Alexei Tolstoy - Cagliostro

When everyone had gone, Alexei started calling Maria, first softly, and then in an ever louder voice, more and more tinged with fear. She did not respond. He then ran round the pond, jumped into an old boat he found there and poled himself across to the island. Maria was lying on the wooden floor of the folly. Alexei put his arms round her, raised her up, held close her helplessly drooping head, and kissed her face, all but weeping from love and pity for her. At last he felt her body growing lighter, she raised her head and cushioned it snugly on his chest. And without opening her eyes she whispered:

"Do not desert me."

The fire was put out. Only the library had suffered: fire and water had ruined a great number of books and things in it, and nothing remained of the canvas on which Praskovia Pavlovna's portrait had been painted.

At daybreak, a cart was brought to the front porch, and on the fresh hay it was carpeted with the servants placed the luggage of the guests and then seated Margadon who was in a very bad way: his face was quite ashen, his mouth hung open, and he had two shawls wound round his head. The people crowding round the cart and standing at the porch felt sorry for the poor old chap-he was another servant, after all, he had come to grief through no fault of his own. The dairy woman gave him a baked egg to eat on the way. But then when Cagliostro was brought out of the house, still bound with ropes, wearing his wig, stuck lopsidedly on his head, his hat with the now tousled feathers, and his fur-lined greatcoat flung over his nightgown, the youngsters began to whistle, the women to spit, and Spiridon, a purblind peasant-hatless, barefoot, his coat unbelted-who had bustled more than anyone else all night for the master to notice, sprang at Cagliostro, swung out an arm to give him a good cuff, but was pulled back in time. Cagliostro got into the cart unaided, his bushy eyebrows hooding his eyes. A fat-faced young chap, famed in the village for his strength and his recklessness, jumped cheerfully on to the driver's seat, wound the rope reins round his wrist, the old grey mare pushed her head into the horse-collar, and the cart moved off to the accompaniment of the servants' whistling and whooping.

"Fedka," Alexei shouted to the driver from the front porch, "take them straight to Smolensk, and there hand them over to the police."

"I sure will!" Fedka shouted back. "I'll hand them over all in one piece, it's not the first time."

After her fainting fit in the folly, Maria was barely able to walk back to the house. She was put to bed in the bedroom kept for especially honoured guests. The drapes were drawn across the windows, the bed-curtain was folded back, and she fell asleep. She slept till noon. Fedosia Ivanovna, who came up to the door every now and again, heard her muttering, so she went in and found Maria lying in bed with her eyes closed, bright-red spots on her cheeks, and muttering something without a pause in a low voice. The illness kept her hovering between life and death for a whole month.

Alexei almost went out of his mind with fright, and that same day he galloped off to Smolensk to fetch a doctor. On the way back he learnt from this doctor that two foreigners had been brought to the police in a cart; first thing they were arrested, and then despatched on the way to Warsaw with great pomp and ceremony.

After examining Maria, the doctor said that it would be one of two things: either the fever would defeat the patient, or the patient would get the better of the fever.

Alexei stayed at Maria's bedside all the time now; at night he dozed in an easy chair beside the window; he hardly ate at all, he grew terribly thin-his face became manlier, his eyes limpid, and a white strand appeared in his chestnut hair.

Once, towards evening, he was dozing in his easy chair. Through the peach-coloured curtains the sun had stretched its long rays into the room with motes of dust dancing in them, and a sleepy fly was beating against the window-pane. Ungluing his eyelids with an effort, he glanced now at the motes, now at the fly. The clock on the mantelpiece calmly ticked off the minutes of life. And suddenly, through his drowsiness, Alexei became aware of some change in everything, he shifted round in his chair, looked at the bed and saw that Maria's blue eyes were wide open. She was looking at him and wrinkling up her face very comically from amazement and the effort to remember. He fell on his knees beside the bed.

"Please tell me where am I and who are you?" she asked. Too overcome to utter a word, Alexei gently took her hand and pressed his lips to it. "I've been watching you dozing for a long time," Maria continued. "You had such a sad face, like someone near and dear to me," she wrinkled up her face again, and gave up trying to remember. "Now, if you opened the window it would be very nice."

Alexei pulled apart the curtains, opened the window, and the merry whistling and singing of birds poured into the bedroom together with the warm and scented air. Colour appeared in Maria's cheeks. She listened to the jolly sounds with a smile, and then she heard a late cuckoo calling three times. Tears rose to her eyes. Alexei bent over her and she whispered:

"Thank you for everything…"

Soon she fell fast asleep and slept for a long time. Her convalescence began, and Alexei could no longer spend the nights in her bedroom.

Fedosia Ivanovna alone clearly understood the situation which Maria's recovery had brought about. She and Alexei could not stay apart for a minute, but when they were together neither said a word: Maria brooded, and Alexei frowned, bit his lips, and stood or sat in the most uncomfortable attitudes imaginable.

Once his aunt broached the subject with him.

"Forgive me for being indiscreet, Alexis, but just what are your plans for Maria? Are you going to send her back to her husband, or what?"

Alexei cried furiously:

"Maria is no wife to her husband. Her home is here. And if she doesn't want to see me, I can go away, I can join the army and let the bullets find their mark!"

His nights were wretched: he had terrible nightmares, they strangled him, they choked the breath out of his body. He got up in the morning feeling all done in and until Maria awakened he wandered sullenly about the house, but the moment he heard her voice his bad mood evaporated, he hurried to her and gazed at her with tortured, sunken eyes.

It was August now. Myriads of stars came out and glimmered in the ponds, while the Milky Way appeared as a pale, hazy cloud. The smell of damp leaves came from the garden. Gone were the birds.

On one such night, Alexei and Maria were sitting in her bedroom in front of the fireplace, gazing at the little lights that ran up and down the smouldering log. And suddenly, in the semi-darkness, a shadow appeared from the draped alcove at the far end of the room. Startled, Alexei peered hard at the shadow. Maria also raised her head. Slowly, the shadow vanished. A minute of dead silence passed. Maria threw her arms round Alexei, pressed close to him and repeated in a desperate voice:

"You're mine… You're mine…"

In that minute, all the obstacles to their love-imaginary, complex, and insurmountable-dissipated like smoke, blown away by the wind. There were only lips, pressed to lips, eyes gazing into eyes, the happiness of love, perhaps short-lived, perhaps sad-who could measure it?