Short Fiction, Ivan Bunin [reading women .TXT] 📗

deal I did not understand. Both of us said meaningless things; my hands grew cold at the thought of another terrible and inevitable hour. I do not deny that I felt as though I were struck by lightning when she said “I have grown old.⁠ ⁠…” I suddenly noticed that she was right; in the thinness of her hands, and faded, though youthful, face, in the dryness of some of the outlines of her figure, I noticed the first signs of that which, painfully and somehow awkwardly⁠—but still more painfully⁠—makes one’s heart contract at the sight of an ageing woman. Oh yes, how quickly and sharply she had changed, I thought. But still she was beautiful; I grew intoxicated looking at her. I had been accustomed to dream of her endlessly; I had never for an instant forgotten when, in the evening of July 11, I had embraced her knees for the first time. Her hands, too, trembled slightly, as she arranged her hair and spoke and smiled and looked at me; and suddenly⁠—you will understand the whole catastrophic power of that woman⁠—suddenly that smile somehow became distorted, and she said with difficulty, but yet firmly:

“You must go home, you must rest after your journey⁠—you are not looking yourself; your eyes are so terribly suffering, your lips so burning that I cannot bear it any longer.⁠ ⁠… Would you like me to come with you, to accompany you?”

And, without waiting for my answer, she got up and went to put on her hat and cloak.⁠ ⁠…

We drove quickly to the villa Hashim. I stopped for a moment on the terrace to pick some flowers. She did not wait for me, but opened the door herself. I had no servants; there was only a watchman, but he did not see us. When I came into the hall, hot and dark with its drawn blinds, and gave her the flowers, she kissed them; then, putting one arm round me, she kissed me. Her lips were dry from excitement, but her voice was clear.

“But listen⁠ ⁠… how shall we⁠ ⁠… have you got anything?” she asked.

At first I did not understand her; I was so overwhelmed by the first kiss, the first endearment, and I murmured:

“What do you mean?”

She shrank back.

“What!” she said, almost sternly. “Did you imagine that I⁠ ⁠… that we can live after this? Have you anything to kill ourselves with?”

I understood, and quickly showed her my revolver, loaded with five cartridges, which I always kept on me.

She walked away quickly ahead of me from one room to the other. I followed her with that numbness of the senses with which a naked man on a sultry day walks out into the sea; I heard the rustle of her skirts. At last we were there; she threw off her cloak and began to untie the strings of her hat. Her hands were still trembling and in the half-light I again noticed something, pitiful and tired in her face.⁠ ⁠…

But she died with firmness. At the last moment she was transformed; she kissed me, and moving her head back so as to see my face, she whispered to me such tender and moving words that I cannot repeat them.

I wanted to go out and pick some flowers to strew on the deathbed. She would not let me; she was in a hurry and said:

“No, no, you must not⁠ ⁠… there are flowers here⁠ ⁠… here are your flowers,” and she kept on repeating: “And see, I beseech you by all that is sacred to you, kill me!”

“Yes, and then I will kill myself,” I said, without for a moment doubting my resolution.

“Oh, I believe you, I believe you,” she answered, already apparently half-unconscious.⁠ ⁠…

A moment before her death she said very quietly and simply:

“My God, this is unspeakable!”

And again:

“Where are the flowers you gave me? Kiss me⁠—for the last time.”

She herself put the revolver to her head. I wanted to do it, but she stopped me:

“No, that is not right; let me do it. Like this, my child.⁠ ⁠… And afterwards make the sign of the cross over me and lay the flowers on my heart.⁠ ⁠…”

When I fired, she made a slight movement with her lips, and I fired again.⁠ ⁠…

She lay quiet; in her dead face there was a kind of bitter happiness. Her hair was loose; the tortoiseshell comb lay on the floor. I staggered to my feet in order to put an end to myself. But the room, despite the blinds, was light; in the light and stillness which suddenly surrounded me, I saw clearly her face already pale.⁠ ⁠… And suddenly madness seized me; I rushed to the window, undid and threw open the shutters, began shouting and firing into the air.⁠ ⁠… The rest you know.⁠ ⁠…

[In the spring, five years ago, while wandering in Algeria, the writer of these lines visited Constantine.⁠ ⁠… There often comes to him a memory of the cold, rainy, and yet spring evenings which he spent by the fire in the reading-room of a certain old and homely French hotel. In the heavy, elaborate bookcase were much-read illustrated papers, and in them you could see the faded photographs of Madame Maraud. There were photographs taken of her at different ages, and among them the Lausanne portrait of her as a girl.⁠ ⁠… Her story is told here once more, from a desire to tell it in one’s own way.]

Gentle Breathing

In the cemetery above a fresh mound of earth stands a new cross of oak⁠—strong, heavy, smooth, a pleasant thing to look at. It is April, but the days are grey. From a long way off one can see through the bare trees the tombstones in the cemetery⁠—a spacious, real country or cathedral town cemetery; the cold wind goes whistling, whistling through the china wreath at the foot of the cross. In the cross itself is set a rather large bronze medallion, and in the medallion is a portrait of a smart and charming schoolgirl, with happy, astonishingly vivacious eyes.

It is Olga Meschersky.

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