The Sweet-Scented Name/The Lady in Fetters
The Lady in Fetters
IN the house of a certain Moscow physician there is a magnificent picture gallery, which after the death of its owner will become the property of the town, though now it is little known and difficult to get at. In this gallery hangs a picture, strange in its conception but marvellously painted, not at all well known, though it is the work of a highly-gifted Russian artist. In the catalogue this picture is designated by the title, "A Legend of the White Night."
The picture is of a young lady dressed in an exquisitely simple black gown, and wearing a broad-brimmed black hat with a white feather. She is seated on a bench in a garden just budding into Spring. Her face is very beautiful, but it holds an enigmatical expression. In the unreal and enchanting light of the white night which the artist has so marvellously represented it seems at times that the lady is smiling in joy, and at times the same smile seems to possess a haggard expression of terror and despair.
Her hands are not seen—they are folded behind her back, and from the pose of her shoulders one feels that her arms are bound. Her feet are bare and very beautiful. They are encircled with gold bracelets and fastened together by a short gold chain. The contrast of the black dress and white naked feet is beautiful yet strange.
The picture was painted some years ago by the young artist Andrew Pavlovitch Kragaef, after a strange white night spent by him with the lady of the picture—Irene Vladimirovna Omejina—in her country villa outside Petersburg.
It was at the end of May. The day had been warm and enchantingly clear. In the morning, or rather about the time when the working-folk are going to their dinner, Kragaef was called up on the telephone. A well-known woman's voice said:
"It's I—Madame Omejina. Are you disengaged to-night, Andrew Pavlovitch? I shall expect you here punctually at two o'clock."
"Thank you, Irene Vladimirovna" began Kragaef.
But the lady interrupted him.
"That's right. I shall expect you. Exactly at two."
And she hung up the receiver. Her voice sounded unusually cold and unmoved—the voice of some one preparing for some significant action. This and the brief conversation made Kragaef wonder not a little. He was accustomed to have long talks on the telephone, and with a lady the conversation often went on quite a while. Irene Vladimirovna had been no exception to this, and her brevity was something new and unexpected—the young man's curiosity was aroused.
He resolved to be most punctual and to get there at two o'clock precisely. He ordered a motor in good time to take him there—he hadn't one of his own.
Kragaef was fairly well acquainted with Madame Omejina, though not intimate with her. She was the widow of a rich landowner who had died some years before. She had her own estates, and the villa to which she had invited Kragaef that evening belonged to her.
There had been strange rumours about her married life. It had been said that her husband often beat her cruelly. And people often wondered that she, an independent woman, should endure this and not leave him. There were no children, and people thought it strange that they went on living together.
It was exactly two o'clock by Kragaef's watch, and already quite light when the automobile slowed up at the entrance to the familiar villa. Kragaef had been there several times during the previous summer. On this occasion, however, he felt a curious perturbation.
"I wonder if there will be any one else, or if I'm the only visitor," thought he. "It would be more pleasant to be alone with her on such a beautiful night."
No other carriage was to be seen at the gates. Everything was quiet in the dark garden, and there were no lights to be seen in the windows.
"Shall I wait?" asked the chauffeur.
"No, it's not necessary," said Kragaef, as he paid and dismissed him.
The side gate was open a little way. Kragaef went in and shut it after him. He glanced at the gate and saw the key in it, and impelled by some undefined presentiment, he turned the key in the lock.
He walked quietly up the gravel-path to the house. There was a cool air from the river; somewhere in the bushes the first birds of the morning twittered faintly and uncertainly.
Suddenly a familiar voice called out to him—the voice he had heard on the telephone—that strangely cold and indifferent voice.
"I'm here, Andrew Pavlovitch," said Mme Omejina.
Kragaef turned in the direction of the voice and saw his hostess seated on a bench near a flower-bed.
She sat there and looked up at him smiling. She was dressed exactly as he afterwards painted her in the picture; in the same black gown of an exquisitely simple cut, entirely without any ornament or trimming—in the same black broad-brimmed hat with a white feather—her hands were clasped behind her back and seemed to be fastened there—there, calmly resting on the gravel-path were her bare white feet en- circled by golden bracelets—the thin gold chain which fastened them just glittering in the half-light.
She was smiling just that same uncertain smile which Kragaef afterwards showed in her portrait, and she said to him:
"Good evening, Andrew Pavlovitch. I felt sure somehow that you would not fail to come at the appointed time. Pardon me for not giving you my hand—my arms are fastened behind me."
Then, seeing his movement towards her, she laughed constrainedly and said:
"No, no, don't be alarmed! You needn't unfasten me. It's all necessary—it's what he wishes. His night has come once more. Sit down here beside me."
"Whom do you mean?" asked Kragaef, sitting down beside her and speaking cautiously and in wonder.
"My husband," answered she quietly. "To-day is the anniversary of his death. He died just at this hour, and every year on this night and at this moment I give myself up to his power. Every year he chooses some one into whom he sends his spirit, and he comes to me and tortures me for hours. He cannot be restrained. He goes away, and I am free till the following year. This time he has chosen you. But I can see that you are astounded—you are ready to think that I am mad."
"Pardon me, Irene Vladimirovna," Kragaef was beginning to say.
The lady stopped him with a slight movement of her head, and said:
"No, I'm not out of my mind. Listen! I'll tell you all about it, and you will understand me. It's not possible that such a sensitive and responsive person as yourself—such a wonderful and delicate artist—should not understand."
Now, when a man is appealed to as a sensitive and delicate person, of course he is prepared to understand all that is wanted. And Kragaef began to feel himself in sympathy with the spiritual condition of the lady. He wanted to kiss her hand in token of his sympathy, and he thought with pleasure of raising her small delicate hand to his lips. But this he could not do—he contented himself with gently squeezing her elbow in his hand.
The lady responded by an inclination of her head. Smiling uncertainly and strangely, so that it was impossible to know whether it were for happiness or a desire to weep, she said:
"My husband was a weak and a wicked man. I cannot understand even now why I loved him and couldn't leave him.
"He tortured me—at first timidly, but every year more openly and cruelly. He inflicted all kinds of torture on me, and he soon discovered a very simple and ordinary way. I can't think why I put up with it. Perhaps I expected something from it—but, however it may be, I became weak and wicked before him, as a humble slave."
And then she calmly began to tell in detail how her husband had treated her. She spoke as if it were of some one other than herself who had endured all his cruelty and mockery.
Kragaef listened with pity and indignation, but her voice sounded so unmoved, and there was so much evil contagion in her words, that he suddenly began to feel within himself a wild desire to throw her on to the ground and beat her as her husband had done. The longer she talked and the more she described in detail how her husband had treated her, the stronger became his feeling and the greater his desire. At first it seemed to him that his anger at the shameless frankness with which she told of her sufferings, with her quiet, almost innocent cynicism, aroused this wild desire in him. But soon he understood that there was a much deeper reason for this wicked feeling.
Was it not, in truth, the soul of the dead husband becoming incarnate in himself, the monstrous spirit of an evil, weak torturer? He was terrified at first, but soon this momentary pang of terror died away in his soul, and more powerfully there arose in him the lust for torture—the evil and mean infection.
"I endured all this," continued the lady, "and never once did I complain. Even my spirit was unmurmuring. But one day in Spring-time I became just as weak as he. A strong desire arose in me that he should die. Perhaps his cruelty was greater just then, or it may be that the beautiful white nights of Spring acted upon me in this way. I don't know how the desire arose within me. So strange it was! I had never before been weak or wicked. Some days I struggled with the shameful wish. I sat at the window at night, and looked out at the quiet twilight of the night of our northern city, and in grief and anger I pressed my hands together and thought with insistent evil force, 'Die, cursed one, die!' And it happened that he did die suddenly, on this very day, exactly at two o'clock. But I didn't kill him—oh, don't think it was I who killed him."
"Mercy on us, I don't think it!" said Kragaef, though his voice sounded almost angry.
"He died of his own accord," continued she. "Or perhaps it was the force of my will that sent him to his grave. Perhaps the will of man is sometimes as strong as that, eh? I don't know. But I did not feel repentant. My conscience was clear. And I lived calmly on until the next Spring. But then my mind grew disturbed, and the clearer became the nights the worse it was with me. My distress increased more and more. At last, on the anniversary of his death, he suddenly came to me and spent many hours torturing me as he had done in life."
"Ah-ha, he came!" said Kragaef, with sudden malice.
"Of course you understand," said Mme Omejina, "that it was not the deceased come from his grave. He was too well brought up and too much of a townsman for such a fraud as that. He knew how to arrange it differently. He took possession of the will and spirit of a man who, like yourself, came to me that night and tortured me long and cruelly. And when he went away and left me powerless from suffering, I wept as if I had been a ruined girl. But my soul was calm, and I did not think of him again until the following year. But every year when the white nights come on I am tormented with distress, and on the night of his death my torturer comes to me."
"Every year?" asked Kragaef, his voice hoarse with malice or agitation.
"Every year," said she, "somebody comes to me at this time, and every year it is as if the actual soul of my husband rejoiced in my accidental tormentor. Then, after my dreadful night, my anguish leaves me and I can live again in the world. It happens so every year. This year he wanted you to come to me. He desired me to wait for you here in this garden, dressed as I am, barefoot and with my hands bound. And I have obeyed his will, and I sit here and wait."
She looked at Kragaef, and on her face was that blending of expression which he afterwards represented with such art in the picture.
He got up with a somewhat unnecessary haste; his face had become very pale. He felt in himself an evil passion, and seizing the lady by the shoulder he cried out to her in a hoarse voice which he could not recognise as his own:
"It's been like this every year, and this year will be no different from the others. Come!"
She stood up and began to weep. Kragaef, still grasping her by the shoulder, drew her towards the house, and she followed him, trembling with cold and the dampness of the gravel path under her bare feet, hastening and stumbling, feeling at each step the painful restraint of her golden chain, and making her golden anklets jangle—so they passed into the house.