Meanwhile, screams were heard in the garden; a crowd
of people were running to the summerhouse. Suddenly
Rogatchov heard the heart-rending wail of old age...he
recognised the voice of his father. Afanasey
Lukitch, bare-headed, with dishevelled hair, was running
in front of them all, frantically waving his hands....
With a violent and unexpected turn of the blade Vassily
sent the sword flying out of Pavel Afanasievitch’s
hand.
‘Marry her, my boy,’ he said to him:
‘give over this foolery!’
‘I won’t marry her,’ whispered Rogatchov,
and he shut his eyes, and shook all over.
Afanasey Lukitch began banging at the door of the
summerhouse.
‘You won’t?’ shouted Vassily.
Rogatchov shook his head.
‘Well, damn you, then!’
Poor Pavel Afanasievitch fell dead: Lutchinov’s
sword stabbed him to the heart... The door gave
way; old Rogatchov burst into the summerhouse, but
Vassily had already jumped out of window...
Two hours later he went into Olga Ivanovna’s
room... She rushed in terror to meet him...
He bowed to her in silence; took out his sword and
pierced Pavel Afanasievitch’s portrait in the
place of the heart. Olga shrieked and fell unconscious
on the floor... Vassily went in to Anna Pavlovna.
He found her in the oratory. ‘Mother,’
said he, ’we are avenged.’ The poor
old woman shuddered and went on praying.
Within a week Vassily had returned to Petersburg,
and two years later he came back stricken with paralysis—tongue-tied.
He found neither Anna Pavlovna nor Olga living, and
soon after died himself in the arms of Yuditch, who
fed him like a child, and was the only one who could
understand his incoherent stuttering.
1846.
A FRAGMENT FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A DEAD ARTIST
‘Enough,’ I said to myself as I moved
with lagging steps over the steep mountainside down
to the quiet little brook. ‘Enough,’
I said again, as I drank in the resinous fragrance
of the pinewood, strong and pungent in the freshness
of falling evening. ‘Enough,’ I said
once more, as I sat on the mossy mound above the little
brook and gazed into its dark, lingering waters, over
which the sturdy reeds thrust up their pale green
blades.... ‘Enough.’
No more struggle, no more strain, time to draw in,
time to keep firm hold of the head and to bid the
heart be silent. No more to brood over the voluptuous
sweetness of vague, seductive ecstasy, no more to run
after each fresh form of beauty, no more to hang over
every tremour of her delicate, strong wings.
