17

AND so the evening passed and night came. The doctor went to bed. The aunts had also retired. Nekhlyudov knew that Matriona Pavlovna was now with them in their bedroom and that Katusha would be in the maids’ room – alone. He went out on to the porch again. It was dark out of doors, and damp and warm, and the white mist of spring which drives away the last snow, or is born of the last melting snow, filled the air. From the river below the slope, about a hundred yards from the front door, there were strange sounds: it was the ice breaking up.

Nekhlyudov descended the steps from the porch and, using patches of frozen snow as stepping-stones, made his way across the puddles to the window of the maids’ room. His heart beat so fiercely in his breast that he could hear it; his breath now stopped, now burst out in a heavy gasp. In the maids’ room a small lamp was burning. Katusha sat alone by the table, looking thoughtfully in front of her. Nekhlyudov watched her for a long time without moving, wanting to see what she would do, believing herself unobserved. For a minute or two she sat quite still; then she lifted her eyes, smiled and shook her head as if chiding herself, and, changing her position, abruptly placed both her hands on the table and fell to gazing before her.

He stood and looked at her, involuntarily listening to the beating of his own heart and the strange noises from the river. There on the river, in the mist, a slow and tireless labour was going on, and he could hear sounds as of something wheezing, cracking, showering down, and thin bits of ice tinkling like glass.

He stood looking at Katusha’s pensive worried face which betrayed the inner struggle of her soul, and he felt pity for her but, oddly enough, this pity only intensified his desire.

Desire took entire possession of him.

He knocked on the window. She started as though she had received an electric shock, her whole body trembled and a look of terror came into her face. Then she sprang up, went to the window and put her face close to the pane. The look of terror did not leave her face even when, putting both palms to her eyes like blinkers, she recognized him. Her face was unusually grave – he had never seen it like that before. She smiled only when he smiled – smiled as it were in submission to him: there was no smile in her heart, only fear. He beckoned to her to come outside to him. But she shook her head and remained at the window. He brought his face close to the pane again and was going to call out to her to come, but at that moment she turned to the door – evidently someone had called her. Nekhlyudov moved away from the window. The mist was so thick that five steps from the house the windows could not be seen: there was only a black shapeless mass from which the light of the lamp shone red and huge. And all the while on the river the mysterious sobbing, rustling, crackle and tinkle went on. Somewhere in the mist not far off a cock crowed; others answered near by, and far away in the village the village cocks took up the cry, at first interrupting each other and finally joining into one sound of crowing. But everything else around, except for the river, was hushed and silent. It was already the second cockcrow.

After walking a couple of times backwards and forwards round the corner of the house and stumbling into an occasional pool of water, Nekhlyudov went back to the window of the maids’ room. The lamp was still burning and Katusha was again sitting alone at the table with the look of indecision on her face. He had hardly approached the window when she glanced up at him. He knocked. And without looking to see who it was that had knocked she ran out of the room and he heard the outside door loosen and creak. He was waiting for her by the side-porch and put his arms round her without saying a word. She clung to him, raised her head and met his kiss with her lips. They were standing behind the corner of the porch on a spot where the snow had melted away and the ground was dry, and he was filled with a tormenting, unsatisfied desire. Suddenly the back door gave the same sort of smack and creak, and Matriona Pavlovna’s angry voice was heard:

‘Katusha!’

She tore herself away from him and returned to the maids’ room. He heard the latch being fastened with a snap. Then all was quiet. The red eye of the window disappeared and nothing was left but the mist and the noise on the river.

Nekhlyudov went up to the window – no one was to be seen. He knocked – nobody answered him. He went back into the house by the front door but could not sleep. He took off his boots and went barefooted along the passage to her door, next to Matriona Pavlovna’s room. At first he heard Matriona Pavlovna’s quiet snoring and was on the point of going in when suddenly she began to cough and turn over on her creaking bed. His heart stopped and he stood motionless for about five minutes. When all was quiet once more and the peaceful snoring was heard again he went on, trying to step on the boards that did not creak. Now he was at Katusha’s door. There was no sound. Evidently she was not asleep or he would have heard her breathing. And indeed the moment he whispered ‘Katusha!’ she jumped up, went to the door and angrily, so he thought, began trying to persuade him to go away.

‘This is shameful! How can you? Your aunts will hear,’ said her Ups, but her whole being cried, ‘I am yours,’ and it was only this that Nekhlyudov understood.

‘Open the door, just for a moment. I implore you!’ He scarcely knew what he was saying.

She was silent. Then he heard her hand fumbling for the latch. The latch clicked and he slipped through the opened door.

He caught hold of her just as she was, in her stiff unbleached nightshirt with bare arms, lifted her up and carried her away.

‘Oh, what are you doing?’ she whispered.

But he paid no heed to her words, carrying her to his room.

‘Oh, you mustn’t…. Let me go,’ she said, clinging closer and closer to him.

*

When she left him, trembling and silent, giving no answer to his words, he stepped out on to the porch and stood there trying to realize the significance of what had happened.

It was lighter now; down below on the river the crackling and tinkling and sighing had grown louder and a gurgling noise was added to the other sounds. The mist had begun to settle lower and the last quarter of the moon sailed out from behind the wall of fog, shedding a sombre light on something black and menacing.

‘What is the meaning of it all? Has a great happiness or a great misfortune befallen me?’ he wondered. ‘It happens to everybody, everybody does it,’ he said to himself, and went to bed.