On the Bright Shore/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
Pani Elzen met Svirski with a troubled and excited face; her eyes were dry, but reddened, as if from fever, and full of impatience.
"Have you received no letter?" inquired she, hurriedly.
"No. I have received nothing but your telegram. What a misfortune!"
"I thought that perhaps he had written to you."
"No. When did it happen?"
"This morning a shot was heard in his chamber. A servant ran in and found him lifeless."
"Was it here in the hotel?"
"No. Fortunately he moved to Condamine yesterday."
"What was the cause?"
"How am I to know?" answered she, impatiently.
"So far as I have heard he was not given to play."
"No. They found money on his person."
"You relieved him of his duties yesterday?"
"Yes; but at his own request."
"Did he take the dismissal to heart?"
"I cannot tell," answered she, feverishly. "If he had wished, he might have gone sooner. But he was a madman, and this explains everything. Why did he not go sooner?"
Svirski looked at her very attentively.
"Calm yourself," said he.
But she, mistaken as to the meaning of his words, answered,—
"There is so much that for me is disagreeable in this, and there may be so much trouble. Who knows but I shall have to give some explanation, some evidence—can I tell what?. Oh, a fatal history!—besides there will be people's gossip. First, Vyadrovski's—But I wanted to beg you to tell among acquaintances, that that unfortunate lost at play, that he lost even some of my money, and that that was the cause of his act. Should it come to testifying before a court, it would be better not to say this, for it might be proved untrue; but before people, it is necessary to talk so. If he had gone even to Mentone, or to Nice! Besides, God only knows whether he has not written something before his death purposely to take revenge on me! Only let a letter of that sort reach the papers after his death! From such persons everything may be expected. As it was, I wished to leave here; but now I must—"
Svirski looked more and more attentively at her angry face, at her compressed lips, and said at last,—
"An unheard-of thing!"
"Really unheard of! But would it not increase gossip were we to go from here to-morrow?"
"I do not think it would," said Svirski.
Then he inquired about the hotel in which Kresovich had shot himself, and declared that he would go there, get information from the servants, and occupy himself with the dead man.
She tried to stop him with uncommon stubbornness; till at last he said,—
"Madame, he is not a dog, but a man; and it is necessary in every case to bury him."
"Somebody will bury him anyhow," answered she.
But Svirski took leave of her and went out. On the steps of the hotel he drew his hand across his forehead, then covered his head with his hat and said,—
"An unheard-of thing!"
He knew from experience to what degree human selfishness may go; he knew also that women in selfishness, as well as in devotion, surpass the common measure of men; he remembered that during life he had met typical persons in whom, under an external crust of polish, was hidden an animal selfishness in which all moral sense ended exactly where personal interest began; still, Pani Elzen had been able to astonish him.
"Yes," said he to himself, "that unfortunate was the tutor of her children; he lived under the same roof with her; and he was in love with her. And she? Not even one word of pity, of sympathy, of interest—Nothing and nothing! She is angry at him for causing her trouble, for not having gone farther away, for having spoiled her season, for exposing her to the possibility of appearing in court and of being subjected to the gossip of people; but the question of what took place with that man has not entered her head; or why he killed himself, and if it were not for her sake. And in her vexation she forgot even this, that she was betraying herself before me; and if not for her heart's sake, for her reason's sake, she ought to have appeared before me differently. But what spiritual barbarism! Appearances, appearances, and under that French bodice and accent, absence of soul and a primitive African nature,—a genuine daughter of Ham. Civilization stuck onto the skin, like powder! And this same woman asks me to report around that he played away her money. Tfu! May a thunderbolt split her!"
With such thoughts and imprecations he reached Condamine, where he found easily the little hotel in which the event had taken place. There was a doctor in Kresovich's room, also an official of the tribunal, who rejoiced at the artist's arrival, hoping that he would be able to give some items concerning the dead man.
"The suicide," said the official, "left a letter directing to bury him in a common ditch so as to send the money on his person to Zürich, to a given address. Moreover, he has burned all papers, as is shown by traces in the chimney."
Svirski looked at Kresovich, who was lying on the bed with open, terrified eyes, and with lips pursed together, as if to whistle.
"The dead man considered himself an incurable," said the artist; "he mentioned that himself to me, and took his life very likely for that reason. He never entered the Casino."
Then he told all that he knew concerning Kresovich, and afterward left the money needed for a separate grave, and went out.
Along the road he recalled what Kresovich had said to him in Nice about microbes, as well as his answer to Vyadrovski, that he would enroll himself in the party of the "silent;" and he reached the conviction that the young student had really occupied himself for a long time with the project of taking his own life, and that the main cause of his act was the conviction that he was condemned to death in every case.
But he understood that there might be collateral causes, and among them his unhappy love for Pani Elzen, and the parting with her. These thoughts filled him with sadness. The corpse of Kresovich, with lips fixed as if for whistling, and with the terror before death in his eyes, did not leave the artist's mind. But he thought that no one would sink into that terrible night without dread, and that all life, in view of the inevitableness of death, is one immense, tragic absurdity; and he returned to Pani Elzen in great depression of spirit.
She drew a deep breath of relief when she learned that Kresovich had left no papers. She declared that she would send as much money as might be needed for his funeral; and only then did she speak of him with a certain regret. She strove in vain, however, to detain Svirski for a couple of hours. He answered that he was not himself that day, and must return home.
"Then we shall meet in the evening," said she, giving him her hand at parting. "I intended even to drop in at Nice and go with you."
"Where?" asked Svirski, with astonishment.
"Have you forgotten? To the 'Formidable.'"
"Ah! Are you going to that ball?"
"If you knew how weighed down I am, especially after such a sad event, you would weep over me. I am sorry, too, for that poor fellow; but it is necessary—it is necessary even for this reason, that people should not make suppositions."
"Is it? Till we meet again!" said Svirski.
And a moment later, while sitting in the train, he said to himself,—
"If I go with you to the 'Formidable,' or any other place, I am a dead crab!"