Peasant Tales of Russia

II

Sister Helene, after having left the empty church, turned to the left to reach her cell. A row of little windows, constructed at different heights, illuminated the darkness here and there, and were reflected in the pools of water formed by the last rain-fall. A pavement formed of planks ran along the length of these little dwellings; there was no uniformity in their design, but some of them were picturesque; by daylight the convent presented an original aspect. None of these dwellings resembled each other; some were two stories, others a story and a half high. In these lived the sisters who were well-to-do. They were painted different colours – grey, rose, white, etc. In summer lime trees and birches sheltered them from the sun. To-day the wind whistled through the naked branches.

Helene had not yet reached her door, when she saw approaching her, like a red point in the darkness, some one carrying a lantern.

"Who comes there?" she asked.

"Is it you, Sister?" answered a youthful voice whose musical tones sounded strange in the blackness of the night.

"What! Is it you? You come to meet me?"

"Yes, I have prepared the samovar (tea-urn). As you did not come, I feared something had happened, and here I am."

"I had forgotten in the church how time passed, and Sister Seraphine made me come out."

"It was time; it has struck seven."

"And you – what have you been doing? I have not seen you the whole day."

"I have been painting; then I tried to read, but my head felt heavy. I think my John the Baptist is not a success."

"Why?"

"I cannot give him the aspect of an ascetic; his eyes, his smile are too sweet; the desert sun had bronzed him, his features must have been harsher."

"Paint him as God inspires you. This evening, during vespers, I looked at your Holy Virgin the whole time."

"You think it good."

"It is perfect. Her sad eyes, her inspired face seem to say that she knows her divine Son will suffer for humanity."

"Well, but Sister Seraphine is not pleased with it."

"What does she say?" asked Helene with a smile.

"That it is hardly befitting to have beautiful pictures in convents, that the eyes of nuns ought not to dwell on the works of sinners."

"God bless her! She grumbles, but she is good at bottom. When I was ill, before you came, she hardly ever left me. Here we are at my door."

Helene and the novice Olia rapidly ascended the steps of the staircase, shaking the water from their cloaks. When they reached her well-warmed room, Helene took off her short black pelisse and the cap which concealed her hair. Her dwelling had two stages; Olia, her guest, lodged and worked on the ground floor; Helene occupied the upper one. The furniture was very simple – a table of white wood, a small very hard sofa covered with brown holland, two old arm-chairs and straw-bottomed chairs ranged along the wall. Above the sofa hung the portrait of some unknown nun with dark eyes shadowed by a black veil and pale wrinkled lips. In one corner, a lamp burned before an icon in a gold frame.

Helene was not yet thirty years old; her face, pale and thin, had already assumed the monastic expression, but her refined features were still beautiful; her large proud eyes recalled by their sadness and their passionate expression Carlo Dolce's martyrs. One could guess that in this soul which had already long suffered, the sacrifice was not yet consummated, and the struggle still continued. In those dark eyes there often came also the poignant look of physical suffering; her face showed signs of sleepless nights, suppressed tears and sobs choked down.

Olia, with her sharp ear, heard her sometimes leap from her bed, run to the window, open it and fall on her knees in prayer. It was not the conventual life which weighed on Helene, but that which she had left outside the walls. Her life in the convent was pleasant and easy; the inmates had for her the regard which a sister deserves who brings a considerable fortune, and who was, moreover, highly cultured, a fact which lent peculiar distinction to the community. When illustrious benefactresses visited the convent, Sister Helene was immediately sent for in order to talk French; these ladies departed delighted, and in aristocratic circles talked of "our convent," in order to distinguish it from the other at the opposite end of the town, which was humble and poverty-stricken, without cultured nuns and unvisited by grand ladies.

This time also, scarcely had Helene sat down to her tea than she was sent for by the abbess.

"May I come in?" said a voice behind the door.

"Certainly," answered Helene. "Ah, it is you, Sister Athanasia."

"Peace be with you, and God bless you; will you come to our Mother Varlaama."

"What is it?"

"Nothing; only a note for you, and they are waiting."

The abbess was a stout, heavy woman, with a plain but honest face such as is often seen in tradesmen's widows who have lived a quiet life with a sober and affectionate husband. She received Helene with a tender kiss:

"General Khlobestovsky's lady asks me to let you go to her this evening; she is particularly anxious about it and has sent the carriage."

"But it was just this evening that I did not want to go out."

"And why, may I ask? She is one of your old school-fellows, and what is more, rich and a fine lady. Go then for our sakes. Yesterday again her husband has sent us from the country two carts full of meal, flour and oil. We cannot refuse anything to such benefactors; he would regard it as a want of respect and would become indifferent to us. Make this sacrifice, Sister Helene, for the great advantage of us all. Finally I exact it as an act of obedience, as part of your conventual service. Go! Go!"

So saying, she embraced and dismissed her.

III

Helene felt ill at ease every time that she entered the Khlobestovsky's drawing-room, not exactly because she disliked the mistress of the house; they had been school-fellows and had remained friends. The general was always absent; he preferred country life and the superintendence of his estate, in the first place because his affairs got on the better for it, and secondly he was thus out of reach of the sentimental and romantic claims of his wife, claims which his personal appearance did little to justify.

Each time that the general's wife saw Helene again, she applied a fine cambric handkerchief to her eyes to wipe away some tears, her flabby cheeks quivered, and innumerable wrinkles appeared round her chin and mouth.

"What self-sacrifice!" she invariably exclaimed, pressing her friend's hands. "How happy you are, my darling! while we are – how does one say it? – drowned in sin."

"Plunged," corrected her children's governess.

"Yes, plunged. Exactly so! You, on the other, are saving your soul, and are quite absorbed in God."

Then she took Helene's hand and said, "You are tired; take my arm."

"No, I am not, I assure you."

"Still, do it, dear Sister."

It was one of the general's wife's principles on commencing the conversation to speak with deference to her friend, though she was the younger of the two.

"These matins, these vespers, these masses! … It will indeed be well with you up there." And she lifted her large green eyes to the ceiling.

This time also she did not omit the inevitable comedy, and taking Helene's arm, she drew her to her boudoir, where the sound of several voices was audible.

"Come, dear, I have absolute confidence in you."

The "lady bountiful," a friend of General Khlobestovsky, was already seated in the boudoir. Her goggle eyes and projecting jaws well adapted to frighten poor people, opened wide at Helene's arrival, and in a high-pitched voice, imitating a famous actress, she exclaimed with a sigh, "How happy I am! How delighted! Holy woman!" and then turning towards a young girl very simply dressed who was also smiling at the nun, said, "Ah, Sacha, how long have you been here?"

Sacha was a niece of the general, and had been taking a course of music lessons at Petrograd. When she saw her, Helene's face lighted up.

"My course was over a fortnight ago, and I took advantage of it to come home again."

"You would do much better," said the "benefactress," looking at Helene, "to follow her example than to follow your course; I tell her so in your presence, Sister, because I tell her so when you are not there to hear. To think that at your age, with your beauty, you have been able to go through such severe tests in order to overcome sin!"

"Why did you send for me?" Helene asked.

"Because, dear, we have decided to make a blue altar-cloth embroidered with gold and silk for your convent. Without your advice we do not know how to set about it; it is impossible for us to choose the design and the colours."

The table was already covered with the velvet cloth in question which reached down to the ground; on it were lying skeins of silk, fringes and gold thread. As soon as Helene had taken her seat the ladies began an earnest discussion on the question whether they should embroider the flowers flame-colour, the stalks white, the leaves red, and at the top in gold a border of moss-roses.

"But would it look natural?" said the nun.

"Then what are we to do?" answered the "benefactress" in an agitated way. "Enlighten us, dear Sister; without you we are in darkness."

When the consultation was over, Sacha, who had waited impatiently, approached Helene, took her arm, and led her to the drawing-room.

"I have been to your church to-day," she said. "I have looked for you everywhere without seeing you."

"I generally stand on the right in a corner."

"In the shadow?"

"Yes; one feels more comfortable out of observation."

"It is a pity; I was looking forward so much to meeting you again, and did not succeed."

"Why regret it?"

"Ah well! As a devotee you are simply superb; one would say you had stepped out of the frame of a holy picture. And how they sing at your convent! You have a magnificent voice."

"Who says so?"

"My aunt in the first place. At school it seems that you already held every one under a spell."

"Your aunt is too kind."

"Not at all; she is only just. But tell me why do you not take part in the convent choirs?"

"I do not wish to," said Helene, and a shadow passed over her face.

"Pardon me," murmured Sacha, taking her hand. "I have perhaps vexed you; I am so foolish."

"Not at all," answered Helene. "It is not that. But you see, I ought not to sing. Doubtless, you do not understand me. Anna Petrovna declares in her kindness that I have overcome all sins, but it is not so. A nun ought to seek before all things to forget the world where she has lived. It ought not to attract her any more. No one knows anything of our struggles and our mental distresses. If I recommenced to sing, the past would rise again at once. Ah! I have experienced it already; one day I was singing a church chant in my room; all the past came up in my heart, and I nearly choked. That which I had fled from, that which I believed dead and buried, returned. You see a spiritual victory is not won so easily. Till one is 'dead to the world' one has many trials to pass through. It is only outsiders who imagine that peace reigns in a convent. If people could glance into our souls, they would see troubles and storms at the bottom of each. But these are only words! Come and see me, won't you?"

"Yes, certainly!" answered Sacha, stretching out her hand.

"I love you much, Sacha; you are honest. Au revoir. God be with you."

"Where are you going?" exclaimed the general's wife. "What! Without taking tea. I won't let you go. After tea they will put up for you a basket of preserves to take to the abbess, that good soul. She prefers quince-preserve. As for you, I don't offer you any; you have renounced all these luxuries; you no longer belong to this world!"

And once more her cheeks began to quiver and her green eyes grew moist.

"How charming you were at school! Tall, well-shaped, like a figure in Dresden china. Do you ever remember the school, Sister Helene?"

"Yes, of course," said Helene, with an abstracted air, only half-attending to her.

"I remember they had brought you from far away – the Caucasus, wasn't it? They had written to me, I remember."

The nun bent her head in order to hide her disturbance of mind. When she raised it again, she had grown still paler, and her sad eyes showed physical pain controlled with difficulty. But the general's wife, who never paused to notice anything, did not guess at her trouble. She had risen, and stuttering very fast, said, "This evening we will give you a musical treat. I know you love music, Helene, and that is not a sin. I think there was a saint – what was her name?"

"Saint Cecilia," said the governess.

"Yes, precisely. She was a musician, and yet she has been canonized; you will find it in books."

Helene remained. She felt an irresistible desire to hear music – something besides the human voice or the voice of her heart.

"Is it you who will play?" she said, approaching Sacha.

"Yes; tell me what you prefer; I only warn you that I don't play anything very serious."

"Play something that I have not yet heard; all that calls up associations of the past makes me feel poorly. During the four years that I have been at the convent you must have learnt many things which I don't know. You know, perhaps, Beethoven's Sonata 'Quasi una fantasia.'"

"Certainly. Would you like to hear it? 'It is an old piece that is always new,' our musical professor used to say."

"Yes. To-day I feel drawn to it, though I know it will make me suffer."

"Do you know that it is a little alarming to see you as a nun? Why should it be? Our family has been always given to religion; my grandmother entered a convent at the close of her days; and my mother spent her days in visiting the Holy Places."

Sacha went to the piano and the general's wife came and sat by Helene. She took her hands and said to her in a sentimental tone, "Do you remember how often we used to play duets at school?"

"We must confess that we played very badly," answered Helene with a smile.

"Yes, but the recollection is a delightful one. Do you remember the venerable Father who used to come to listen to us? Do you know I was quite in love with him! But pardon me; I forgot that before you… Ah, you are quite removed from all that to-day, happy woman!"

"But are not you happy?"

"Non. Life is not what it appeared to us through the rose-coloured curtains of the school. I do not complain of my husband, but he is quite incapable of letting himself go or of becoming enthusiastic."

For a moment or two she shed tears, which she wiped away as Sacha struck her first notes.

Helene listened as though in a trance. God only knew how much the music recalled to her of that past which she thought had been blotted out. She saw once more her country, whose soil she would never tread again; she heard the murmurs of the plane-trees, the low warbling of the brooks; a more brilliant sun glowed in a deeper sky; she closed her eyes and would have liked to withdraw into herself, and see no more of her surroundings. The unutterable yearning and burning passion of the sonata struck painfully and without cessation on her suffering heart. For a long time she had believed that a day would come when the old story which she had confided to no one would be finally forgotten, when she would be able to look at her past with the same indifference with which one contemplates the mists of autumn or the snows of winter; then she would return to her own people content and serene; they would receive her with joy, not guessing what she had sacrificed for them. To-day, alas! she understood that it would be vain to seek to bury that past; it would always rise again as vivid and sad as ever. No, she would never be able to see her country again. Moreover time, solitude and mental sufferings would not be long in putting an end to her physical life. A few more years, and she would rest in her coffin with a visage as immovable as that of the Sister dead yesterday in the convent, who also had known suffering. But those happy people down there, happy in the country she loved so well, did they still remember her? Perhaps they had forgotten her or thought her already dead.

Under the stress of these thoughts her heavy black garb became insupportable, and her head-dress weighed upon her like lead. She rose suddenly, before the sonata was finished.

"I will see you to-morrow," said the general's wife without attempting to detain her; "the carriage is there. This large packet is for the abbess, and the one wrapped up in a newspaper is for you."

"For me?" asked Helene in a reproachful tone. "You know that I do not like…"

"Well, give it from me to poor Olia."

"Thanks. God be with you!"

After warmly embracing Sacha, Helene took her leave. When she had settled herself in a corner of the carriage, she felt an inexpressible depression overwhelm her. She would have liked to open the carriage-door, to plunge into the cold fog, and to run into the infinite darkness, far away for ever.

IV

Despite the cold of an autumn night, scarcely had Helene entered her room than she opened her window and inhaled deep breaths of the damp frosty air which poured into her chamber. She was afraid of the coming night. She felt that she would not sleep and be sleepless till the morning. She took a strong dose of a composing draught, but her nerves were too much disturbed to feel the effect of it.

Just then Olia ran into her room. "How cold it is here," she said.

"For my part I am stifling and feel the want of air," said Helene, attempting to smile.

"Take care; you will make yourself ill."

"What does that matter," answered Helene with indifference.

"Stop, Olia, see what the general's wife has sent you."

"I am glad to have it," said the novice joyfully, "although they say it is a sin; I do not hear with that ear." Smiling she opened the packet. "Bonbons and sweetmeats – hurrah!"

"Take them all away; I do not like sweets; and now, my child, go down and go to sleep; I want to be alone; I have not prayed to-day."

Helene closed the door and entered her tiny bedroom, a great space in which was occupied by a screen with sacred pictures. The whitewashed walls were bare, and so was the floor. The general's wife had sent her a carpet, but Helene had at once given it to the church. In one corner was a narrow bed, on a little table a Gospel richly bound, the Life of Jesus Christ by Ferrara, and some devotional books. Under the table was a box containing all her property, old letters and portraits. This she called her "cemetery." She lit the wax candles before the sacred images and amid the surrounding darkness, the gold frames, and bright haloes cast their reflections on the austere faces of the saints who could scarcely be distinguished against their black background. Helene remembered the nights of prayer which her mother and grandmother had passed, prostrate at the foot of these same icons, and her sad heart was penetrated by a warm feeling of devotion. When she left her home these relics were the only things she had taken with her as they constituted a link with her past; they afforded her a refuge from her sad thoughts. But to-day, how could she get rid of them? She was incapable of praying; her lips murmured the familiar words, her hands made the sign of the cross, but there was no peace nor humility in her heart. She knelt down and closed her eyes, but prayer did not come. In spite of years and of distance, familiar faces surrounded her, and loved voices whispered in her ear, "How pale you are!" "Why did you leave us to go so far?"

As though she feared insulting the sanctity of the icons she put out the candles and went into the next room. She tried to tire herself out by walking up and down her cell, but in vain; the vision followed her. She did not struggle any more; like a swimmer at the end of his strength, she yielded to the rising waves which were carrying her far away to the land of memories.

The five years of struggles through which she had passed, those years of prayers and struggles, all disappeared; she no longer saw her black garments; even the walls of her cell had fallen; a whole world lay open before her. Yes, it was the past which transported her to its magic circle; she saw her youth again. Her sister Nina, with gentle trusting eyes, came to her and embraced her with her tender arms in order to tell her in broken tones a young girl's secrets. There was five years' difference between the two sisters; the younger one was eighteen. She, the elder, seemed somewhat too serious for her age; that perhaps was owing to the influence of her mother, to her continual visits to convents, and to that atmosphere of incense, prayer and meditation which had surrounded her from her earliest infancy. The younger sister grew up quite different; she was a butterfly who needed the sun, blue sky and flower-beds; her laughter rang clear, contagious and musical. Helene herself who had received the nickname "the nun," yielded to the charm of this child-like gaiety. What she loved best in the world was to sit at her window in the evening, listening to her sister telling her in her gentle voice her great joys and her little sorrows. Why then one day had she suddenly risen and pushed her away? Why had some words of her favourite made her treat harshly, were it only for a moment, this dear little bird who came to seek protection with her? What had the child said that its memory should still burn in her heart to-day?