Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [124]
“Of course. We are higher beings, and if we really realized the full power of human genius and lived only for higher things, then we would ultimately become like gods. But it will never happen. Mankind will degenerate and no traces of that genius will ever be found.”
When we could no longer see the gates, Zhenia paused and hurriedly pressed my hand.
“Good night,” she said, trembling. She had nothing but the thin blouse over her shoulders, and she was shivering with cold. “Come tomorrow.”
I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone in a mood of irritation and annoyance with myself and others, and I too tried not to look at the falling stars.
“Please stay with me a little longer,” I said. “Please.”
I was in love with Zhenia. I must have loved her because she met me when I came and always walked with me a little way when I went home, and because she looked at me with tender, admiring glances. Her pale face, her slender neck, her thin hands, her delicacy and her laziness and her books—all these held a wistful appeal for me. And her intelligence? I surmised she had a remarkable intelligence and I was fascinated with the breadth of her views, perhaps because she thought differently from the austere and beautiful Leda, who had no love for me. Zhenia liked me because I was a painter. I had conquered her heart with my talent, and I longed passionately to paint only for her, and I dreamed of her as my little queen who would one day inherit with me all these trees, fields, mists, and dawns, all those miraculous and enchanting scenes from nature where until now I had felt so hopelessly lonely and unwanted.
“Please stay a little longer,” I begged her. “Only a little longer.”
I took off my overcoat and covered her shivering shoulders; and becase she was afraid of looking funny and ugly in a man’s coat she laughed and threw it off, and then I put my arms round her and began to cover her face, her shoulders, her hands, with kisses.
“Until tomorrow,” she whispered, and gently, as though afraid of breaking the silence of the night, she embraced me. “We have no secrets from each other now. Quickly I must tell everything to Mama and my sister.… I’m so afraid! I’m not afraid of Mama, for she loves you, but my sister …”
Then she ran toward the gates.
“Good-by!” she called back.
Then for some moments I heard her running. I had no desire to return home, and there was nothing to return home for. For a while I stood there lost in thought, and then I turned slowly back to look once more at the house she lived in, that house which was so old and innocent and dear to me; and the windows of the mezzanine looked down on me like eyes, seeming to understand everything. I walked past the terrace and sat on a bench by the lawn-tennis court, in the darkness of an ancient elm, and once again I gazed up at the house. I could see the windows of the mezzanine, where Missy slept, and the bright light shining there, but this light turned later to a faintly glowing green—she had pulled a shade over the lamp. Shadows stirred.… I was filled with a sense of tenderness and calm contentment—a contentment which came with my discovery that I had fallen helplessly in love, and at the same time I felt uneasy with the knowledge that Leda, who disliked and perhaps hated me, was lying in bed in one of those rooms only a few yards away. I sat there, straining my ears, waiting to see whether Zhenia would come out, and I fancied I heard voices coming from the mezzanine.
An hour passed. The green lamp went out, and no more shadows could be seen. The moon rode high over the house, shining on the pathways and the sleeping garden. The dahlias and roses in the flower bed in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and everything seemed to be of one color. It grew very cold. I left the garden, picked up my coat from the road, and made my way slowly home.
The following day when I went to see the Volchaninovs after dinner, the glass door leading to the garden was wide open. I sat down for a while on the terrace, expecting to see Zhenia