The Kiss of the Unborn
I
A PERT little boy in buttons put his close-cropped head in at the door of a room where five lady-typists were clattering on their machines, and said:
"Nadezhda Alexevna, Mrs. Kolimstcheva is asking for you on the telephone."
A tall well-built girl of twenty-seven got up and went downstairs to the telephone. She walked with quiet self-possession, and had that deep steadfastness of gaze only given to those who have outlived heavy sorrows and patiently endured them to the end. She was thinking to herself:
"What has happened now?"
She knew already that if her sister wanted to speak to her it was because something unpleasant had occurred—the children were ill, the husband worried over business, they were in need of money—something of that sort. She would have to go there and see what could be done—to help, to sympathise, to put matters right. Her sister was ten years older than herself, and as she lived in a remote suburb they rarely met.
She went into the tiny telephone-box, smelling of tobacco, beer, and mice, took up the speaking-tube, and said:
"Yes. Is it you, Tanichka?"
The voice of her sister, tearful, agitated, exactly as she had expected to hear it, answered her:
"Nadia, for God's sake come here quickly! Something dreadful has happened. Serezha is dead. He's shot himself."
Nadezhda Alexevna could hardly realise the news. Her little nephew was dead—dear little Serezha, only fifteen years old. She spoke hurriedly and incoherently:
"What is it, Tanya? How terrible! Why did he do it? When did it happen?"
And neither hearing nor waiting for answer, she added quickly:
"I'll come at once, at once."
She put down the speaking-tube, forgetting even to hang it up in its place again, and hurried away to ask the manager for leave of absence.
It was given her, though unwillingly. "You know we have a specially busy time just now, before the holidays," grumbled the manager. "You always seem to want leave at the most awkward moment. You can go if it's really necessary, but don't forget that your work must be made up."
II
A few minutes later Nadezhda Alexevna got into a tram-car and began her twenty minutes' journey. She felt depressed and uncertain. Spasms of keen pity for her sister and regret for the dead boy caught at her heart.
It was terrible to think that this fifteen-year-old child, but lately a light-hearted schoolboy, should have suddenly shot himself—painful to imagine the mother's grief. How she would weep—her life seemed always to have been unhappy and unsuccessful.
Yet Nadezhda Alexevna could not give herself up entirely to such thoughts. Her mind was dwelling on something else. It was always so with her when she came to one of those times common enough in this life of unexpected happenings—the interruption of the ordinary daily routine by some unpleasant occurrence. There was an event in the background of her own life which weighed her down with a continuous and gnawing sorrow. For her there could be no relief in tears, they seemed to have been stopped at their source; rare indeed was it for a few miserable drops to force themselves to her eyes. She generally looked out upon the world with an expression of dull indifference.
So now, once again, memory revolved before her that passionate flaming circle of her past life. She recalled once more that short time of love and self-forgetfulness, of passion and of self-abandonment.
Those bright summer days had been a festival. The blue heaven had outspread itself joyously for her delight, the summer rain had pattered down for her amusement. For her the pine odours had been more intoxicatingly sweet than roses. Roses would not grow in such a climate. Yet it was a place that the heart loved. The greeny-grey moss in the dark forest was a soft and tender couch; the forest rivulets flowing over the tumbled boulders lisped clear and sweet as streams of Arcady; their coolness gladdened and refreshed.
How quickly had the days passed in the glad rapture of love! The last day dawned, which she knew not then to be the last. The sky was cloudless, the heavens clear. Simple happiness was all around. The broad shadowy glades of the scented pine-forest were cool and dreamy, the tender moss underfoot was soft and warm. All was as it had been on other days. Only the birds had ceased to sing—they had nested and flown away with their little ones.
But there had been a shadow on the countenance of her beloved—he had received an unpleasant letter that morning.
As he himself said:
"A dreadfully unpleasant letter. I am desperate. So many days before I see you again!"
"How is that?" she had said. Sadness had not yet touched her.
"My father writes to say that my mother is ill and that I ought to go home."
His father had written something quite different—but Nadezhda Alexevna did not know that. She had not yet learnt that it is possible to be deceived in love, that the lips that kiss may speak lies instead of truth.
With his arms around her and his lips kissing hers he had said:
"I must go, there's nothing else to do. How lonely I shall be! I can't think any- thing serious is the matter, but I shall be obliged to go."
"Why, of course," said she. "If your mother is ill, how could you stay! Write to me every day; it will be so dull when you are gone."
She went with him as usual as far as the high road, and then home again along the forest path, sad at his departure, yet certain of his return. And he had never come back.
She had received two or three letters from him, strange letters, confused, full of half-expressed feelings, hints of something she could not understand. Then no more. Nadezhda Alexevna began to realise that he had ceased to love her. And when the summer had come to an end she heard a chance conversation which told her of his marriage.
"Why, haven't you heard? Last week. They went off to Nice for the honeymoon."
"Yes, he's fortunate. He's married a rich and beautiful girl."
"She has a large dowry, I suppose."
"Yes, indeed. Her father …"
Nadezhda Alexevna did not stay to hear about the father. She moved away.
She often remembered all that had happened afterwards. Not that she wished to remember—she had striven to stifle recollection and to forget the past. It had all been so grievous and humiliating, and there had seemed no way of escape. It was then, in those first dreadful days after she knew he was married to another, in those sweet places made dear to her by the memory of his kisses, that she had first felt the movements of her child—and linked with the first thoughts of a new life had come the forebodings of death. No child must ever be born to her!
No one at home had ever known—she had thought out some pretext for getting away. Somehow or other, with great difficulty, she had got enough money together and had managed everything—she never wished to remember how—and had returned to her home, weak and ill, with pallid face and tired body, yet with heroic strength of spirit to conceal her pain and terror.
Memory often tried to remind her of all that had taken place, but Nadezhda Alexevna refused to acknowledge its power. When sometimes in a flash she recalled everything, she would shudder with horror and repulsion and resolutely turn her mind away at once from the picture.
But in her heart there was one memory which she treasured; she had a child, though it had never come to birth, and she often saw before her a sweet yet terrible image of the little one.
Whenever she was alone and sitting quietly by herself, if she closed her eyes, the child came to her. She felt that she watched him grow. So vividly did she see him that at times it seemed to her that day after day and year after year she had lived with him as an actual mother with her living child. Her breasts were full of milk for him. At a sudden noise she trembled—perhaps the child had fallen and would be hurt.
Sometimes she put out her hand to stroke his soft, bright, golden curls, to touch his hand, to draw him nearer. But he always escaped her touch, her hand met empty air, and yet she heard his little laughing voice as if he were still near and hiding just behind her chair.
She knew his face—the face of her child who had never been born. It was quite clear to her—that dear yet terrible blending of the features of him who had taken her love and discarded it, who had taken her soul and drained it and forgotten, the blending of the features of him who, in spite of all, was still so dear with her own features.
His grey eyes and wavy golden hair and the soft outline of his lips and chin were all his father's. The little pinky shell-like ears, the rounded limbs, the rosy dimpled cheeks were her own.
She knew all his little body—all. And his little baby ways—how he would hold his tiny hands, how he would cross one foot over the other—learning from the father he had never seen. His smile was like her own—he had just that same trick of dropping his head on one side in blushing confusion.
Painfully sweet memories. The tender, rosy fingers of her child touched her deep wounds, and were cruel though dear. So painful! But she never wished to drive him away.
"I cannot, cannot do without thee, dear little unborn son of mine. If only thou wert really living! If only I could give thee life!"
For it was only a dream-life! It was for her alone. The unborn can never rejoice or weep for himself. He lives, but not for himself. In the world of the living, in the midst of people and earthly things, he doesn't exist at all. So full of life, so dear, so bright, and yet he is not.
Nadezhda Alexevna used to say to herself, "And this is my doing. Now he is small and he doesn't understand. But when he grows up he will know—he will compare himself with living children, he will want to live a real life, and then he will reproach me and I shall want to die."
She never thought how foolish were such thoughts in the light of reality. She could not imagine that the unborn child renounced by her had never been the habitation of a human soul. No—for Nadezhda Alexevna her unborn child lived, and tortured her heart with an endless grief.
To her he was as a shining one, clad in bright garments, with little white hands and feet, clear innocent eyes and pure smile. When he laughed his laugh was happy and musical. True, when she wanted to caress him he evaded her, but he never went far away, he was always hiding somewhere near. He ran away from her embraces, but all the same he often seemed to put his soft, warm little arms about her neck and press his tender lips to her cheek—at those times when she sat quietly alone and closed her eyes. But never once had he kissed her on the lips.
"When he grows up he will understand," she thought. "He will be sorry, and he will go away and never come back any more. And then I shall die."
And now as she sat in the noisy, crowded tram-car, in the company of strangers, pushing and jostling one another, Nadezhda Alexevna closed her eyes and remembered her own little child. Once more she looked into his clear eyes, once more she heard the tender lispings of his unuttered words … all the way to the end of her journey, when the time came for her to get out of the car.
III
When the tram stopped Nadezhda Alexevna made her way along the snow-covered streets, past the low wooden and stone houses, past the gardens and enclosed spaces of the remote suburb. She was alone. Many of the other passengers had been met, but for her there was no companion. And she thought to herself as she walked along:
"My sin will always remain with me; I can never get away from it. How is it that I go on living? Even little Serezha is dead."
A dull pain gnawed at her heart; she could not answer her own question:
"Why do I go on living? Yet why should I die?"
And again she thought:
"He is always with me, my dear little one. But he is growing up now; he is eight years old, and he must be beginning to understand. Why isn't he angry with me? Doesn't he want to be able to go and play with the other children; to ride on the frozen snow in his little sledge? Doesn't all this winter beauty attract him? I feel it all so delightful; even in spite of its illusions the world is so beautiful and so enchanting. Is it possible for him not to want to live here in reality?"
Then, as she went on and on, all alone, through the monotonous streets, she began to think of those to whom she had come: her hard-worked brother-in-law, her tired sister, the crowd of fretful children always asking for something or other, the poverty-stricken home, the lack of money. She remembered her favourite nephews and nieces—and little Serezha who had shot himself.
Who could have expected him to die? He had been so gay, so lively.
And then she remembered her talk with the boy last week. Serezha had been sad and upset then. He had been reading some incident recorded in the newspapers and had said:
"Things are bad at home, and if you take up a newspaper you only read about horrors and shameful happenings."
She had said something which she herself did not believe, in order to divert the boy's attention. Serezha had smiled grimly and then continued:
"But, Auntie Nadia, how bad it all is! Just think what is going on all around us. Don't you think it dreadful that one of the best of people, an old, old man, went away from his home to find a place in which to die? It must have been because he saw more plainly than we do the horrors around us, and he couldn't endure to live any longer. So he went away and died. Terrible!"
And after a little silence he went on:
"Auntie Nadia, I tell you just what I think, because you're always kind to me and you understand—I don't want to live at all in a world where such things happen. I know I'm just as weak as everybody else, and what is there for me to do? Only by degrees to begin to get used to it all. Auntie, Nekrasof was right when he said, 'It is good to die young.'"
Nadezhda Alexevna remembered that she had felt anxious about the child and had had a long talk with him. It seemed as if he were convinced at last. He had smiled again in his old way, and had said in his usual careless tone:
"Ah, well, we shall live, and we shall see. Progress is still going forward, and we do not yet understand its aim."
And now Serezha no longer lived—he had killed himself. So he hadn't wanted to live and look on at the majestic march of Progress. And what was his mother doing just now? Perhaps kissing his little waxen hand, or perhaps getting supper for the hungry little ones who were doubtless frightened and crying, looking pitiful in their worn-out and untidy clothes. Perhaps she had thrown herself down upon her bed and was weeping,—weeping endlessly. Happy woman, happy, if she could weep. What in this world is sweeter than the comfort of tears!
IV
At length Nadezhda Alexevna reached her sister's home, and went up the staircase to the fourth floor. It was a narrow stone staircase with very steep flights of stairs, and she went up so quickly, almost running, that she lost her breath, and stopped outside the door to rest before going in. She breathed heavily, holding on to the balustrade with her woollen-gloved hand.
The door was covered with felt, over which oilcloth had been stretched, and on this oil-cloth was a cross of narrow black strips, partly, perhaps, for ornament, partly for strength. One of the strips was half torn off and hanging down, and behind it, through a hole in the oilcloth, protruded the grey felt. For some reason or other this suddenly seemed pitiful and painful to Nadezhda Alexevna. Her shoulders heaved quickly. Covering her face with her hands she burst into loud sobbing. She felt suddenly weak, and sitting down hastily on the top step she wept. For a long time she sat there hiding her face in her hands. A warm rain of tears flowed over her woollen gloves.
It was nearly dark, and very cold and silent on the staircase—the doors on the landing stood dumb and rigid. Long, long she wept. … Then suddenly she heard a light, familiar step, and as she waited in expectation she felt her child come nearer and put his arms about her neck. His cheek pressed close to hers, and his warm little fingers tried to push away the hands which were screening and hiding her face. He put his lips to her cheek and whispered gently:
"Why do you weep? How can you have done wrong?"
Silently she sat and listened; she dare not move or open her eyes lest the child should disappear. She let her right hand drop on to her knee, but still kept her eyes covered with the left. Gradually her weeping became less; she must not frighten the child with her woman's tears, the tears of a sinful woman.
And the child went on, kissing her cheek as he spoke, "You haven't done wrong at all."
Then he spoke again, and now his words were those of Serezha:
"I don't want to live in this world. I'm very thankful to you, mother dear."
And again:
"Indeed, dear mother, I don't want to be alive."
These words had sounded terrible in her ears when Serezha had spoken them—terrible because spoken by one who, having received from unseen Powers the living form of mankind, ought to have held as a precious treasure the life committed to his care, and not have wished to destroy it. But these same words, spoken by the child who had never been born into this world, rejoiced his mother's heart. Gently and timidly, as if afraid of frightening him by the sound of an earthly voice, she asked:
"And my dear one forgives me?"
And heard the answer:
"You haven't done wrong at all; yet if you want to hear me say so, 'I forgive you.'"
And suddenly her heart overflowed with a foretaste of an unlooked-for happiness. Hardly daring to hope, hardly knowing what to expect, she slowly and fearfully stretched out her hands—and felt her child on her knees, with his little hands on her shoulders, his lips pressed close to hers in a long, long kiss.
Her eyes were fast closed still, for she feared to look on that which it is not given to mankind to see, yet it seemed to her that the child's eyes looked into hers—and that he breathed a blessing upon her—and shone upon her like a Sun.
Then she felt the arms unclose, and on the staircase she heard the light patter of feet, and knew that the child was gone.
She got up, dried her tears, and rang the bell. When she went in to her sister she was full of calm and happiness, she had power to strengthen and console.