Alexei Tolstoy - Cagliostro

When they came to the pond and the stone seat on which that morning he had talked with Maria, he asked Praskovia Pavlovna if she would not care to sit down. She sat down at once, flaring her skirt about her.

"Alexis," she whispered, smiling widely at the moon. "Alexis, you are sitting with a lady so unfeelingly. After all, you should know how pleasant boldness is for a woman."

He replied through set teeth:

"If you knew how I dreamed of you you would not rebuke me."

"Rebuke you?" She laughed, and it sounded like bits of glass scattered on the ground. "Rebuke you indeed, when all you do is press my hands, and that very weakly too. You might at least take me in your arms."

Alexei raised his head, peered at her and his heart quavered. He put his right arm round her shoulders, and in his left hand he took both her hands. In the low-cut gown he could see her chest with the slightly protruding collar-bones breathing calmly and evenly. He brought his face close to hers, trying to recapture the enchantment it had had for him.

"My dream," he said with anguish. She drew away from him slightly, smiling and shaking her head, and then looked straight into his eyes with her transparent eyes that glittered like dots of moonlight. "You feel elusive as a dream…"

"Hold me tighter then," she said.

He crushed her with all his might and kissed her on her cool lips, and she responded with such unexpected and urgent eagerness that he instantly sprang back: repugnance, loathing and horror made his gore rise.

Stretching languidly and all but purring, she said after a while:

"It's damp here, and I want to eat."

Alexei got up quickly and started for the house. When he heard the swish of her silk skirts behind him, he walked faster and even changed to a run, but Praskovia Pavlovna caught up with him at once, and hung on his arm.

"Alexis, you're such a very difficult person!"

"Look here," he shouted, stopping. "We'd better part, don't you think?"

"No, I don't think so at all," she replied, looking up into his face. "I like being with you."

"But I think you loathsome, can't you understand?" He gave his arm a jerk to break free of her hold and ran, but she clung fast to his hand and flew after him down the path.

"I don't believe you, I don't believe you, you did say yourself that I was your dream…"

"Will you let me be or not?"

"Never, mon cher, not until I die!"

Thus, holding hands, they flew into the house. Alexei collapsed into an easy chair, while she stood before him, fanning herself and looking buoyant.

"I shall have to work very, very hard, my dear, to curb your temper… You are selfish, you know." She folded her fan, perched on the arm of his chair, and said: "Darling, I terribly want something all the time, I don't know if I'm hungry or thirsty… At moments I feel as if cold water was trickling down my body…"

Alexei leapt out of the chair, and gave the beaded tassel of the bell-rope a vigorous tug.

"You'll be brought food, water, anything you want, so don't worry."

Fedosia Ivanovna's soft steps were heard in response to the bell ringing somewhere in the back rooms.

Blocking the half-open door with his body, Alexei asked his aunt to order some food to be brought to the library. Fedosia Ivanovna gave her nephew a strangely searching look, silently pushed him out of her way, walked into the room and saw a skinny-as she afterwards told it-dark-haired woman, not really a woman but a dead moth more like-standing there, twirling her fan, and looking at her piercingly.

Fedosia Ivanovna's mouth fell open and her knees all but gave way.

"Theodosie, don't you know me, ma chere!" asked the dark-haired one in a squeaky voice.

Fedosia Ivanovna felt her legs folding up as she stared at the empty portrait frame on the wall. When Praskovia Pavlovna came a step closer to her, she quickly raised her arm and made the sign of the cross.

"Come, auntie, what's there to be afraid of," said Alexei with something like exasperation. "It's all very simple: this lady is the product of Count Fenix's sorcery, do go and see about the food…"

Wincing as from heartburn, he went to the door opening into the garden and, leaning against the doorframe, gazed at the moonlit lawn. He heard his aunt mumbling a prayer, then dashing off in her Mother Goose waddle, Praskovia Pavlovna snickering spitefully in her wake, and a panicky running-about and whispering starting in the house. He did not look round, though, and gazed miserably at the lighted windows of the guest wing.

The tinkle of glasses and crockery sounded in the room- that was Fimka laying the small table, setting down the plates and dishes and probably casting horrified looks over her shoulder all the time.

Praskovia Pavlovna sat down at the table and asked Fimka:

"Slavewoman, what's in that dish?"

"Mushrooms, mistress."

"I'll have some."

Fimka served the mushrooms and then stood behind her chair, and covered her mouth with her apron. Praskovia Pavlovna ate the mushrooms and ordered Fimka to give her some chicken noodle soup.

"Your serving manners are atrocious," said Praskovia Pavlovna, as, Fimka set down the plate before her. "You may be a village wench, but your serving manners should be genteel."

"I'll try to please, mistress."

"Curtsy when you are speaking to your mistress!" said Praskovia Pavlovna, glaring at the poor girl with her dark eyes. Suddenly she banged her soup spoon on the table. "Curtsy, slavewoman! Bend your right leg… Don't wobble to left or right, keep a straight back… Pick up your skirt… Smile… Sweetly, more sweetly!"

Alexei watched this scene with loathing.

"Leave the girl alone," he said at last. "Fimka, go."

Still holding the soup spoon in her hand, Praskovia Pavlovna looked round at him in amazement, and shrugged a shoulder.

"Alexis, mon cher, I am the mistress here, it's not you who gives the orders. I shall have that wench flogged so she'll be quicker to learn…"

The blood rushed to his head, but he controlled his fury and went out into the garden.

His hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, Alexei walked across the lawn, his hose getting soaked up to the knees in the dew. Schemes, one madder than the other, were born in his head. Escape? Jump into the pond? Kill her? Kill the Count? Kill himself? But these schemes were like sparks that went out at once-he felt that he was doomed, that the cursed creature had him in its web like a spider, and who could tell what other frightening powers it possessed?

"It was all my own, my own doing," he muttered. "I myself wanted my dream, I wanted the fantasy of my sleepless nights to come alive… We built up her body with horrible black magic… The most febrile of imaginations could never have thought up such nastiness…"

He stopped and mopped the cold sweat on his brow. "But what if it's only a bad dream? I'll pinch myself and wake up in my clean bed in the morning… I'll see that pretty little meadow, the white geese, a peasant girl with a rake…"

In utter misery he shook his head and raised his eyes. The moon was high above the garden, its light muted by hazy little clouds. The dismal croaking of the frogs reached him from the river…

Suddenly, the silence of the garden was shattered by Praskovia Pavlovna's thin, shrill voice calling "Alexis! Alexis!" He stamped his foot in annoyance. Going to her in response to her call was out of the question, and running away was shameful. And now he saw three figures coming towards him: Margadon, Cagliostro and Praskovia Pavlovna. She reached him first and cried spitefully:

"I know everything, my good sir! I thought your preoccupied look and your impudent talk was all part of a love game, but now I see that you have another woman on your mind! I won't have another woman anywhere near me, you hear?"