illness had undoubtedly taken a turn for the worse after all, for if he were conscious he would have found some means of communicating with her.

Time dragged ... minutes seemed hours....

On the evening of the third day Natascha decided to telephone to the professor's house to inquire concerning Ssenja's condition. She could not spend another night in this awful uncertainty. She quailed at the thought of the tortures its sleepless hours would bring. No matter what came of it, she must know. She rang for the servant.

"Madame wishes?"

She stared undecidedly at the man who answered her summons. A momentary urge had prompted her to call him and she was at a loss to decide on her further course of action. She must be careful to make no mistake.

She ordered tea. "Cream or lemon?"

She watched him disappear with his white, shimmering napkin under his arm and then continued her endless journey up and down the room with a heavy, aching heart, trying to escape the tormenting visions that made her groan and wring her hands in despair.

The clock on the near-by tower struck nine. Natascha rang once more.

The servant stood before her. Could he guess how difficult it was for her to explain to him how and where he was to telephone, what to ask, and what not to ask? Under no condition was he to say "Madame." Only "the Russian friends .. ."

Would he remember? If only he did not say "Madame."

To Natascha that seemed of vital importance.

Again she wandered up and down the room, then sat, tense as the string of a violin, on the edge of a chair. She could feel her heartbeats in her throat so painfully that she could not swallow. In another moment she 'would know – what? The seconds crawled.... What was keeping him?....Five seven ... ten minutes. Why didn't he return? Perhaps the answer was so appalling that he could not bring himself to tell her! Natascha was shaken by icy tremors. A thought flashed through her mind – who knows, in a few moments she might be looking back with longing at this tortuous respite ... with the faint ray of hope it still held.

A knock at the door.

"Come in."

Her eyes pleaded. Hurry! Hurry! But the waiter continued to move with exasperating indolence. His napkin had become entangled in the door-knob, and he stopped fussily to disengage it.

"The gentleman thanks his 'Russian friends' for their kind inquiry (a faintly derisive smile curled the lips under the mustache) and begs me to report that he is feeling a great deal better. He has been out of bed and about his room, and is just preparing to retire."

Natascha neither moved nor spoke.

"Is that all, Madame? Nothing else?"

She was alone.

She had believed that she would sob with rapture if the waiter's answer brought her a single tiny ray of hope for Ssenja's life. Only a short half hour ago she would willingly have given half her life for the message she had just received. Yet here she stood in the middle of her room, without joy...perplexed, rather, and overwhelmed with the growing certainty that she had been deeply offended and abused.

Ssenja, kind, tender, sensitive Ssenja, who feared to inflict the slightest pain on Anjuta, had not moved a finger to put an end to her torment! All these days he had left her without a sign, had not thought it worth while to let her know that he was almost well. Would he have the courage, after this, to tell her that he still loved her? This was more than she could ever forgive.

XII

NATASCHA awoke greatly refreshed after a sound night's sleep. Deep down in the bottom of her soul the conviction that she had been grossly wronged persisted, but she paid no attention. Ssenja was alive and out of danger. In a few days she would see him again. Then, yes, then she would speak to him. She would explain to him that love, thus casually treated, must die, that not even a love as great as theirs could persist and live in such an atmosphere of constant tension. The string that is drawn too tightly is bound to break.

She enjoyed her coffee that morning – the first time since Ssenja's absence – and even smiled at the chambermaid who told her how lovely the weather was outside.

Then she turned her attention to her party letters – incredible that she should have neglected her comrades so long.

She wrote a number of replies and prepared them for mailing, and as she sealed the last envelope some impulse prompted her to make another attempt at the ill-fated pamphlet at which she had worked when first she came here, with so little success. She was in the mood for work. Easily and without constraint the words that had eluded her so provokingly came to her now; thought followed thought in gratifying, logical sequence. Natascha paid no attention to the passage of time until twilight darkened the room.

Then she leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms with a feeling of intense satisfaction. Peace and clearness of mind had come back to her and she was overjoyed to think that she was to finish the pamphlet after all. It was good to have one's mind free for work, not to be sitting forlornly waiting for a message that did not come, a prisoner of absurd worries over Ssenja's condition. He was out of danger and so well taken care of at the professor's house that he forgot even to think of Natascha – a realization that was not without its sting of bitterness. But she drove such ruminations resolutely from her mind.

Life and action were what she wanted now. She wanted to see people again. This hermit's life that she had been leading was senseless and absurd. She decided to go to the post-office to mail her letters and then to have a cup of coffee in one of the brightly lighted cafes nearby.

She was putting on her hat before the mirror when the door opened and Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch stepped into the room.

"Ssenja, you?" she exclaimed. There was more astonishment than joy in her voice.

"Yes, here I am, Natascha, absolutely worn out, as you see, after my illness. The doctor advised me to wait until to-morrow, but I decided to come tonight. I could not wait any longer."

"Come, lie down here at once, Ssenjetschka.

Oh, you poor thing, how thin you are! Your eyes are still sick, Ssenja. Why did you come back before you were quite well, dear?"

"I longed for you so, I was so restless..."

 

"A cushion for your head? Do you want me to take off your shoes? ... Here, let me put this cover over you.... Will you have some tea? Lemon, or would you prefer it with cream? I'll ring and order it at once while I get everything ready." By dint of solicitous fussing Natascha unconsciously tried to hide from herself the astounding fact that she was neither happy nor excited over his return.

Where was the ardent impatience with which she had waited for him? Where the frenzied happiness she had expected to feel when he arrived? Ssenja had come at the wrong moment, scattering the mood of care-free abandon that had come as a release from a period of intolerable nervous tension.

"I'm perfectly comfortable, Natascha. Come, sit here, beside me. It's so good to be With you again!... You had your hat on when I came. Were you going out? Do you go walking when I'm away? Is that how you preserve your incognito?"

"I assure you this would have been the first time. I haven't once put my nose outside the door, all the time you were away. But these letters – see for yourself how many there are – had to be mailed."

"Nevertheless it was foolhardy, just now suppose Anjuta should take it into her head to come? ... That reminds me ... I asked you not to telephone to the professor's house.... I must say you pay surprisingly little attention to my requests. I was afraid of something like this all the while I was ill. After you called up yesterday I hadn't another moment's peace until I had decided to come here – at any cost. Who knows – you might have presented yourself there in person if I had not returned. .. ."

"Ah, then it was this that brought you back to me?"

The brittle edge in her voice made Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch throw a quick, searching glance in her direction.

"No, Natascha, not that alone. I told you how I longed to be with you. .. ."

"Indeed. Ha-ha-ha."

Ssenja had never heard Natascha like this before.

"So you longed to be with me? You, you say this, after letting me wait day after day for a word from you, after you tortured and martyred me with a cruelty so refined, so unspeakable. .. ."

"Natascha! What are you saying? Was it my fault that I became ill? How have I martyred you? In what way? You may be sure nothing was further from my intentions. Why, Natascha, you speak just like Anjuta ... perhaps she is right, after all, when she says that I torture those I love Anjuta ... you ... oh, this is frightful."

He buried his head in his hands. His crumpled figure expressed hopeless resignation to an undeserved fate. Natascha relented at once.

"Ssenja, Ssenjetschka, my dear friend. You were right. I don't know what I am saying, I don't know what is the matter with me. Try to understand what I suffered while you were away, how I feared for your life, not knowing ... Ssenja, the thoughts I thought, the fears I lived through – because I love you, do you hear, Simeon!"

For both of them this name had an especial significance, and he smiled at her as she kneeled by his side and caressed his head.

"Let me kiss your forehead ... how often I dreamed of this! How often I thought of the time when I would kiss the brow of my beloved again!"

"Mad creature, you frightened me with your awful laughter. I know, poor thing, your nerves have had more than enough to bear. Life is beautiful, Natascha. Don't come so close to me, dear."

"It is so good to have you with me again – just to know that you still are ... do you understand?"

"I understand, my love. But I am still weak after my illness and your nearness excites me. The doctor says that the attack was brought about chiefly through my generally nervous condition and ordered absolute rest. You won't be angry, will you, if I ask you not to come so near to me?"

Natascha arose and turned from him at once, lest he read the reproach in her eyes. She wanted human warmth, human tenderness – what he referred to had not entered her head.

While she prepared tea Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch lay on the couch smoking a cigarette and told her of the course his illness had taken, of the professor's family and their friendly solicitude and of his anxious fear that she might take it into her head to come to the professor's home. It had been almost impossible to get in touch with her.

"If you had sent the tiniest note. You might have sent for some books again ... surely you might have thought of something!"

"You know how stupid I am at that sort of thing. So I simply came here as soon as I could drag myself away."

He drank his tea while she read aloud the letters she had received – some disquieting, others encouraging. In general the party seemed to be in a promising condition, with the possibility of important developments in the near future. They discussed these possibilities eagerly, taking into account the position of the opposing wing, and both agreed that the situation would precipitate new conflicts between them, a probability that made Natascha burn to get away at once, back to living, thrilling work.

"Talking here with you makes one forget everything else in the world," Ssenja suddenly interrupted her. "It is getting late and I promised the doctor to be back by half-past seven. Why, it is eight o'clock already. How time flies. I hope the professor does not take it into his head to come and call for me. He is so conscientiously worried about me."

"You are going back? You won't stay here tonight?"

"They wouldn't hear of it. ... Oh, yes, I wanted to tell you. .. ." He tried not to look at her as he spoke and she knew that the disclosure he was about to make would be unpleasant: – "I want.to suggest that you go to W."

"To W? But why?"

"They say it is a very interesting old town with beautiful buildings and quaint streets – and I know you love beautiful surroundings." He spoke to her as if he were urging a child to take some disagreeable medicine. "I don't understand."

"Wouldn't you care to see it?" He looked at her pleadingly. "You see, – oh, I suppose I may as well confess – I won't have a peaceful hour while you are here. I had to write Anjuta about my illness and well, you know Anjuta. She may take it into her head to come here at any moment. Everything considered, I believe you had better go to W. You will be quieter and safer there."

Natascha bowed her head low over her half-finished cup of tea to hide two great tears that welled up into her eyes, but Ssenja saw them.

"I know, sweetheart. It is hard to ask you to leave me again." He stroked her head with tender, if somewhat condescending sympathy.

"Why to W.? The sensible thing to do would be to go directly back to work again."

Her tears had ceased and she looked at him in serious, if somewhat resentful earnestness.

"You misunderstand me. As the library here closes for the holidays at the end of the week I have already told the professor of my intention to spend these days in W. to make the old town's acquaintance. You go to W. and I will follow in a few days."

"This is so strange and so peculiar ... tell me if I am in your way and I will leave at once. That will be easier for everyone."

"Little goose, how can you speak of being in my way? You know that I ask this of you only because of Anjuta. Think if she should suddenly make her appearance here!" To him this was an unanswerable argument. "Can't you imagine her uneasiness, even now? I am moving to the professor's house – that is the understanding. You will go to W. and I shall follow on Friday. Then we will spend the whole day together, nothing to part or to disturb us, no professor. ... Doesn't that sound attractive?"

"But you forget that I must leave on Tuesday. My leave.. ."

"Oh, we'll see about that. If everything seems peaceful on the horizon we will make ourselves a present of a day or two. The important consideration is that we can be together there in absolute safety, with no danger of untoward disturbance. I will be in quite a different state of mind ... here there is always something between us. ... I am nervous right now because I'm afraid the professor may decide to come after me. .. ."

"I shall think it over. We'll speak of it again to-morrow." Natascha hated to submit without a struggle.

"Why to-morrow? I want you to leave to-day. The train leaves ... let me see – I've made a note of it somewhere." He held his note-book close to his near-sighted eyes and turned its pages. "Here it is. There is a train at 10:30 that will get you there at 1:30 to-night. That is quite convenient – an express train. You will have lots of time to get ready. Now, Nataschenka, don't look so unhappy or I will think that I have offended you. ... I feel just as badly to have you go, you may believe me, but it is only for a few days, after all. I shall be with you on Friday. Let me know where you are staying – send a telegram to the usual name, general delivery. Take a room for both of us, and tell them that your husband will join you later." This evidently was an afterthought to compensate Natascha for her disappointment.

"And now, will you help me pack my belongings so that I may have them taken to the professor's house? You'll attend to the hotel bill I suppose. By the way, if you need money – the professor offered to let me have some if I should need it. Don't look so down-hearted, Natascha. It hurts me."

"Never mind me, Ssenja. That will pass. Just lie here on the sofa. I'll do your packing."

Natascha was in his room, tugging at the straps of his suit-case when he entered with a rueful face.

"Why didn't you stay where you were," she scolded. "You see, I've finished packing already."

"I thought you might be sitting here crying that bothered me as I lay there. I had to come over to look after you. I love you, Natascha."

He said this so soberly that Natascha smiled in spite of herself. But the chill did not vanish from her soul. He loved her, but what did if mean to her, this love of his? Stabs, suffering, hurt...

"Come, dress, Ssenjetschka. You will be late and the professor's wife will scold you. .. ."

"I believe you are jealous of her. She is a very old lady... ."

Natascha smiled. "You are a child, Ssenjetschka, you are so ridiculously unable to understand. Now go, take care of yourself and get well. Your manuscript is in the portfolio, here. These are your books. Good-bye, Ssenjetschka." They embraced.

"What a cool duty-kiss."

"JuSt the sort of kiss a well-behaved wife should give her husband. Far be it from me to try to seduce you," she replied teasingly and hurried to call the porter who was to carry his baggage.

At the door Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch embraced her once more and whispered anxiously:

"You aren't angry, are you? My sweet girl, you don't know how much I need you. It is all because of Anjuta. .. ."

At the turn of the corridor he looked back to wave a last farewell. She had the impression that there was something he wanted to say, to explain to her. Natascha waved her handkerchief flippantly.

"Don't fall in love with the professor's wife. Come soon."

At that his face lit up, and, seemingly reassured, he walked around the corner with his old determined stride. Natascha returned to her room along the familiar, detestable carpet, her head bowed in deep thought.

XIII

W. WAS a charming old town. Its beautiful churches, and the hushed, ancient streets tempted tourists away from the beaten paths to stop for a few days in its gentle atmosphere. It was not hard to find a clean, reasonably priced inn where she was given a delightful room, simple and unpretentious in its lines, and without the dusty accessories, carpets and hangings that so often disfigure such places. It was bathed in sunlight from windows that looked out – not as in H. over roofs and chimneys or down into a narrow court-yard – but across a hushed, wide-flung square of venerable houses, every one of which had looked down on the passing of many generations.

When Natascha got up in the morning, and raised the shades to smile out into the hot rays of the springtime sun, she felt the urgent joy of existence racing through her veins again. It was long since she had known that simple joy of living that was wafted in to her on the fragrant spring breezes that played about her face with the spring-song of the birds from the neighboring garden.

"Life! This is life. Why must I live through such torment, when life itself is so lovely? Why?"

She turned to her work at once and lost herself in its pages, writing steadily and smoothly, without difficulty or hesitation. It seemed to her that she could continue to write like this forever. She promised herself, however, a little later in the day, to stroll about the delightful old town with its somnolent houses and its towers and domes whose architectural ornamentation looked to her like lace-work turned to stone. She reveled in this liberty to come and go as she pleased once more, as a pupil enjoys her vacation from the rigors of school life. She smiled as she wandered about the streets, smiled as she ordered her dinner in a modest restaurant, smiled at the hot sun that burned her cheeks, and was still smiling when she tumbled into bed with that delicious feeling of physical and mental weariness that comes at the end of a day's pleasurable occupation.

On Friday Natascha went to the post-office to ask for mail. A number of letters had been forwarded, among them one from Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch. What did it mean – new disappointment? Perhaps he had decided not to come after all....

She put it with the rest, unopened, into her leather bag.

In the tiny park, where birds were vieing with one another in their cheerful twittering, hiding in the rich, dark green of the evergreen that lent a colorful background to the rose-red of almond and apricot blossoms, Natascha opened her letters.

Her comrades were urging her to return, for the political situation was approaching a crisis that should find everyone at his post. They were all at a loss for an explanation of her persistent silence, and were becoming somewhat anxious and perplexed.

She must go back, no matter what Ssenja's letter had to say. She almost wished that he were not coming.... she would leave on the following day.

With this secret hope in the background of her mind she opened his letter last of all.

But it appeared that Ssenja had written immediately after her departure, dimly conscious of the shadow that rested on their love. The letter was unexpectedly tender.

"The hurt in your eyes when I saw you last still haunts me. ... I feel like a criminal. ... You will never know what your love has been to me. The assurance of your love means more than I can tell, more than mere words can express. The sun would go out of my life if I should have to live without you."

Not so long ago, Natascha would have choked over a letter like this. With her hands pressed over her eyes she would have feasted hungrily on the protestations of love it contained. Now she smiled, a little ruefully, a little bitterly. Too late. Too late.

A post-script added that he was counting the hours till they would meet again.

She dropped the letter into her bag beside the others, her mind wandering back to Wanjetschka – one of the letters had mentioned him in passing – as she did so. She thought of him shame-facedly, conscious of the post-card she had neglected to send. The dear, good fellow. What a comrade he had been in her hour of need!

She went to a stationery shop at once, chose an attractive post-card and sent a light, facetious greeting, promising a speedy return and assuring him that she was homesick, terribly homesick for all of them. Even for Donzeff.

It was true. She was longing to see them all again, her coworkers and comrades.

As she walked back to the inn the long corridor with its irritating red carpet and the man-servant who dozed at the table came back to her mind. She saw herself at Ssenjetschka's door with hair flying....a mendicant....

"Better not think of it.... How degrading it was!"

A telegram had come during her absence. "Coming to-morrow, 1:30 A. M. Meet me at train."

"My husband will arrive to-night," she told the clerk in passing as she went to her room, determined to use the last hours of uninterrupted freedom to finish her pamphlet.

XIV

HALF an hour before the specified time Natascha was at the station, only to find that the bulletin-board announced a delay in the train's arrival. The porter could give no explanation but a gentleman nearby, overhearing her questions, lifted his hat and volunteered the required information. The train would be forty-five minutes late. A cloud-burst had washed out the road-bed further up the line. No, no one had been hurt. He was waiting for his mother who was to arrive on the same train.

Natascha regarded him a little more closely. He was tall with a gray mustache and black, lively eyes. Altogether he appealed to her at once.

He continued to speak. His mother was coming to visit him, after an absence of almost two months. That was a very long time. He wished his mother could live with him permanently.

"A mother's love is the only love that is unselfish, the only love I can respect."

He spoke with the frank lack of reticence that characterized the people of his southerly region.

"Would it be bold to ask for whom you are waiting?" he continued.

"A friend? Your husband?"

"My husband." It had slipped past her lips, in spite of herself and she felt herself reddening with embarrassment.

"How long have you been married?"

"Well, now, that depends...." Natascha laughed.

"Aha, I understand, I understand. I have my own views on this subject. Usually women disagree with me, but in my eyes a wife and a sweetheart are one and the same thing. On the contrary: a free union fetters a man much more than a legitimate marriage. I am not referring to legal, formal bonds, of course, but to inner, moral obligations...this lack of freedom, this dependence on another's inner experiences, the eternal dissatisfaction of the woman one loves, the spiritual bills she presents....

"She is always being hurt by trifles. I have gone through the entire gamut of such an experience. could tell you ... by the way, are you a German?"

"No," Natascha laughed. "A Russian and a writer. You may speak freely. I am not afraid of life and truth."

"A writer?" He raised his hat respectfully. "I have the greatest respect for a woman who pursues a profession. My mother was a teacher. But that has nothing to do with the relations of men and women to each other. Lies, nothing but lies on either side, lies for the peace of mind of the loved one, lies from fear, from habit. ... Are men and women ever themselves after they are married? Mind you, I make no difference between legal marriage and that voluntary bond that holds two persons together. Are they ever themselves when they are together, as they are with their friends and colleagues, or with other sexually indifferent persons? Do you ever fully express your real thoughts and feelings when you are with your husband? Can you give full play to your moods or to those impulses that are, possibly, the best that is in you? No. It is all play-acting, pose and prevarication.. ."

He piled up indictment after indictment against marriage with reckless, somewhat disjointed abandon, but Natascha believed she understood. She amended and supplemented his speculations with an illustration here and a pertinent remark there, so that he nodded appreciatively at the fullness of her comprehension. "That is it. That is it!" he agreed.

Natascha spoke hastily and sketchily, as if she were hurrying to tell this stranger everything she had thought and suffered. ... He listened to her gravely, looking steadily into her face as she talked, now and then adding an apt word to her story. It was Natascha who first noticed that the hands of the clock were approaching the time scheduled for the train's arrival. How extraordinarily quickly the time had passed on the dismal, gray station.

"I am truly grateful to the good fortune that presented me with this opportunity. I will not be so indiscreet as to ask for your name, but may I assure you, without flattery, that this is the first time I have had the privilege of meeting a young woman with so mature an outlook on life? You note that I say young: I have often met older women who think as I do, though they rarely care to speak of it. But they know much... my mother is a case in point.

"My mother is an extraordinary woman, and I am proud and happy to be able to give her every pleasure that money can buy, now that she is old. I worked for it with my own hands. I am a grape farmer. I was the youngest of eight brothers – began life as an errand boy in a wine cellar. My mother was a teacher. We never knew our father."

As the time for the train's arrival drew nearer, the station platform had gradually filled with waiting people. The train was approaching. Natascha once more shook hands with her new acquaintance, who respectfully lifted his hat and raised her hand as if to kiss it, but then desisted.

Their eyes met for a brief glance, then Natascha was lost in the crowd that stood by the tracks.

The train rolled into the station, filling it with a dense cloud of smoke.

"At last? Have you been impatient, poor girl? How is my Natascha? You are looking splendidly ... rosy-cheeked and well ... like a little girl. Have you been homesick? This last hour in the train dragged so endlessly, I almost got out and walked."

He was not afraid to embrace her here, he even kissed her fondly and took her arm, launching into a recital of the shrewd maneuvers it had taken to escape the professor's all-too-insistent hospitality.

"Here we will be alone together, just we two, with plenty of time to talk over everything that troubles us. Another honeymoon – how many will that be, Natascha .. .?" He pressed her hand ecstatically.

"My dearest, I am so madly happy to see you!"

Natascha smiled, and looked at him as unemotionally as one regards a stranger. She was amazed at her complete aloofness. Why had this never been possible before?

At the station entrance they approached Natascha's casual acquaintance of the station platform, tenderly guiding a tiny gray-haired woman who clung devotedly to his arm. Natascha, afraid of the questions and the suspicious cross-examination, the tiresome explanations and denials that recognition would mean, pretended not to see him, though she secretly rebelled against this slavery to the moods and whims of another. She was becoming thoroughly tired of it.

In the cab that took them to their destination Ssenja caught her in his arms and sought her lips.

"Say you love me, dear. I have been so lonesome, so afraid. ... You were hurt, weren't you? It was a mistake to send you here. This idiotic nervousness of mine! You know one loses all sense of proportion when one has been ill. You understood that, didn't you, Natascha?"

"Yes, I realized that."

"Then you are not angry? You are not as happy as usual over my coming." His eyes sought hers questioningly. "Perhaps you no longer care?.."

He said it softly, with a choked gasp, as if he dared not utter the thought that had suddenly come to him.

"I care for you? I don't care for you at all!" She tried to drive away his depression with her bantering tone, but she felt that it lacked conviction. Ssenja sighed unhappily and fell back into his seat, and Natascha felt a sharp stab of pity. She was honestly sorry to hurt him. To distract him she told him of the letters she had received, and he was soon listening with undivided interest. By the time they reached the inn they were arguing with the complete absorption with which two colleagues discuss a matter of mutual interest.

*****

The sun stood high in the heavens when Natascha raised the shade and opened the window the morning after.

"Look, Ssenja, how beautiful! Aren't these houses charming? Those birds...spring is here!"

"To be sure. ... And I am here with you in paradise."

He came to her and threw his arm about her shoulder. Silently, each busy with his own thoughts, they stood by the window. Natascha's soul was calm and unruffled. She had the queer sensation that it was not she, at all, but some one else who was experiencing this, while she was standing by and looking on. For Ssenja she felt the sympathetic affection one feels for an agreeable, more or less casual acquaintance. She had accepted his caresses that night with a spirit of somewhat bored submission; she had not once responded to his passion. Under one pretext or another she tried to distract his attention.

"You must be more careful, Ssenjetschka, or you will be ill again. Let me tell you what I saw yesterday." She treated him as an older person treats an unreasonable child. It was she, not he, who struck the note that dominated their intercourse. Hitherto she had been his obedient echo. Now, unconsciously, it seemed to her, he followed while she led the way.

Ssenja, for his part, was entirely happy. He had been in mortal terror of Natascha's "psychological dissertations" ever since he had left her, and was highly gratified to find her actually cheerful and not at all inclined to dwell on his shortcomings. Though he had never been able to comprehend her inexplicable moods, they often made him acutely unhappy. They burdened him with a sense of wrong-doing. He was at no time conscious of anything but the desire to make her completely happy, only to find that every effort he made to understand and please her seemed somehow to complicate the situation. It had been just so with Anjuta. Now this same feeling of inadequacy to cope with the vagaries of the female mind was disturbing his relations with Natascha with increasing frequency.

Here, in W., they seemed to have found firm ground again. They had found each other again-to use one of Natascha's favorite expressions – and Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch was happy and lighthearted in consequence.

Breakfast was jolly. Ssenja ate enormously, and insisted that Natascha would make a splendid housewife. He was hugely delighted with his new quarters. Natascha played the hostess charmingly; she was entertaining an agreeable, welcome guest.

"I thought I should be able to manage a longer stay here, but the library opens on Tuesday and the professor invited a number of guests to go with us to examine some material out of the archives. For Tuesday, unfortunately. That means I should leave here on Monday."

"Monday? That would suit me excellently."

"What do you mean?"

"That in that case I shall also leave on Monday. You know how conscience-stricken I feel, sitting here in idleness when they are waiting for me so anxiously at home."

"What difference will a day or two make? I don't see why we should be in such a hurry to leave here?"

"A day or two may make a great deal of difference in a tense political situation .. ."

"You know how the comrades exaggerate."

Natascha relapsed into silence. As usual, he thought only of himself. She had never been able to persuade him to give her a single hour of his time. He must go. ... Anjuta expected him his will was law and there was no relenting, no appeal from his decision. That she, too, had responsibilities and important claims on her time, that every added hour she spent with him was a sacrifice, a loss to herself and to the movement – that he had never been willing to admit.

"DO you remember," she reflected, "the time we met in N.-two years ago?"

"To be sure. Why?"

"Do you remember how sick I became while we were there? I lay alone in a hotel room with a high fever, and there was not a soul that knew me in the entire city. ... Do you remember how I begged you to stay with me one day more ... just one day more? What did it mean to Anjuta – a single day out of a life-time with you? You know how rarely I ask for anything, but I begged and pleaded with you then. But you left me and I remained behind, ill, delirious... ."

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch looked crestfallen.

"Why speak of that now?"

"To show you how much a day means where you are concerned. Only my needs and my wishes count for nothing. Is that your conception of equality?" Natascha spoke with unusual calm.

"You can't truly say that I disregard your wishes. Aren't you just a little unjust, my dear? When have I acted against your will? Tell me? Is it fair to prefer charges without giving facts? If I act unjustly, I do it unconsciously, against my will. You can't truthfully say that I am against equality for man and woman."

"Well, let's not discuss it. It isn't important. I just happened to think of it and mentioned it."

She tried to change the subject, but Ssenja answered absently and paced the room thoughtfully for a while. Suddenly his face cleared and the gentle smile that Natascha had loved so dearly played about his lips, the quizzical look was in his eyes as he looked at her over his glasses.

"Well, my dear, I am off to the barber's. When I get back, we will look at the town together."

He went over to her, kissed her eyes and then her hands with sober tenderness, and hurriedly left the room.

"Hurry back," she called after him, "or it will be dark before we start."

He reappeared much sooner than she had expected.

"Here already? Don't tell me that you have been to the barber's."

He looked at her with that mysterious, quizzical look still in his eyes.

"What have you been up to?" Natascha laughed in spite of herself, and was curious, too. Thus mothers smile at the mysterious secrets of their children.

"Guess."

"How can I guess. Tell me, Ssenjetschenka."

She shook him with mock impatience.

He stuck out his tongue at her like a child.

"I sent the professor a telegram."

"A telegram? What for?"

"To tell him that I shall not return before Friday."

"Ssenja!"

He had expected Natascha to fall about his neck in radiant appreciation of his thoughtfulness. Instead she dropped her hands hopelessly at her side and looked at him with a strange expression on her face.

"You sent a telegram, changed the day of departure without consulting me? How could you? How dared you?...

"But, Natascha..."

"When you knew that I must leave here on Tuesday, at the latest."

"Well, I must say, I simply can't make you out. Weren't you offended when I said I wanted to leave on Monday? For your sake, to show you how much I want to please you, to prove to you that you mean more to me than my work or anything else. ... I thought this would please you ... and now..."

He bristled with righteous resentment.

Natascha tried to explain, but suddenly desisted. What was the use? They would always think and speak past one another. They seemed neither to hear nor to understand each other any longer. Ssenjetschka wanted only to please her. In his eyes the telegram to the professor was an extraordinary concession, a proof of the greatness of his love for her. Formerly... ah, how happy this would have made her. Too late. Too late.

Somehow she would have to get out of this impossible situation.

She rapidly figured up what it would cost them to stay and showed him, as regretfully as she could, that it would be reckless for them to remain beyond Wednesday. Their finances simply did not permit it. Then, too, what would the professor think? Suppose Anjuta should come to H....

She spoke like an experienced mother who knows the soul of her child. Not a word of herself. She even thanked him for wanting to spend a few more days with her.

His ruffled feathers gradually smoothed out, so that he was in a cheerful, yes, delighted mood once more when they walked through the village streets, arm in arm, a few hours later.

Natascha showed him the sights of the town, with the warm appreciation with which one regards a delightful relative who is an agreeable, but by no means essential, part of one's life.

XV

"Do you know, Natascha, I believe these have been the happiest days we have spent together for a very long time," Ssenja said as he locked his trunk. He was leaving an hour before Natascha.

"Do you think so?"

"Don't you? There were moments, it is true, when I could not quite understand you. Sometimes I felt, for an instant, that you were getting away from me. But as soon as I listened into your soul (he was using Natascha's words) I came closer to you again, and this strangeness disappeared. Isn't that so? You have been cheerful, you laughed more than usual. I don't remember having seen you so happy... oh, for ever so long...I am going away happy...almost happy. .. ."

The last words came like an afterthought. He suddenly knelt down before her and buried his face in her lap....

"Ssenja, what is it?..."

"I can't help it. A dreadful feeling sometimes takes hold of me, a fear that I am to lose you....

I know it is stupid, but when it takes hold of me I am as helpless as a little child left alone by its mother in a great dark woods. Is it possible, Natascha, that we should ever become indifferent to one another? Tell me, truly, dear, do you still love me?"

His eyes searched hers with an intensity she had never seen in them before.

"Ssenja, this isn't at all like you. Are you beginning to entertain my psychological misgivings, silly Ssenjetschka ?"

She laughed at him. Had he noticed that she had not answered his question?

"Yes, it seems, does it not, that we have exchanged roles?"

He spoke thoughtfully and softly stroked her hand.

"There is something I can't explain. What is there that is not as it used to be? Nothing ... and yet...there is a difference. I am so afraid..."

Natascha was struck. Was it possible that now, when everything was over, he was beginning to understand her? Did he see what she herself was afraid to recognize?

"We, who have lived through so much together in these years of our friendship could not become strange to each other. ... I am too fond of you for that. ... You have become my little brother, my trusted friend. .. ." She stroked his head, the clever, thoughtful head she had once loved so agonizingly.

"Farewell, my dear, beloved..." her heart contracted and she could not stem the tears that rushed to her eyes. She was parting from the great love that had been hers, from the suffering it had brought her, from the happiness that had been theirs together. Gone ... gone ... never to return again.

Natascha's tears were the usual, inevitable end of every parting. They comforted Ssenja.

Everything, then, was as it had always been.

*****

Natascha stood on the station platform. Ssenja was already in the car. The train would start in a moment.

"Now you are going East and I am going West.... When and where shall we meet again? Not soon, I'm afraid. But we have seen each other again and have gathered fresh courage for the future. It was wonderful, was it not, Natascha? It was wonderful!" He wanted a word of confirmation from her lips.

"Yes. The town is charming – a poem. I am leaving here with new thoughts – I stole them from you."

"Don't try to flatter me, as if you hadn't a clever little head of your own. You will write to me, won't you, as long as I am in H.?"

"Certainly."

"I am already dreaming of meeting you again."

"By the way," she interrupted him in a businesslike tone, "will you formulate more exactly the proposition you asked me to take up with the comrades at home?"

The door slammed.

"Good-bye, Natascha. Till we meet again.... I am so grateful to you. .. ."

"What for?"

"For everything. ... Give me your hand. Don't be unhappy! We will meet again, soon. You must go back, dear. The train is moving."

Ssenja leaned far out of the window for a last glimpse of the girl as she stood on the station platform. He waved the familiar old gray hat that had always seemed so touching to her. Queer that she had not noticed how shabby it was before. That flabby brim hanging down over his face.

The train was vanishing into darkness. Natascha did not peer after it with hungry eyes as she used to do, feeling that the soul had left her body to hurry after it. She went to the outer station door with others who had seen their friends to the train, wondering anew at her composure. A leave-taking like a thousand others, with the depressing feeling of finality that one always had on such occasions. Nothing more. But Natascha knew that this was the end. They had taken their last farewell from one another.

Some time in the future life might throw them together for common work again. Only that. The great love that had throbbed in her heart all these years was gone forever. Nothing, neither tenderness nor pleading, not even understanding, could bring it back to life again.

Too late! In the train her thoughts were already far away from Ssenja and the love she had borne him. Her head was heavy with cares. There were her papers – she would look them over at once, destroy some, transcribe others into code, file some for future reference....

She was back at her work again. Long, long ago there had been a great, wonderful, beautiful love, – but it was gone. It had seeped out of her heart, through the countless tiny wounds that Ssenja, in his man-like failure to understand, had inflicted.

• Part 2 : Sisters

SHE was one of the many who came to me in those difficult days for advice and spiritual guidance.

I had seen her at a number of delegate conferences, and remembered having been struck by her pretty, rather intense face with its pensive but intelligent eyes.

To-day her face was pale, the eyes even larger and sadder than usual.

"I came to you because there is no one else to whom I can go. I have been homeless for the past three weeks – I have no money. I must have work! If I don't get: some means of earning a living soon, there is only one thing left for me – the street."

"But, let me see. If I remember rightly you were working. You had a good position. Were you discharged?"

"Yes. I worked in the shipping department of our publishing house until two months ago, when I lost my place ... because of my baby. It was so sick, and I had to stay at home again and again to take care of it. It died two weeks after I lost my position, but I was not taken back."

I felt that the bowed head and the long lashes were concealing unshed tears of helpless misery.

"But why were you discharged? Was your work unsatisfactory?"

"No, on the contrary, I am considered an efficient worker. But my husband has a good income – he is an important official in the Combinat. .. ."

"But if that is the case, you are not without means. Have you separated?"

"No, we have not separated ... that is, I simply left him, and I cannot go back. No matter what happens to me ... I will never go back. Anything but that."

The long lashes no longer hid the tears in her eyes.

"Forgive me! I never cry. I went through this purgatory without tears. But your kindness, your sympathy... make it hard to bear.... Let me tell you about it, so that you may understand."

She had met her husband at the height of the revolutionary uprising. At that time he was a compositor in the publishing house in whose shipping department she was employed. Both sympathized strongly with the Bolshevist cause, and their burning enthusiasm for the Revolution that was to shake off the yoke of exploitation to build up a new and a more just world, drew them together. They both loved books with the devotion that characterizes those who, self-taught, fight a constant, never-ending battle against their educational limitations. The Revolution, in its dizzy whirl of intense activity, had found work for them both during those mad October days. And in the fire of battle, to the sound of rattling machine guns, their hearts had found each other. There was no time to legalize their union. Each continued to live his own life; they met during hours of work, happy in the glow reflected from stolen hours of passionate companionship. They were legally married a year later, when she became pregnant, and looked forward hopefully to the coming of their little one to the modest home in which they now lived together. But with the birth of the little girl, complications set in. She could not resign herself to the thought of concentrating her entire activity upon her home. Surely work was as important for the woman as for the man, and must not be set aside for family considerations. She urged the creation of a day-nursery for the babies of working women, and was successful in seeing it established. But new difficulties arose almost at once. Her work and the care of the baby, the thousand little ministrations that its comfort at home demanded, left little time for the demands of the household. Her husband grumbled, and while admitting the truth of his remonstrances, she could not quite admit their justification. Was he ever at home? And was he not proud of her when she was elected delegate to the Rayon Congress?

"But won't you be sulky if dinner is cold?" she had teased him when he congratulated her on her success.

"Bah, cold dinner, fiddlesticks! See to it that you do not become cold after meeting so many new and interesting men there. One never can tell, you know. Better be careful."

They had laughed gaily at the thought. Could anything cloud such love as theirs? They were so much more than man and wife – comrades who went through life hand in hand, who aspired to the same ideals, with never a thought of themselves. Only their work, that, and each other. And the baby, of course, the dear, joyous, healthy girl baby!

How was it possible that all this had changed so? Perhaps the Combinat? Sometimes she thought. ... They had rejoiced at his appointment, of course. It meant a little ease and comfort after the hard life they had been leading; no more starvation, no more worn-out, ugly clothes, no anxiety lest lack of funds close the nursery and leave her with the problem of conflicting work and family responsibilities. When the new appointment came, her husband had urged her to give up her job. It irked his pride that she should continue to work for wages, now that he was able to support his family. But she resented the very suggestion. She was accustomed to the daily intercourse with her fellow workers, and enjoyed the responsibilities of her daily task. Besides, she hated the thought of dependence, she who had taken care of herself since the days of her earliest youth. Still, things were easier. They moved into more comfortable quarters – two rooms and a kitchen – -and engaged a girl to take care of the baby, while she devoted herself more intensely than ever to her work in the Rayon. Her husband was busy, too. He spent only his sleeping hours at home.

Thus they lived busy but happy days until her husband was sent away to accompany several Nepmen on a business trip. A stranger returned to her, one who wore fine clothes and used perfume, who barely listened when she spoke of the things that had formerly interested both of them. He began to drink, he who had never, with the possible exception of an occasional holiday, used liquor before. During the Revolution there had been no time for alcohol.

The first time he came home under the influence of liquor she was frightened rather than grieved. "It will hurt him," she thought, anxiously. "His reputation will suffer." But when she reproached him the following morning he drank his tea morosely and refused to answer. Three days later he was drunk again, this time so helplessly that she could scarcely get him into bed. It was disgusting. Even when one loved a man with all one's heart, it was disgusting. V~hen she approached the subject again the following day he looked at her with eyes so full of hatred and resentment that the words she would have spoken stuck in her throat.

After that he came home drunken more and more frequently. It was intolerable. She used to linger at home in the morning until he became sober, to urge him to mend his ways, to show him that this could not go on. She showed him what he had made of their marriage – comrades no longer, now, but a man and a woman, whom only the common marriage bed held together. She warned him, she called him to shame, she wept. ... At first he listened, tried to defend himself. She did not understand. He must go about with these Nepmen. If one did not take part in their amusements, one could not do business with them. Occasionally he would become thoughtful, would admit that he himself was becoming tired of the life his position was forcing him to lead. Those were the times when he would plead with her to be patient, taking her head between his hands and looking deeply into her eyes, sending her lightheartedly to her work once more.

A week later he was hopelessly drunken again. He pounded the table with his fists when she spoke to him. "Mind your business. They all live like this. Go away, if you don't like it. No one is holding you here!"

She went through the day after that scene with an intolerable hurt in her breast. Was it possible that he no longer cared for her? Did he want her to leave him? But he was deeply contrite that evening, and apologized abjectly for the things he had said. They talked it all over again and again, and her heart felt light, confident once more.

She understood, of course. It was this company he was forced to keep. He earned his money easily, and had to spend as the others did. Men were like that. They could not refuse to join the rest. He told her stories of the lives these Nepmen led, they and their wives, of how they did business, and how hard it was for a worker to beat these sharks at their own game.

It all made her very unhappy. She was more dejected than she had been since the days before the Revolution had put an end to the misery of the war. The glory of the Revolution was giving way to bitter realities – these Nepmen, and the threatening reduction of workers due to the new policy of expense retrenchment.

For it was at this time that she first heard that she would probably be affected by the coming layoff. Her husband took the news of her coming discharge with maddening calmness. "On the whole," he thought, "not a bad thing for both of us. You would be at home to attend to the household as it should be looked after. Look at it now – impossible to invite respectable people to visit in a place like this."

When she remonstrated indignantly with him he grew impatient.

"All right, all right. After all, it's your business, I suppose. I'm not hindering you. Keep on working, if you choose."

It hurt her deeply to think that her husband was offended; hurt still more to think that he did not understand her. She persisted nevertheless. She went to influential comrades, argued with them, almost quarreled with them at their refusal to understand that her husband's income had nothing to do with her right to work, and in the end actually persuaded them to reconsider her dismissal. But she had scarcely adjusted matters when her little one became seriously ill.

"You cannot imagine the wretchedness of those nights, sitting alone with my unhappy thoughts beside the baby's bed. I was so desperately lonely, so anxious for the future! One night the door-bell rang. I ran as usual to open the door for my husband, glad to have him with me. Someone to whom I could speak of my fears, someone who loved the little one. If only he was not drunken. ... When I opened the door I could hardly believe my eyes. A young woman stood beside him, rouged and drunken, an unmistakable type. 'Let us in, wife,' he said, grandly, with a drunkard's swagger.' 'S a little friend I brought with me to-night. 'Want to enjoy life like the rest of them, enjoy life, I say....Leave us alone.'

"My knees shook. They went together, laughing inanely, into the living-room where my husband usually slept. I hurried back to the baby, who began to whimper at the noise, and locked the door behind me. I calmed the little one, and then sat there beside her bed, staring before me as my world crumbled into ashes. I was not angry at him. What can one expect of a drunken man? But it was horrible. One could hear every sound in the next room. I longed to hold my hands over my ears, but the little one needed constant attention. Fortunately they soon quieted down – they were too drunken to stay awake. Toward morning I heard my husband open the door for the woman. He himself went back to sleep.

"He slipped out of the house that morning without seeing me. When he returned in the evening I did not look up. He buried himself in his papers, but I caught occasional stealthy glances in my direction. 'Lot him,' I thought. 'He will probably beg to be forgiven, only to go back to his old ways again.' But I was through. I was determined to leave him. Yet my heart ached at the thought. I still loved him ... why deny it. I love him even now, when it is all over. But it is as if he were dead. Now I could not go back to him again. But at that time my feelings for him were still alive.

"Dully I remembered a Rayon meeting I had promised to attend and slipped into my coat. But before I reached the door he had jumped up from his chair, and bore down on me with an incredible rage. There were blue spots on my arm afterwards, where he had held me as he'd pulled off my coat and flung it to the floor.

"'I'm thoroughly tired of your hysterics,' he shouted. 'Where are you going? What do you want of me? You will have to go far to find another husband like me, able to take care of you and give you a decent home and respectable clothes. I fulfill your every wish. What right have you to sit in judgment over me?'

"He talked and talked – endlessly. He raged, he explained, he tried to justify himself. And because I saw that his face was distorted, because I saw that he was suffering, I was so sorry for him that I forgot everything else. I still loved him so very much, you see. Perhaps if I encouraged him, showed him that things were not as bad as they looked, that he was not to blame, that these Nepmen....

"So we were reconciled to each other once more. But I had to promise never to be angry with him again. Of course he would never have brought home this woman if he had not been drunk. I pleaded with him to stop drinking. Everything would be different – I hadn't minded the prostitute nearly as much, I assured him, as the bestiality of it all. He promised to control himself. He would in the future avoid these men who were leading him to destruction.

"But, of course, the thorn remained. Could he have done a thing like that, I asked myself over and over again, if he still loved me? Would he have visited a woman like that during those days in the Revolution when we were so happy together? One of my friends, far prettier and younger than I, had set her cap for him when we first met each other. But he had not even noticed her. I tried to speak of this to him. He must tell me, if he no longer cared for me. I would not stand in his way. But he became angry at once, and thundered at me that I was driving him out of the house with this silly woman's talk. Devil take me and all women! Just when he was so busy, too, that he didn't know his head from his heels for business worries!

"So matters drifted along. Meanwhile my discharge became more and more imminent. My little daughter was still sick, and it was too much to expect them to hold a position for me that I was, for the time being, so obviously incapable of filling. I remained at home, and tried to make the home more comfortable for my husband. I still hoped that things might change for the better, meanwhile trying everything possible to hold my position. The thought of absolute financial dependence on my husband at this time threw me into blank despair. We occupied the same rooms, but lived as strangers. We saw very little of each other. He had even lost interest in the little one. He hardly looked at her. He drank less, it is true, and came home sober most of the time. But it was as if I had ceased to exist. He slept on the divan in the living-room, while I stayed in the bedroom beside my little girl. Occasionally he came in to me at night. But there was no joy in his embraces. The days that followed them were, if possible, more dreary – as if new suffering had been added to the old. He took me as a matter of course, and apparently never thought of the things that must be going on in my mind....Thus we lived ... Lonely. Silent.

"Just before the baby died, I was definitely discharged. There was a dim ray of hope in my anguish when she left us. 'We will suffer together, now, we two,' I thought. 'It will bring him back to me.' But I was mistaken. He did not even attend the funeral – an important meeting. I was left alone with my sorrow – without work, dependent for support on a man who no longer cared for me.

"There was work enough to be done in the Rayon. But it was voluntary work, party propaganda, educational work, organization tasks. This sort of work was not paid, of course. Nor could I ask for a position when so many were out of work. Was not my husband a well-paid official? I tried and tried, but there was nothing to be had. I tried to be patient. I still hoped – something might happen – we women are so foolish. It was so obvious that my husband no longer cared for me. And within me, too, bitterness and resentment were slowly killing the love that remained. Still I waited. Each morning I woke up, hoping against hope for a miracle. At night I hurried home from the Rayon like a child – perhaps he is at home, waiting for you! Perhaps. ... But even when he was at home, it made no difference in my loneliness. He paid no attention to me, he was busy with his work. Comrades came, Nepmen. Still I hoped and waited. Until that happened which made me leave him. Definitely, this time. Never to return to him again.

"I had returned late from a meeting that night and was just lighting the samovar for a cup of tea when I heard the outer door open softly. Since that episode my husband carried his own key. He went directly to his room, as usual. After a few moments I recalled a package that had come to him by special messenger that afternoon. I went to my room to get it, and took it in to him. What I saw there – it was even harder to grasp than the first time. For he was not drunk. There beside my husband stood a tall, slender woman. They both turned to look at me, and our eyes met.

"I can just dimly recollect what happened after that. I believe I managed to tell him calmly as I laid it on the table, that the package had come for him by special messenger. Then I went to my room. But when I was alone once more my limbs shook so that I could hardly control them. Fearful of betraying myself to those two in the next room I crept into bed and drew the covers over my head. I wouldn't hear, wouldn't feel! But who can escape the torture of his thoughts?

"I heard their voices, hers louder than his, as if she were upbraiding him. 'Perhaps he is her lover, and she has just discovered that he is married. At this moment he may be denying that I am his wife!' I thought of every possibility, and each thought brought untold misery. I had suffered less, bitterly as I was hurt, when he brought the prostitute into our home. He had done that after a drunken spree. But this – . Now I knew that he no longer cared for me. Not even as one cares for a comrade or a sister. He would not have brought a woman into the home in which his sister lived. He would have shown her more respect than to bring such women – women of the streets into the rooms she occupied. This, too, must be one of them. No decent woman would have come with him at this hour of the night! A flood of rage at this woman took possession of me. I could have rushed into the room in which she lay with my husband and driven her out of the house.

"Thus I lay, sleepless, until the dawn broke. Then it seemed to me that I heard stealthy footsteps on the corridor. It must be she! The kitchen-door opened softly. What did she want there, I asked myself indignantly? I waited tensely. She did not return. With sudden resolution I jumped out of my bed and went into the kitchen. She was sitting on the little bench by the window, her head bowed down, crying bitterly. Her fair hair was so long it almost covered her slim body. When she looked up at me as I opened the kitchen door, I was dismayed at the suffering in her eyes. I approached and she rose to meet me.

"'Forgive me,' she whispered,'for having come into your home. I did not know, of course. I thought he lived alone. That makes it so hard, so very much harder to bear.' "At first I did not understand.'This is no prostitute,' I thought. 'She is his friend.' And the words 'Do you love him?' came impulsively to my lips.

"She looked at me with large, astonished eyes. 'I never saw him before. We met last night for the first time. He promised to pay me well. It does not matter to me who the man is, so long as he pays.'

"How it all happened I can't remember. She told me her story – how she had been discharged three months before when the reduction of labor was put into effect, how unhappy she had been not to be able to help her old mother who wrote that she was starving, how she had finally gone on the street, and had been fortunate in making the acquaintance of an agreeable circle of men almost at once. Now she was well dressed and well fed, and able to take care of her mother. ... She wrung her hands as she told me her story.

"'I might be a useful worker,' she assured me. 'It is not that I am ignorant. I have my gymnasium diploma, and I am young – only nineteen. To think that I must go to the dogs like this.'

"It is hard to believe, is it not, that I trembled with sympathy for this unfortunate creature. For it struck me, as she was telling her story, that only my husband's income had saved me, up to this time, from a similar situation. The hatred that I had felt for her that night as I lay on my pillow was turned against my husband now. How dared he exploit the misfortune of a poor woman, a working man proud of his understanding of the problems of his class, a man who boasted of his responsibility to the proletariat! He who should have helped an unemployed comrade in her hour of need buys her body. ... It was so utterly revolting that my mind was made up as she spoke. I could not live with a creature of that sort a moment longer.

"We discussed the whole question while we lit the fire and cooked our coffee together. My husband was still fast asleep. When she prepared to take her leave I asked her,'Did he pay you?'

"She blushed furiously and assured me that to take money after she had spoken to me was out of the question. I understood her anxiety to be out of the house before my husband should find her with me, and I did not detain her. Will you understand me when I tell you that I hated to have her go? It was as if she were some dear relative....she seemed so unhappy, so young and so alone in the world. I finally dressed and went with her. We walked through the streets for a long time and finally sat down together on a bench in a small park. I told her of my unhappiness. I still had most of my last salary left and persuaded her to accept it from me. At first she refused, but she took it finally on condition that I come to her in case of need. We parted like sisters.

"That night my love for my husband died, died suddenly as if it had never been. There was no pain, no feeling of offense. It was as if I had buried him. When I returned home he was still there, vociferous in self-justification. But I did not answer. There were no tears, no recriminations. On the following day I moved my few belongings to the home of a friend and began to look for work. That was three weeks ago. The outlook has been hopeless. Then, several days ago, something occurred that made it clear to me that I could stay with my friend no longer. I went to look for the girl my husband had brought with him that night, and was told that she had been taken to the hospital on the day before. ... So I am drifting about without a home, without work, without money. Will her fate be mine?" The tragic, despairing eyes of my visitor asked this question of life. It was in her eyes – the sorrow, the horror, the misery of this struggle against the workingman's most implacable enemy – -unemployment. The eyes of a defenseless woman who, alone and single-handed, is fighting the old, wornout order.

She has gone, but her eyes still haunt me. They demand an answer. Action, constructive action. Struggle.

Source: A Great Love, The Vanguard Press, New York, 1929.
Translated: Lily Lore
First Published: 1923
Online Version: marxists.org 2001
Transcription/Markup: Sally Ryan

• Part 3 : The Loves of Three Generations

COMING to my office one morning I found, among the pile of private and business letters on my desk, a thick envelope that immediately arrested my attention. Thinking it might contain a newspaper article, I opened it. It was a letter, an extraordinarily long letter. The signature....Olga Wasselowskaya. I looked at it thoughtfully.

I knew Comrade Olga Sergejewna Wasselowskaya as an organizer holding a responsible position in the Soviet Republic. I also knew that she was not even remotely interested in the work among women in which I happened to be engaged at the time. What had prompted her to write this endless letter? Glancing at the envelope once more I noticed the words "Strictly Personal" written in large letters across the corner.

"Personal?" Personal letters from women usually mean family tragedies, with a plea for advice and understanding. Was it possible that Olga Sergejewna, this quiet, self-contained woman...? It was unthinkable!

I could not read the latter at the moment; urgent matters clamored for immediate attention, and the letter was obviously too long and too serious for hasty perusal. But as I worked, my thoughts returned involuntarily to the letter and its writer.

I recalled the few occasions on which I had met her – always in some official capacity. I remembered her dry, impersonal, rather reticent attitude toward others, and her remarkable efficiency – for a Russian woman – in business matters. On one of these occasions I had also made the acquaintance of her husband, a former workingman, whose frank, pleasing appearance made him beloved and popular wherever he went, although she was probably more widely known and respected than he. She was his superior in the organization in which they were both employed. He was somewhat younger than she. Perhaps this marriage ... but they had always seemed to be in such perfect accord with one another that one was impressed with a sense of harmony and perfect comradeship whenever one saw the two together. He admired her unreservedly.

I recalled one occasion when he had said, in my hearing: "But you heard what Olga Sergejewna thinks about it. Why do you continue to argue the matter?" To him she was the supreme authority.

She, too, was extremely fond of him, though in a more maternal way. I recalled another time – it was during a Congress at which we were both delegates – how her face had softened and lost its haughty reserve and severity when they brought her the news that he was ill. He was often ill. Perhaps this physical weakness that kept her in constant fear for his life had worn down her reserve. But why should she write to me? For sympathy? She was not the woman to write a letter like this without a more serious reason.

I had no opportunity to take up this letter that had taken such hold on my thoughts until I returned to my room that evening.

"I am writing to you privately, as one comrade to another. I am writing to you because you are a woman, and because I know that you are often confronted with problems of this kind. Perhaps you will be able to help me find a way out of the terrible depression that has taken hold of me.
"In the forty-three years of my life I have never been so ridiculously at a loss.

"You know me as an efficient worker. I know that I am generally regarded as severe and pedantic. Can you imagine me as the heroine of a love tragedy – a common, trivia', vaudeville sort of tragedy, that, because of its very triviality, is so much the harder to bear? Only the thought that its triviality is superficial, that there is a greater and deeper significance behind the situation under which I am suffering, makes it possible for me to come to you. Were it merely a personal affair, I should bear it as best I can, but I am sure that, in the last analysis, my experience is the immediate result of that overturning of every accepted conception of life and social relationship that is taking place in Russia at the present time. Side by side with greatness and creative genius, vice and darkness still work their evil ways.

"I believe that my experience is not uncommon, and I shudder at the thought. It fills me with physical nausea. Am I wrong? Is my outlook on life still controlled by old, outlived conceptions? Do the prejudices of an overthrown bourgeoisie still control my feelings, so that I take a distorted view of a perfectly natural situation? So my daughter insists, and Comrade Rjabkov, my husband, agrees with her. Who is right? They? Or I? Help me to find the way, tell me if I am wrong, if it is true that only bourgeois prejudice is at the root of my horror."

Here the letter stopped. On a new page, in a steadier, obviously more controlled hand, Olga Sergejewna continued:

"I should like to tell you at once of this tragedy that is tearing my soul, but you would get only a distorted picture of what is going on within me if I were to tell you of these recent occurrences without giving you an insight into the past. You would be inclined to over-emphasize superficial incidents, while failing to recognize that they play no part in my unhappiness. This is not the commonplace tragedy of a woman who is losing the man she loves. It is all so much more complicated and poignant. Nor is it that I fail to understand what has happened. Only the motives...the motives....I plead with you to be patient. Read my letter to the end. Remember, it is a comrade in deepest distress who writes to you, asking for comradely advice and assistance."

There were frequent erasures. Here an entire paragraph had been crossed out. The letter continued on the next page:

"You remember my mother, do you not? She is still alive, and has charge of the traveling library in the Province N., where she is an important member of the committee for public education."

I remembered her mother well, Marja Stepanowna, a typical propagandist of the '90's, publisher of popular scientific books, translator of socialist pamphlets, and indefatigable worker in the field of public education. She was universally respected and honored among the liberal political workers of her time, while underground revolutionists held her in high esteem for more than one great service she had rendered their cause. The circle of her friends and admirers was large and varied.

In her political views she approached the Narodniki, without, however, becoming politically active. Books, schools and libraries for the poor and for the peasantry were her passion. She died shortly after I received her daughter's letter, and local labor organizations as well as representatives of the Soviets and of the Party stood at her coffin although she had never joined either a political party or a labor organization.

She had been a tall, slender woman with a handsome, imperious head, intelligent eyes and expressive features. Her personality commanded reverence – indeed, she inspired timidity in those who knew her less well than we. She spoke in brief, concise sentences, with a firm, clear voice. Usually there was a cigarette between her lips. She was always simply dressed in a style of her own that cared nothing about current fashions. Her hands, particularly, had always impressed me, they were so beautiful, so carefully groomed – the hands of a "lady." On her ring finger she always wore a heavy gold ring with a dark ruby.

"You may not know" – I turned from my thoughts to Olga Sergejewna's letter – "that my mother, too, in her younger days, lived through a tragic love affair, and that she came out of it – or rather – went into it – with a very definite moral code of her own in the question of sexual relationships. She condemned without mercy those who failed to live up to this code of hers; in her heart of hearts she despised them, though she was always a good-hearted, superior personality in the broadest sense of that word. In this question, however, she was intolerant to the point of pedantry.

"It has been the general assumption that we became strangers to one another because of political differences. This is not true. Our opinions of what is right and permissible in relations between men and women clashed when my drama first unfolded itself.

"My mother married an officer much against the will of her parents. As the happy wife of the commander of a regiment she gave birth to two sons, and was generally considered a model housewife.

"But presently the stagnant life that is found everywhere in military circles, a life of which the only outstanding characteristic is it extravagant style of living, became oppressive to one of her active temperament. You know what an inexhaustible fountain of energy my mother has always been. She had been educated far beyond the level usually achieved by girls of her class and time, had read most widely, had been abroad several times, and had carried on a lively correspondence with Tolstoy. You will understand that soon the commander of a small regiment in the provinces failed to fill her life. Fate threw the district physician, Sergei Iwanowitsch, into her path.

"Sergei Iwanowitsch, my father, might have been the materialization of a character out of one of Tchekhoff's books, with the confused idealism and restless striving into vague distances that characterized the Russian intellectual of that period. He had the Russian love for rich food and good living, and the Russian incompetence in the face of the trials and vicissitudes of practical life. He was a handsome, strongly built man; he liked the books that mother admired. He spoke with a great deal of sentimentality of the sufferings of the poor peasantry, yearned to go to the masses who were condemned to live in darkness, and dreamed platonic dreams of establishing libraries and schools and of conducting educational work on a large scale.

"The inevitable happened. One hot summer evening – the commander was absent on maneuvers – my mother found herself in my father's arms, the book on circulating libraries in New Zealand unread in the grass at their feet.

"It seems that my father was hardly prepared to see in this casual 'poetic dream' of a hot summer's evening an episode that was to change the even tenor of his highly satisfactory existence. He desired absolute freedom in his personal relations. Besides, he had a good-looking, robust young peasant widow for a housekeeper.

"Mother, as I have already told you, had very definite opinions in such matters, however. It did not occur to her to fight against this love of hers, nor to keep it a secret from the world and her husband, since she had always believed and maintained that the rights of love were superior to those of marriage. To her, love was holy. She would have considered it beneath her honor to trifle with it.

"In Sergei mother believed that she had found the personification of the ideal that her heart, mind and soul were seeking – the man she passionately loved, the human being she respected, the friend with whom she would work hand in hand for the education of her people.

"She knew only one way out of the situation – an immediate break with the commander. She would build up her own life according to her own wishes, disdainful of the talk and vicious gossip of her neighbors. On the following morning, therefore, mother sent for Sergei Iwanowitsch and took him out to the path under the linden trees to read to him the brief, determined letter she had written to her husband, informing him of what had happened with characteristic frankness, and asking for a divorce.

"Sergei Iwanowitsch was dumbfounded. He had not expected such precipitation. He stammered something about protecting mother's good name and reminded her of her sons. Mother was astonished but obdurate. And since she was enchantingly beautiful, and my father in the honeymoon of his infatuation, the conversation ended in new embraces that strengthened my mother in her resolution to straighten out this – to her – impossible situation at once.

"This was not as simple as it appeared. The poor commander, who loved her to distraction, came home in desperate indignation, and brusquely refused to consider a divorce. He overwhelmed his wife with useless recriminations, threatened to kill, now himself, now the doctor, only to plead with her, a moment

later, to return to his home, if only as housekeeper and mother. "Mother was deeply sorry for him, but her love for the man whose soul she believed attuned to hers was stronger than pity. Convinced at last that no amount of explanation would bring her husband to reason, she packed her belongings, her money and her books, kissed her boys, and departed without taking leave of the commander.

"The affair scandalized the government for a long time. The Liberals supported my mother and looked on her desertion of the commander for a district physician as a protest against the existing regime. The local paper printed a poem in her honor. At a local dinner someone proposed a toast to 'the heroic women who dare loosen the traditional fetters of marriage to throw their lot with that of the wage-slaves, to work for the people.'...

"As soon as she was established in the home of Sergei Iwanowitsch mother at once set about the realization of her old dream of establishing public libraries, enthusiastically supported by my father, the Tchechowian hero. At that time Russia was suffering a period of blackest reaction, but mother battled for her idea with her usual persistence, taking it from district magistrate to governor, traveling to Petersburg, using her personal influence wherever she could, stubbornly refusing to accept defeat.

"And then, just as their plan approached realization, my mother and her muddle-headed, terror-stricken husband were arrested and exiled to a far-distant region. There I was born.

"Even in exile mother continued her energetic activity. She called into being an organization for self-culture, laid the foundation for a system of libraries, taught, instructed...

"My father was unhappy, became stout, and deteriorated mentally as well as physically.

"Nevertheless, when he returned from his exile at last, the reputation as a staunch revolutionist had preceded him, and he took up his activity in the provinces. Mother applied herself to her work for popular education with renewed enthusiasm. It seemed that the life of my parents had assumed a fixed and permanent form at last ... until one day mother discovered her almost bald but still handsome husband in an unmistakably compromising situation with the milk-maid, Arischa.

"My father tried to defend himself. But the situation was more complicated than he assumed. Arischa became pregnant.

"Without further ado mother packed her belongings and left with me for the capital city of the province, leaving my father a letter in which she insisted on adequate provision for Arische's child and warned him against alcohol, which was taking an increasingly strong hold on his tastes. She carefully avoided complaints or recriminations. All this I learned, years later, from mother herself, when she told me the story of her own life in the hope of influencing my decision, to bring me back to what she considered the only honorable path.

"I remember that mother bore her fate with admirable strength. I never saw her shed a tear, although she never ceased loving Sergei Iwanowitsch, and remained faithful to him the rest of her life.

"In the capital my mother set to work to organize the publication of a series of books on popular science, a work that has given her lasting fame throughout the country.

"I lived with her. From my earliest youth I was familiar with the thought and activity of revolutionary circles; 'forbidden literature' was the reading matter of my early 'teens. I was at home with illegality and with those who lived illegally.

"We lived frugally, almost ascetically, in a home always permeated with an atmosphere of industry and hard work, among ideals and 'new beginnings.' At the age of sixteen I was arrested for the first time and my mother was inordinately proud of me.

"Such were my early surroundings. But even at this early age, my opinions began to diverge from those of my mother. I inclined strongly toward Marxism, she remained with the Narodniki. In my work among the revolutionists I had made the acquaintance of a prominent member of the fighting organization. He was considerably my senior and had a 'past.' Mother shook her head disapprovingly, considered me entirely too young to know my own mind, thought I might have waited, feared that I had inherited my father's lightness in love affairs, and finally acquiesced. We lived with mother and each of us continued his work. We did not marry, however, because we were fundamentally opposed to marriage as an institution.

"My husband was 'illegal,' and it was not long before we were placed under arrest. Influential friends managed to obtain mother's liberation. I went into exile with my husband.

"I fear this long introduction will bore you, but you will not understand what I am suffering without it. I want you to understand and not to forget this one fact – that I am the daughter and pupil of Marja Stepanowna! The ideas one absorbs in childhood cannot be driven out by mere logic.

"Be patient, therefore, I beg you, and continue to read this long letter. I am coming, now, 20 the tragedy of the second generation.

"I managed to escape from exile. My husband remained. I came to Petersburg where, in order to cover up my tracks, I was installed by friends as private instructress in the home of the wealthy engineer M., who had been in more or less close touch with the Marxist movement since his student days.

"In this luxurious home every member of the family lived according to his own desires and inclinations. On the whole, they were no more interested in political issues than in the current production at the Art Theater, or in the latest exhibition of Wrubel's pictures. Politics, to them, was an interesting subject for drawing-room discussion – nothing more.

"I had never come in contact with this atmosphere before. It was strange and inwardly repulsive to me. On the first evening of my stay there I was plunged into a heated argument with my employer. The tone I used, I discovered later, was far from conforming with the accepted standards of polite salon conversation. I believe we spoke of Bernstein. Anger and shame at my lack of self-control kept me awake the better part of the night. For some reason I particularly resented the flatteringly mocking look the Engineer M. turned upon me when I raged at him. There was something about this man that was strangely exciting. Superficial and uncongenial as his nature undoubtedly was, there was a fascination about him that drove me to seek his nearness again and again; I tried desperately to force him to admit the correctness of my point of view, to persuade him to adopt our principles.

"His wife, a fragile doll in laces and furs, the mother of five strong, healthy children, looked up to her husband in frank idolatry. Against all the rules of the game of marriage, she would often laughingly assure us, she was falling more and more deeply in love with her husband the longer she lived with him.

"This smugness, this – it seemed to me – pompously displayed family felicity, infuriated me. The husband's unwavering devotion to his attractive wife, his eternal solicitude for her health, irritated me to the verge of malice. I would purposely say humiliating, insulting things about the superficiality of liberalism. I scoffed at the sated happiness of the bourgeoisie and the triviality of its existence. More than once I reduced the charming, impressionable little Lydia Andrejevna to hysterical tears by a recital of episodes I had seen and experienced.

"'Why do you do that?' the engineer would ask me, reproachfully, but the look in his eyes was admiring.

"My hatred for them both tempted me strongly to commit indiscretions, if only to jolt them out of their placid acceptance of life by bringing down the police upon their unsuspecting heads.

"I wanted to leave them, but that was out of the question. Their home was not only a refuge for me, it offered a convenient meeting place in which I could keep in close touch with the work of my comrades. These protested indignantly at the suggestion that I seek some other hiding-place and demanded reasons.

"Why do you associate with them?' my friends wanted to know when I tried to explain. 'Stay away from them.' But that was out of the question. I seemed to be under the spell of a consuming hatred for the smug, handsome figure of my employer, with his rasping voice and his careless walk. I fell into agonies of nervousness when for several days I did not see him. The slightest inattention on his part caused me indescribable anguish.

"Yet we quarreled whenever we met, argued until we were hoarse, and descended to harsh, unkind remarks. To the outsider our ineradicable hatred for one another must have been apparent.

"But in the midst of these quarrels our eyes would meet in a language of their own, a language that neither of us dared to interpret or understand.

"On one occasion Party matters detained me in the suburbs longer than I had expected; when I returned late that night it was M. himself who opened the door for me.

"'Ah, so you have come back. I had already given up all hope.'

"And before I knew what had happened I lay in his arms under a torrent of wild kisses. "Strangely, I was not surprised at the turn our relations had taken. It was as if I had been expecting this to happen long ago....

"When the morning dawned I crept into my room while he remained in the study that often served him as a bedroom when work detained him downstairs later than usual.

"On the following evening, in the presence of others, we argued as vehemently as only implacable antagonists can argue for their deep-rooted convictions. After the guests had left M. invited me to drive with him to the 'Islands,' a popular Petersburg amusement resort. It was in the spring – the season of the white nights. His wife insisted in my going – the idea seemed to amuse her. It never occurred to her to look on me as a possible rival in his affections.

"So the knot of my life was tied.

"It was a time of greatest difficulty for the Party, and I was deeply engrossed in work and responsibilities. I lived blindly from day to day, putting off the final decision as to my future course again and again, exonerating myself in my own eyes by pleading lack of time. Mrs. M. was preparing to leave for the South with her children.

"Perhaps you will find it hard to believe that I thought of my husband with the deepest tenderness and longing during these feverish weeks, and that I was moving heaven and earth to effect his release?

"Had I been asked at that time whom I loved, I would have answered without a moment's hesitation: my husband, my friend. But had I been asked to leave M., I should have preferred to die. He was a stranger to me, and yet so inexpressibly close. I detested his glances, his habits, his mode of life, and yet I loved him with all his weaknesses and follies, in spite of the fact that he lacked every quality that I loved and venerated in man.

"Neither he nor I were happy in our love, yet neither of us could entertain the idea of separation without pain. I could not understand, I still do not understand, what it was that attracted him to me. At that time I had little charm, I did not know how to dress, I was not even interested in clothes. My behavior was harsh and unwomanly. Still, M. loved me, loved me as he had never loved his idolized wife.

"During that entire summer we remained in that deserted house together – a distressing summer, full of contradictions in our feelings for one another. Neither of us found happiness, nor did we attempt to hide our dissatisfaction. Can you understand when I tell you that this very unhappiness brought us nearer to each other than anything else in our peculiar relationship?

"In the early fall I became pregnant. ... An abortion? Neither he nor I could bear the thought.

"I went to my mother.."

Here Olga Sergejewn's letter came to an abrupt stop. It had evidently been written under extreme nervous tension, with frequent interruptions. On official paper she continued with hastily penciled lines:

"I told my mother everything. I tried to make her see the discord within me, the conflicts between us, tried to make her understand something of what I was suffering – that I loved my husband and that M., too, loved us both – his wife and me.

"My mother listened to me in silence and sat in her bedroom long afterwards, thoughtfully studying her cigarette.

"The next morning she came to my room, sat down on the edge of my bed and declared categorically:

"'It is quite plain that you love this M. You must write to Constantin at once.'

" 'But what shall I write?'

"'That you love another, of course. You must leave him no illusions on that score. Believe me, my daughter, pity is misplaced in a situation of this kind. It only means added anguish.'

" 'But I do not pity Constantin. I love him. I have never ceased loving him.'

" 'If that is so, how could you have fallen in love with another,' my mother demanded. 'You are talking utter nonsense.'

" ' It is not nonsense, mother.... That is the tragedy of it...'

"The more I tried to make my mother understand that it was possible for two such passions to exist side by side – deep tenderness, affection and a consciousness of absolute spiritual accord with Constantin on the one hand, and, on the other, the stormy desire for M., whom, as a human being, I neither loved nor respected – the less I succeeded.

"She could not grasp it.

"'If it is only physical desire that you feel for M., you should control yourself. Surely you love Constantin enough to leave this man if that is the case.'

"'Mother, you don't understand! It is more than desire. It is love, a different sort of love from that which I feel for Constantin.... If I knew that M. were in danger I would give my life to save him. If I were asked to give my life for Constantin, I could not do it. Still, I love Constantin. I need him. My soul needs him. Life is cold and empty without him. In that sense I neither love nor respect M.'

"'This is sheer madness,' my mother protested, irritably. But she was at a loss to proceed. She, too, had become confused and uncertain, demanding that I write to Constantin at once, that I leave him and go to the father of my child, only to insist, a few hours later, that I break off this unholy relationship with M.

"For the first time in my life mother and I did not understand each other. It had been a mistake to seek help from her. She insisted on a decision – I must go to one or the other of the men I loved. But I wanted them both – M. as well as Constantin. To me this seemed more human, more correct and more in harmony with the spiritual value of the situation as I saw it.

"In the end I wrote to Constantin and told him of what had happened. Not only the facts, of course, but of the conflicts that were raging in my heart and the doubts that were wracking my soul. At first I received only a brief reply – he would think it over and would try to adjust himself to the new situation. He would write soon. But the few lines were so full of warm affection that I told myself at once: Constantin is not like mother. He will understand.

"He did understand. Far out there in his banishment he shared my feelings and my tortuous doubts. He submitted to the inevitable and in his submission bound my soul that longed for him, that could not live without him, more firmly than before.

"My way was clear. Mother still insisted on a decision and was abjectly unhappy because I continued to receive letters from both M. and Constantin in her name. It was then that she told me of her own tragic experience, hoping, no doubt, that her own example would help me. She suffered keenly from what she called my lack of will-power.

"'It is not like you to show such weakness of character,' she remarked on one of these occasions. 'You are usually so firm that I am at a loss to understand you now. Is it your father's heritage of weakness, I wonder.. .?'

"She steadfastly refused to see that I had already made up my mind, that the fact that I had brought clearness into my relationship with the two men I loved and was determined to take human nature as I found it, was in itself a decision.

"'What of Mrs. M.?' she would ask.' Will you tell her? Do you expect her to understand your point of view?'

" 'No,' I admitted.'I regret to say that she would probably fail to understand. She must not be told. But there has never been that spiritual bond between her and her husband that unites me with Constantin. He loves her as one loves a fragile, enchanting toy. She will lose nothing through his love for me.'

"This made my mother thoroughly angry. She compared my ideas of marital relationship to the frivolous lightness of a Parisian boheme.

"That spring I gave birth to a daughter. M. was with us during the weeks of my confinement and these weeks with him in the home of my mother were the happiest weeks of my life.

"Between mother and M. there sprang up a friendly understanding at once. She became fonder of him than she had ever been of Constantin, and was consequently more than ever determined that I should leave the latter to go to the father of my child.

"Somehow, however, mother's insistence defeated its own purpose. It was as if mother and M. were standing in one camp while Constantin and I were arrayed against them in the other. Possibly it was the cultured woman in mother, the Narodniki, that was so irresistibly attracted to this representative of the liberal bourgeoisie. Spiritually she certainly was closer to him than I could ever hope to be, and this very alliance drove me precipitously to defend my side, the side of the revolutionary proletariat. Life without Constantin – I felt it with increased clearness at this time – would be unbearably lonely.

"Arrest and banishment decided my course for the time. I was torn from my mother's home; my daughter remained in her grandmother's care. I continued to correspond with both M. and Constantin, until at last I succeeded in meeting Constantin once more.

"To my mother's horror we lived together – lived together without dramatic scenes of reconciliation, without forgiveness – naturally, joyously as only two human beings perfectly attuned spiritually can live. My mother rushed to M.'s defense. I was ruining his life and my own, she insisted, because of some quixotic conception of marital duty, out of a mistaken sense of pity for a man whom I had ceased to love. M. wrote letter after letter, insisting that I return to him. The last of these epistles was in the nature of an ultimatum. After that he stopped writing altogether. I remained with Constantin.

"Spring came, and with it the spring-time of Liberalism and banquets under the patronizing eye of Swiatopolk-Mirski. We were permitted to return to Russia, and fate led me once more to Petersburg. A meeting with M. was inevitable. Shall I deny it? I wanted to meet him, and sought an opportunity to cross his path.

"We met and it seemed as if the three years of separation had never been. The same delirious joy, the same agony, the same strangeness, the same doubts, the same consuming flame of passionate love. I was aghast at the power with which this infatuation held us in its grip, particularly when M., in the reckless madness of a newly inflamed passion, determined to break with his wife to clear the way for a legal union between us. I still resisted, for he had never ceased to be, spiritually, an alien to me. The political struggle that had become the breath of life to me was entering upon a new phase, that each day deepened the abyss that separated the two Parties. Three years ago our heated discussions had not gone beyond theoretical dispute. Now they had become the very essence of Party activity – to me the very root of existence.

"M., on the other hand, had drifted so far away from the daily struggle of the masses that he was loathe to cast his lot with the 'Liberators.' When I spoke of the things that were nearest to my heart I spoke in a language he no longer understood. After each meeting I despised myself for my weakness and ate out my heart for him when I had not seen him for a few days ... M. frankly hated my activity. He despised the Bolsheviki and tried everything in his power to win me over to his point of view. I, on the other hand, despised the bourgeoisie and hated the bourgeois liberal in him, but I could not tear myself away from him. There was something maternal in my feeling for him. It always seemed to me that he was making himself appear worse than he actually was, that I must help him find himself, that I must not desert him at this critical period of political reorientation.

"So I suffered for months until Constantin's arrival put an end to my irresolution. This time my confession hurt him cruelly, and bitter jealousy threatened to batter down his carefully reared defenses. But we continued to live together – as friends. M., however, was implacable. He raged. He implored me to leave Constantin and refused to believe me when I assured him that our relations were purely friendly. It took all my influence to prevent an open rupture with his wife. ... There was not a day that did not bring new recriminations and new suffering. Then came that awful day when M., insane with jealousy, forced his entrance into our home and demanded that I leave the city with him at once, threatening to leave me forever if I did not consent. I refused, and we parted in bitter enmity. I suffered unspeakably, and Constantin saw how I suffered ~but was unable to help me. How could he, who was so frankly jubilant over the turn matters had taken, be expected to share my sorrow?

"For the first time in my life I was incapable of work. In my distraught state of mind serious application was out of the question.

"A tragic letter from M. brought my mother to the scene, accompanied by my little daughter. She insisted that I put an end to this wretched affair once and for all by coming to some definite decision.

"'I have decided, long ago,' I told her.

"'In that case,' she answered angrily, 'you have no right to live with Constantin. I believe you when you tell me that you are not living as man and wife. But if that is the case, why keep up appearances? Why should M. be made to suffer so?'

"'You won't understand that, mother. I must stay with Constantin.'

"In vain she protested. M.'s letters had informed her of what had transpired during the last ten months and I had also told her something of my sufferings.

"'Your love for M. has its rights,' she insisted. 'You rob it of its sanctity by your quibbling and analyzing. Why do you persist in torturing yourself? One must have the courage to overcome hindrances when love calls – even this hindrance of political convictions. You will make a Marxist of M. His love for you is so strong that he will do anything for you. You are by far stronger than he.'

"Mother's attempts at conversion usually produced the opposite effect. They made it clear to me that I could not possibly tie my life to that of M. For me such a union would have meant spiritual bankruptcy; M.'s convictions and mine were irreconcilable.

"To please mother I consented to meet him once more. She even tried to use the child to influence my decision. But the meeting resulted only in renewed bitterness and misunderstanding.

"Then came the year 1905, the historic year of the first Russian revolution. Events crowded each other with elemental force, tearing us along with them in their rushing torrent, forcing all personal problems and feelings into the background. Our own little insignificant misfortunes sank in the ocean of a nation's upheaval. The Revolution tossed us hither and thither. I traveled to the South, Constantin left the country, mother hastened back to her own province.

"We worked, we hoped, we trembled, we battled, we fought.

"Then came the period of reaction, and we had even less time than before to think of personal matters.

"The fall of 1908 had come before fate once more led my path across that of M., on this occasion in a little factory town. Reaction was flaunting its victory; the Revolution was choked in its own blood. I was again 'illegal.' After a brief flare of radicalism under the engulfing experience of the tremendous uplift of 1905, M. had abandoned his connection with the revolutionary movement completely and was embarked on a meteoric career in the world of finance and industry. He had become an important personage – so important that the government papers announced his coming and going. I knew that he was in the city and the mere awareness of his presence sufficed to throw me into a state of excitement that made work almost impossible. I avoided him nevertheless, dreading the suffering that would be the inevitable outcome of a new encounter. Then the police discovered my whereabouts, and only the timely warning of my comrades saved me from arrest.

"I fled for safety at once, not so much for myself as to protect the papers that had been entrusted to my care. At my wit's end, a possible refuge occurred to me: the home of M. I went to him. He came at once when the servant took in my name, and greeted me with every evidence of glad welcome. But when we were alone, and I told him of the purpose of my coming, he lost his head in terror. There was neither love nor friendship in the eyes that looked at me then. We stood face to face – two strangers. Perhaps he, too, was asking himself at that moment: is it possible that I once loved this woman? To me this seemed not M., but some distant relative who bore his features. There was merely a trace of the face I had loved – that was all.

"I regretted having come, but decided to persist in my original intention, to safeguard the papers I carried. Let this bourgeois rage at me! It would do him good to lose a bit of his fat.

"He tried politely to indicate that my presence would inconvenience him, but I pretended not to understand the cause of his embarrassment and appealed to him in the name of old friendship.

"There was no way out of it; he had to put me up for the night. I can only imagine how badly he must have slept that night. I myself rested famously.

"It hardly occurred to me that the man who was sleeping (or, what was more likely, trying to sleep) two doors away was the one whose footsteps, whose laughter, whose mere glance had sufficed to send my blood in riotous surges through my heart, whose presence I had once felt in the remotest corners of the house. In this night I knew: our love was dead. Only a vague feeling of emptiness – and my little daughter – remained. He had not even asked about her.

"We parted coolly. Neither spoke of meeting again. The past was buried and forgotten.

"But the sequel was stranger and more incomprehensible still. Soon afterwards I met Constantin, after a long absence during which he had been working in another part of the country. And toward him, too, I experienced the same feeling of awkward strangeness. I looked at him as if through different eyes. Had these years of stormy upheaval left an impress on each and every one of us that erased the old, familiar countenances? We looked at the events that had transpired from different points of view; we approached the problems of the present from new angles; we looked into the future from varying backgrounds of experience.

"Constantin had gone through a series of bitter disappointments. Grave differences with the party, fought out in some cases in a spirit of acrimonious personal animosity, had dampened his old enthusiasm. His faith in the future of the Revolution had broken down under the weight of the mistakes that had been made and the injustice that had been meted out to him. He saw only stagnation for years to come, and counseled prudence and circumspection. In his speech and in his moods I recognized a man weary of struggle. He was drifting, unconsciously as yet, but none the less surely, out of the movement into some quiet haven of refuge.

"I, on the other hand, was at the zenith of my powers. The Revolution, far from discouraging, had uplifted and inspired me. I was growing in strength and felt capable of doing the impossible in those difficult years. I met Constantin with the warmth of friendly affection that I had always felt for him. We would work together as we had always done. But it was impossible. We had drifted too far apart.

"Taking advantage of an opportunity to leave the country – illegally of course – I went abroad to take up the study of chemistry where I had left it to obey the call of the Revolution. By that time Constantin and I had drifted so far apart that I made no attempt to see him before I left. After that he lost all touch with the movement. During the war he taught in a boys' school as a reserve officer. He actively sabotaged the Soviets. Later, I heard, he met his death during a White Guard uprising.

"M., too, joined the counter-revolutionists, and managed to get out of the country only just in ti~ne to flee from the avenging hand of the proletariat. For me both of them had long ceased to exist, and their fate left me unmoved.

"'Is this her tragedy?' you ask, as you read this endlessly long biography? Old stories, these...old and forgotten.

"But you must know the woman I am and have been to judge me now. I preceded my story with this confession of my past that you may know that I am a woman like others, if I may state it thus baldly, and that I am well able to comprehend the complications that may arise in the human soul.

"But this that I am living through now, with my daughter ... with all the patience and the faith that I can muster, I cannot understand.

"I repeat, I sometimes console myself with the thought that I do not understand Genia, just as my mother, Marja Stepanowna, could not understand me. But more often it seems to me simply a disgusting lack of self-respect and discipline, and I shudder in horror. Help me to find my way....scold me, if I deserve a scolding, tell me if I am a reactionary, if it is true that this new life has created a new philosophy of love and existence.

"I can write no more to-day. Allow me to come to you. Now that you know the past it will be easier and less embarrassing to speak to you of this new difficulty that fate has thrust upon me, for which, I can find no solution. Please call No. 20751, Party 3, and tell me when I can see you alone. The evening is most convenient for me, as late as you care to arrange it. I am confidently expecting to hear from you.

"With fraternal greetings,

"Olga Wasselowskaya."

A few days later, at the hour we had decided upon when I telephoned to her, Olga Sergejewna came to see me. She seemed paler and thinner than when I had seen her last and her eyes were unsteady.

There was something infinitely attractive, in spite of her reserve and her quiet taciturnity, about this simply dressed, plainly coiffed woman – the charm of a finished personality. We briefly discussed current political problems as she visibly struggled for poise; I tried in vain to fit this woman, who occupied so important a position in the industrial organization of the country, into the picture her letter had presented.

"But, let us, please, come at once to the personal matter that brings me here to-day," Olga Sergejewna interrupted me with that clear impersonal note in her voice that reminded one so strongly of Marja Stepanowna. "I want to speak to you concerning my daughter. I want you to tell me what you think of her. Perhaps I really do not understand. Perhaps this is another of the inevitable tragedies between parent and child, perhaps something else – perversity, the product of abnormal conditions under which Genia was born and raised. The child was pushed from pillar to post during all of her early childhood years. First her grandmother, then I, and later friends took care of her. During the first years of the Revolution she lived in the factory, went to the front, nursed the wounded, and, of course, heard and saw many things that girls of her age in my time knew nothing about. Perhaps it is better so ... one should know life as it is. On the other hand...

"These last weeks have robbed me of my self-assurance, so that I no longer know what is right and what is wrong. I used to rejoice in the fact that Genia was growing up unhampered by prejudices, that she looked at life with open eyes, that she was able to cope with any situation she might be called upon to meet, that she was not stricken with that spinelessness that so often infests the intellectuals of our country. There is no deceit in her, she is of a'naive truthfulness. But now....

"Let me tell you....

"You know that I met Comrade Rjabkow in Davos and nursed him back to health. Since then we have been living as man and wife although I am considerably older than he. In a way, he is my pupil. But during the seven years of our life together there has been only harmony and friendliness between us. We returned together in 1917, and together we threw ourselves, with everything we had to give, into the fight for the Soviets.

"You know Comrade Rjabkow. An uncompromising proletarian – he could not be otherwise. I need not speak of the services he has rendered. There can be only one opinion.

"He suffers from tuberculosis and I have lavished upon him all the care I could give. It has always seemed to me that there was not the tiniest cloud to dim our friendship. Everything was so bright, so peaceful, so clear...

"When we settled in Moscow last year I took Genia to live with me. She was only twenty years old, but had been actively engaged in party work for some time, firm and untiring, as passionately devoted to her work as her grandmother was. In her district she is regarded, in spite of her youth, as a valuable asset to the movement.

"You know what living conditions are in Moscow – one room for three of us. It is inconvenient, of course, but just now one must put up with these discomforts as best one can. After all, we are seldom at home. I am often away for weeks at a time on extended inspection tours through our factories.

"At first I was somewhat uncertain as to the effect our long separation might have had on our relations to each other. We became close friends almost at once. Yes, friends, for there is nothing maternal in my feelings toward her. In her I found my youth again, in her fervor and in her laughter. Her very self-confidence was wholesome and infectious.

"To my great delight Comrade Rjabkow and she were on good terms immediately. I had feared that they might not like one another. He went with her to the theater, to meetings and to Congress openings. Our life together was easy, friendly. Andrei's health, too, was improving; his disease was making itself less noticeably felt.

"That is how we lived, until this happened....

Olga Sergejewna hesitated, as if it were difficult for her to continue. She looked past my shoulder out of the window and was silent.

"I can guess what happened, Olga Sergejewna. It was inevitable. Genia and Comrade Rjabkow lost their heads. But what is there in that which is so unbearable and so degrading? I should think that you would understand."

"But it is not that. Of course I should understand that," Olga Sergejewna interrupted me. "It is what I saw afterwards in their souls, in his and in Genia's.. ."

"What was this you saw?"

"This heartlessness, this self-assurance, this conviction of their right to act as they did ... this this cynicism...do you understand? There was no love, no passion. When I remembered how I suffered, how I struggled to rid myself of the entanglement in which my unfortunate love had enmeshed me! To them it was all a matter of course. If I cannot understand, it is because I am a reactionary. To me it seems that the whole world has fallen into ways of debauch and unrestraint, and incomprehensible licentiousness. Then, again, there are limes when I hesitate. Perhaps, after all perhaps I am reactionary. I recall that my mother could not understand me when I lived through my tragic love. I need your guidance. Help me to find my way."

Olga Sergejewna told me that her daughter had come to her office to beg her mother for ten minutes of her time.

"'Mother, I must speak to you at once. This is the only place I can get hold of you alone.' "

And then, very calmly, without mincing words, she told her mother that she was pregnant. Olga Sergejewna was horrified.

"'But who?' she demanded.

(" 'I don't know,' " the daughter had answered. Believing that her daughter hesitated to tell her the name of the man involved, the mother questioned no further, but there was something in the answer, the nonchalance with which it was given, that struck her to the heart.

Genia had come to her mother for advice. She intended to undergo an abortion...the law legalizing the interruption of pregnancies had just been passed. "With whom would she have to make the necessary arrangements? Would her mother give her letters of introduction? She did not want a child."

"'I have no time for a child now.' "

Olga Sergejewna did not mention Genia's predicament to her husband. She considered that her daughter's personal affair. If she herself chose to tell him ... but a vague discomfort oppressed her. There was a subconscious unrest that robbed her of her peace of mind. Doubts began to take form, little episodes out of their life together presented themselves from a point of view she had never visualized before.

She heartily despised herself for her suspicions and tried to put them out of her mind. But they persisted and disturbed her work. She must know – she must know, if only to assure herself of their groundlessness. Pretending illness, she left a meeting one evening when she knew that her daughter and her husband were alone at home together, and hastened home to find her daughter in his arms.

"You understand, I am sure. It was not the fact that they were together, but what followed that outraged me so. Andrei took his cap and left the house without a word. Genia waited for me to speak.

"'Why did you not tell me that Andrei was the cause of your pregnancy?'

"Genia answered quietly: 'I can only repeat what I told you then – that I did not know. It may have been Andrei, it may have been another comrade. You do not know him.'

"Can you understand that I was dumbfounded? Genia told me then that she had had sexual relations years ago, while she was at the front. That was a blow for me. I had regarded her as a child. But I could understand. But when Genia told me that she had loved none of these men! That she had never loved!

"'But then, why, Genia?' I asked her.'Is the physical desire so strong in you that you cannot resist. You are so young. Surely that is not normal.'

"'How can I make you understand, mother? I have never had what you call physical desire, or, at least, not until I met the other man with whom I have been these last months. But that is over. I did like him, though, and I felt that he was very fond of me. So it was all simple enough. It put neither of us under any obligations. I can't understand, mother, why you should let all this excite you so. If I had sold myself, or if someone had taken me against my will.... But I was ready to give myself. We were together as long as we cared for one another. When our friendship ceased to gratify us, we parted. Neither of us lost anything. Of course, this pregnancy is unfortunate – I shall have to stop work for two or three weeks. But that was my own fault. I shall have to be more prudent in the future.' "

She had taken two men at the same time, although she loved neither of them. The affair with Andrei had come about quite accidentally. As a matter of fact, the other man had attracted her much more strongly than Andrei, but he was often irritating. He insisted on treating her as if she were a child, and refused to take her seriously, so that she often came home angry and unhappy. Andrei, on these occasions, had been so kind and sympathetic. He belonged to her, he was her comrade. With Andrei one was always cheerful and happy.

"'And each of the two knew about the other?'

"'Of course. Why should I make a secret of it? Andrei doesn't mind in the least. The other, I'11 admit, was furious, and presented me with an ultimatum. But he soon got over that attitude. I left him, finally, because he was becoming such a bore. He is brutal, and I despise brutality.'

" Olga Sergejewna tried to make her understand the dangers of so superficial an attitude toward life and love and marriage. But Genia refused to see her point of view.

"'Mother, you say that my actions have been vulgar, that one should not give one's self without love. You tell me that my cynicism makes you desperately unhappy. But tell me frankly, mother. If I were your twenty-year-old son who had been at the front, who was living independently, would you be equally indignant if you should hear that he had had relations with women whom he liked? I am not speaking, mind you, of prostitutes and paid love, and of course, not of girls one deceives and betrays. That is dastardly. But women who liked him, and of whom he, too, was fond? Would you be so indignant? Why are you so unhappy, then, over my "immorality?" I assure you I am as human as he would be. I am fully conscious of my duties. I know my responsibility toward the Party. But what have these things, the Party, the Revolution, the White Guard and the collapse of things that you have been speaking of, to do with the fact -that I gave myself to Andrei? You see, mother, to have a child at this time when every one of us is so sorely needed, that would be wrong. I understand that, and I would not become a mother now under any circumstances. But the other. .. ."

"But did you never think of me?" Olga Sergejewna had asked her. "You never thought of what I might think of your relations with Andrei?"

"'But why should that make any difference? You wanted us to be friends. You were happy when you saw that I liked him and he liked me. Where is the border-line of friendship? Why should we be allowed to live together, to have good times together, and not to kiss one another? We have taken nothing that belongs to you. Andrei worships you as he always worshiped you. I have not taken a single spark of the feeling he has for you. That I kissed him .. .? Have you time for him,? Mother, surely you do not want to chain Andrei so firmly to yourself that he may not enjoy life while you are away! That is not love. That is a selfish desire for possession. Grandmother's bourgeois training speaks in you there. That is unjust. You lived as you pleased when you were younger. Why not Andrei?' "

Olga Sergejewna was pained and indignant because neither her daughter nor Andrei showed a spark of regret over what had happened. They regarded it all as perfectly commonplace and matter of course – she had the feeling that Genia and Andrei considered themselves extremely forbearing and tolerant as they tried to enlighten her with a few superficial phrases. They evidently regretted what had happened, if regret it they did, only because it displeased Olga Sergejewna, of whom they were both exceedingly fond; in their heart of hearts there was not the slightest consciousness of wrongdoing. They assured her again and again, separately and together, that nothing had changed their love for her, that neither of them would dream of intentionally hurting her. If this was the way she felt about it, they assured her, they would, of course, abstain from all further relations. In this crisis Olga Sergejewna decided to come to me, to ask for advice and assistance.

We discussed the matter long and earnestly. How was one to take this new generation? Was this unrestrained licentiousness that knew no law but its own desires, or honest conviction born out of a new life, the product of the problems that a new, growing state represented? New morals....

"What grieves me most of all," said Olga Sergejewna, supporting her head on the graceful hand that reminded me so much of Marja Stepanowna, "is that it is all so passionless and unfeeling. This cold, calculating weighing of right and wrong, as if they were old men and women ... this complete lack of sentiment. If Genia loved Andrei, or if he loved her, I would have understood. I would have suffered cruelly, for I love Andrei with all my heart, but without this nausea and agony. How can I tell you what I feel, the resentment I bear against both of them for betraying me when I trusted them so absolutely? How could they who profess to love me with all their hearts, have had so little consideration for what they must have known I would suffer? Don't misunderstand me. I feel that persons capable of disregarding every human consideration as they have done are, in the very nature of things, incapable of love. Both assure me that they love me, but is that love which wounds the deepest and holiest feelings of the object of its tenderness so lightly, so without pity and without regret? I can see nothing but unfeeling dullness and hardness of heart. ... I cannot understand them....

"When I reproached Genia, she answered, 'But mother, you kept your relations with my father from his wife. Was not that, too, a living lie?'

"But there is a great difference that Genia either cannot or will not understand. I never loved M.'s wife. She was a stranger to me. I had nothing in common with her, and I spared her feelings because it was the humane thing to do. And then I loved M. How I loved him! Not less than his wife – ah, no, much, much more. These feelings gave me the right to take him, the strength of my love and the greatness of my suffering were my justification. But here there is nothing – neither love, nor suffering, neither joy nor regret ... nothing but the cold conviction of their right to pluck pleasure, pow here, now there, like flowers in the garden of life, wherever and whenever one finds them. That is what terrifies me. Without warmth, without even the most elementary feeling for one another, without the goodness of heart that places the feelings of those one loves above everything else ... is that Communism?"

Involuntarily I laughed at her illogical conclusion, and Olga Sergejewna admitted, a little shamefacedly, that her conclusions were, here at least, hardly justified by the situation under discussion.

We parted after having decided that I should speak to Genia herself on the following day.

Genia came to me the next morning, the only part of the day, she explained, that belonged to her. The afternoon and evening were taken up by her work in the district.

She was tall and slender with an intense little face and a way of carrying her head that recalled her grandmother's self-assured posture. A little pale, with dark rings under her eyes. Her hands cold and moist. Evidently she had not yet entirely recovered from the effects of her operation.

Her manner was pleasing, simple and comradely.

"I suppose you disapprove, like mother, because I give myself without falling in love. But one must have time to fall in love. I have read novels and I know how love takes possession of one's faculties to the exclusion of everything else. But I have no time. Our activity in the district has taken hold of us all so completely that none of us has had time to think of anything else, of personal matters. We run from one task to another. There are times when there is a little less to do ... time enough to notice that this one or that is a little more attractive t~an the rest. But before it can become more than a passing fancy, we are off again, to new work. We never get beyond the first stages of comradely affection. This one is called to the front, that one is sent away. New excitement, new impressions, and we forget. So we simply take advantage of the few short hours of release that are granted us there is nothing binding, no responsibility....Of course, there is always the danger of contracting disease. But no man will lie to you about that – no comrade, that is – if you look straight into his eyes and ask for the truth. I have had two such experiences. One was very fond of me – sometimes I think he really loved me. I could see that it was hard for him to confess. But we never came together. He knew that I would never have forgiven that."

Genia's attractive, wide-open eyes fairly radiated honesty and frankness.

"But, tell me, Comrade Genia," I interrupted her, "why didn't you tell your mother at once. Why did you enter into clandestine relations with Andrei behind her back, and continue them for months until she accidentally discovered the truth?" "Simply because I felt that they did not concern her.... If Andrei and I had loved one another I would have told mother about it at once, of course, or, what is more likely, I would simply have disappeared out of her life. I did not want her to be unhappy. But there was nothing in our relations with one another that changed Andrei's feelings for her in the least. What she refuses to see is this that if it had not been I, it would have been another. Does she believe that she can chain Andrei so firmly to herself that he will see no other human being, that he will enter upon no other human relationship? I, for one, cannot understand that sort of love. That I am on friendly terms with Andrei, that he confides in me more than he does in her, that he is inwardly closer, nearer to me than he is to her – all that does not disturb mother in the least. But that he has kissed me means that I have taken him from her. Yet mother herself has no time for him. Believe me, she has no time. In age, too, Andrei is much closer to my generation than he is to hers. Our tastes are alike. It is so natural that we two should come together."

"Perhaps you are not clear as to your feelings for him," I suggested. "Are you sure that you do not love Andrei?"

Genia shook her head vigorously.

"I have never felt what you call love, but I am sure that what I feel for Andrei is not love. Those who love want to he together, they burn to fulfill each other's slightest wish, they think of each other, they worry about each other's well-being. ... If Andrei were to propose that I should live with him forever, I would decline with thanks. I enjoy his company, and I feel happy and cheerful when I am with him. He is a splendid comrade, and I feel sorry for him – he is so delicate, so fine and ethereal, as mother always says. But he becomes uninteresting ... on the whole I prefer Abrascha. But love? No, I don't love him, either, although for a time he had a certain power over me. There was a time when I simply had to do as he asked, because I couldn't bear to see him unhappy. He was irresistible."

Genia drew up her eyebrows and became thoughtful.

"Mother is angry when I say that I feel no love for either of them. She says it is immoral for one of my age to give herself without love. But I believe she is wrong. I mean, it is simpler and better so. I remember my childhood very well, those years when mother vascillated between Constantin and my father, how desperate she was, how she tortured herself and the others as well. How they all suffered! Constantin! Grandmother! I can still hear grandmother's voice demanding that mother come to some decision.'Don't be cowardly,' she used to say.'Choose and make up your mind!' But mother could not decide because she loved them both, and they both loved her. And so they loved and tortured one another until they parted as enemies. I will not part from my friends in enmity. It is all over and I no longer care, and that is all there is to it. When a friend begins to show signs of jealousy I always remember the misery that mother went through, Constantin's jealousy and father's... and then I tell myself...'You won't go through anything like that. They will have to understand at the outset that I belong to no one but myself.' "

"And you have really never loved anyone? I can't believe that. You describe love so well. One doesn't get understanding like this from books alone."

"What makes you think that I have never loved anyone?" Genia asked in honest astonishment. "I merely said that I never loved any of the men with whom I have been intimate."

"Whom do you love, then? Is it impertinent to ask?"

"Whom? Well, above all, and more than anyone else in the world – my mother. There is no one like her. In a sense, she is more to me than Lenin. There is something about her ... I don't believe I could live without her. Her happiness means more to me than anything else in the world."

"Yet you sacrificed her happiness and hurt her unspeakably. How do you reconcile that with what you have just said?"

"You see," Genia answered thoughtfully, "if I had thought, if I had known that mother would take it like this, that it would pain her so, I believe, in fact I am sure, that I would not have done it. But I always regarded mother as far above such things. Now I see that I was mistaken, and I am more sorry than I can tell you, more unhappy than she will ever understand."

There were tears in Genia's eyes, the first since our interview began. She wiped them from her eyes with her finger-tips, stealthily, so I might not see.

"I would give my life for my mother. That is no mere phrase. Mother could tell you about the time when we thought she was stricken with typhus.... Do you know what hurt me more than anything else? I am so sorry to have hurt her, and so angry at myself for not having realized how she would feel about it. I would give – I don't know what – if I could undo what I have done, but in my heart of hearts I can't help but feel that there was nothing wrong in what happened between Andrei and myself. One must look at it from a different point of view, and if mother would only try to see it as I do, without prejudice, she would understand, I am sure. I love mother as much as ever, but I can't help feeling that she is wrong, and that is what hurts most of all. I always looked upon her as infallible, and now that faith in her wisdom has been shaken. How can I believe, after this, that mother stands above us all, that she knows everything and understands everything? Do you know how that hurts? I must not stop loving my mother. I mustn't lose my faith in her, or how shall I keep my faith in others? You can't conceive how this thought upsets me.., not the regret that mother insists I must feel, but the doubts and questions that all this has brought to my mind. .. ."

Great tears were flowing down Genia's cheeks now, unashamed, and were leaving wet traces on her worn black waist. Then she grew calmer and we discussed the situation in all its phases. What, above all, was to be done?

Genia was determined to leave her mother's quarters for a "home" in which most of her colleagues had taken quarters. She would move there in a few days. But how were her mother and Andrei to get along without her? They were so used to having her attend to their wants.

"Mother will never get enough to eat," she lamented. "Unless there is someone to look after her, to place her meals before her, she will go about all day without eating. And Andrei is no better. Honestly, I don't know how they are to get along without me. They are like children, both of them. Of course, I will go there every day and do what I can for them. But at best that will be a makeshift arrangement, for I am busy. It is all so much more simple when we live together."

She sighed. Her voice had a maternal sound. Her mother and Andrei were children, younger sisters and brothers who needed her protection.

"I am so glad," I assured her when she rose to leave," that I can comfort your mother, that I shall be able to tell her how much you love her. She felt so deeply that you were incapable of real affection, of the deeper, stronger and healthier feelings that move men and women to true greatness, that you were all principles and convictions."

Genia smiled.

"You may reassure mother on that score.... I am sure the time will come when I, too, will do foolish things because I love someone too deeply to be reasonable. I am her daughter, after all, and grandmother's grandchild. And there are those I love – oh, how I love them. ... Not only mother... Lenin, for instance. Please, don't smile. I love him more deeply than any one of those whom I have liked for a passing moment. When I know that I am to see him, that I am to hear his voice, I am absolutely beside myself for days. I could die for him. Then there is Comrade Gerassim, the secretary of our district. Do you know him? What a man! I love him ... honestly. I would submit to his will even if I knew he was wrong, because I know that his intentions are so fine and so good.... A year ago ... perhaps you remember that infamous intrigue they launched against him?... I couldn't sleep at night. Oh, but we fought for him. We set the entire district in motion. Yes, I love him," Genia finished with conviction, as if she had, tested her own capacity for feeling to her own satisfaction.

"But I must run. There is so much to do. I have been made secretary of our nucleus," she said with visible pride. "That means more work than ever. Oh, life could be so beautiful, if only mother would try to understand."

Another deep, childish sigh.

"You will convince mother, won't you, that Andrei belongs to her as much as ever. He belongs entirely to her. I don't need him. ... Not in the least. Do you think she will understand? Will she go on loving me? I am so afraid. ... I can't live without mother and her love. When I think of how her wonderful energy and her glorious work have suffered from the excitement she has undergone, because of her love ... no, I will never love as mother loved.... How can one work, if one loses one's self like that?"

With this question Genia disappeared behind the door. I remained standing where I had taken leave of her, trying to find an answer to the question she and her mother had put before me. Who is right? Will the future show that the new class, the new youth with its new experiences and its new conceptions and feelings, is on the road to true happiness?

Outside the door I heard Genia's young laugh, and her happy voice. "This evening, Comrades. I can't stay, now. I am late already. There is so much, so much to do."

Source: A Great Love, The Vanguard Press, New York, 1929.
Translated: Lily Lore
First Published: 1923
Online Version: marxists.org 2001
Transcription/Markup: Sally Ryan

Chronology :

March 04, 2021 : A Great Love -- Added.

January 09, 2022 : A Great Love -- Updated.

HTML file generated from :

http://revoltlib.com/