knew the man was capable of… beating me. I began to tremble; yes; oh, shame! oh ignominy! I shivered.
‘Now, then, madam,’ said Mr. Ratsch, ‘kindly come along.’
He took me, without haste, by the arm above the elbow…. He saw that I should not resist. Of my own accord I pushed forward towards the door; at that instant I had but one thought in my mind, to escape as quickly as possible from the presence of Semyon Matveitch.
But the loathsome old man darted up to us from behind, and Ratsch stopped me and turned me round face to face with his patron.
‘Ah!’ the latter shouted, shaking his fist; ‘ah! So I’m the brother… of my brother, am I? Ties of blood! eh? But a cousin, a first cousin you could marry? You could? eh? Take her, you!’ he turned to my stepfather. ‘And remember, keep a sharp look-out! The slightest communication with her—and no punishment will be too severe…. Take her!’
Mr. Ratsch conducted me to my room. Crossing the courtyard, he said nothing, but kept laughing noiselessly to himself. He closed the shutters and the doors, and then, as he was finally returning, he bowed low to me as he had to Semyon Matveitch, and went off into a ponderous, triumphant guffaw!
‘Good-night to your highness,’ he gasped out, choking: ‘she didn’t catch her fairy prince! What a pity! It wasn’t a bad idea in its way! It’s a lesson for the future: not to keep up correspondence! Ho-ho-ho! How capitally it has all turned out though!’ He went out, and all of a sudden poked his head in at the door. ‘Well? I didn’t forget you, did I? Hey? I kept my promise, didn’t I? Ho-ho!’ The key creaked in the lock. I breathed freely. I had been afraid he would tie my hands… but they were my own, they were free! I instantly wrenched the silken cord off my dressing-gown, made a noose, and was putting it on my neck, but I flung the cord aside again at once. ‘I won’t please you!’ I said aloud. ‘What madness, really! Can I dispose of my life without Michel’s leave, my life, which I have surrendered into his keeping? No, cruel wretches! No! You have not won your game yet! He will save me, he will tear me out of this hell, he… my Michel!’
But then I remembered that he was shut up just as I was, and I flung myself, face downwards, on my bed, and sobbed… and sobbed…. And only the thought that my tormentor was perhaps at the door, listening and triumphing, only that thought forced me to swallow my tears….
I am worn out. I have been writing since morning, and now it is evening; if once I tear myself from this sheet of paper, I shall not be capable of taking up the pen again…. I must hasten, hasten to the finish! And besides, to dwell on the hideous things that followed that dreadful day is beyond my strength!
Twenty-four hours later I was taken in a closed cart to an isolated hut, surrounded by peasants, who were to watch me, and kept shut up for six whole weeks! I was not for one instant alone…. Later on I learnt that my stepfather had set spies to watch both Michel and me ever since his arrival, that he had bribed the servant, who had given me Michel’s note. I ascertained too that an awful, heart-rending scene had taken place the next morning between the son and the father…. The father had cursed him. Michel for his part had sworn he would never set foot in his father’s house again, and had set off to Petersburg. But the blow aimed at me by my stepfather rebounded upon himself. Semyon Matveitch announced that he could not have him remaining there, and managing the estate any longer. Awkward service, it seems, is an unpardonable offence, and some one must be fixed upon to bear the brunt of the scandal. Semyon Matveitch recompensed Mr. Ratsch liberally, however: he gave him the necessary means to move to Moscow and to establish himself there. Before the departure for Moscow, I was brought back to the lodge, but kept as before under the strictest guard. The loss of the ‘snug little berth,’ of which he was being deprived ‘thanks to me,’ increased my stepfather’s vindictive rage against me more than ever.
‘Why did you make such a fuss?’ he would say, almost snorting with indignation; ‘upon my word! The old chap, of course, got a little too hot, was a little too much in a hurry, and so he made a mess of it; now, of course, his vanity’s hurt, there’s no setting the mischief right again now! If you’d only waited a day or two, it’d all have been right as a trivet; you wouldn’t have been kept on dry bread, and I should have stayed what I was! Ah, well, women’s hair is long… but their wit is short! Never mind; I’ll be even with you yet, and that pretty young gentleman shall smart for it too!’
I had, of course, to bear all these insults in silence. Semyon Matveitch I did not once see again. The separation from his son had been a shock to him too. Whether he felt remorse or—which is far more likely—wished to bind me for ever to my home, to my family—my family!—anyway, he assigned me a pension, which was to be paid into my stepfather’s hands, and to be given to me till I married…. This humiliating alms, this pension I still receive… that is to say, Mr. Ratsch receives it for me….
We settled in Moscow. I swear by the memory of my poor mother, I would not have remained two days, not two hours, with my stepfather, after once reaching the town… I would have gone away, not knowing where… to the police; I would have flung myself at the feet of the governor-general, of the senators; I don’t know what I would have done, if it had not happened, at the very moment of our starting from the country, that the girl who had been our maid managed to give me a letter from Michel! Oh, that letter! How many times I read over each line, how many times I covered it with kisses! Michel besought me not to lose heart, to go on hoping, to believe in his unchanging love; he swore that he would never belong to any one but me; he called me his wife, he promised to overcome all hindrances, he drew a picture of our future, he asked of me only one thing, to be patient, to wait a little….
And I resolved to wait and be patient. Alas! what would I not have agreed to, what would I not have borne, simply to do his will! That letter became my holy thing, my guiding star, my anchor. Sometimes when my stepfather would begin abusing and insulting me, I would softly lay my hand on my bosom (I wore Michel’s letter sewed into an amulet) and only smile. And the more violent and abusive was Mr. Ratsch, the easier, lighter, and sweeter was the heart within me…. I used to see, at last, by his eyes, that he began to wonder whether I was going out of my mind…. Following on this first letter came a second, still more full of hope…. It spoke of our meeting soon.
Alas! instead of that meeting there came a morning… I can see Mr. Ratsch coming in—and triumph again, malignant triumph, in his face—and in his hands a page of the Invalid, and there the announcement of the death of the Captain of the Guards—Mihail Koltovsky.
What can I add? I remained alive, and went on living in Mr. Ratsch’s house. He hated me as before—more than before—he had unmasked his black soul too much before me, he could not pardon me that. But that was of no consequence to me. I became, as it were, without feeling; my own fate no longer interested me. To think of him, to think of him! I had no interest, no joy, but that. My poor Michel died with my name on his lips…. I was told so by a servant, devoted to him, who had been with him when he came into the country. The same year my stepfather married Eleonora Karpovna. Semyon Matveitch died shortly after. In his will he secured to me and increased the pension he had allowed me…. In the event of my death, it was to pass to Mr. Ratsch….
Two—three—years passed… six years, seven years…. Life has been passing, ebbing away… while I merely watched how it was ebbing. As in childhood, on some river’s edge one makes a little pond and dams it up, and tries in all sorts of ways to keep the water from soaking through, from breaking in. But at last the water breaks in, and then you abandon all your vain efforts, and you are glad instead to watch all that you had guarded ebbing away to the last drop….
So I lived, so I existed, till at last a new, unhoped-for ray of warmth and light….’
The manuscript broke off at this word; the following leaves had been torn off, and several lines completing the sentence had been crossed through and blotted out.
XVIII
The reading of this manuscript so upset me, the impression made by Susanna’s visit was so great, that I could not sleep all night, and early in the morning I sent an express messenger to Fustov with a letter,
