The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

And she sighs deeply, deeply, from deep down in her breast, and says:

“I’m alive.”

“Well, thank God for that.”

“Only,” she says, “I’ve escaped in order to die here.”

“What are you saying, Grunyushka?” I say. “God help you: why should you die? Let’s go and live a happy life: I’ll work for you, and I’ll set up a special little chamber for you, my dearest orphan, and you’ll live with me like my own sister.”

And she replies:

“No, Ivan Severyanych, no, my gentle one, dear friend of my heart, accept from me, an orphan, my eternal respect for your words, but it’s impossible for me, a bitter Gypsy, to live any longer, because I might destroy an innocent soul.”

“Who are you talking about?” I ask. “Whose soul do you pity so?”

And she replies:

“It’s her, my villain’s young wife, that I pity, because she’s a young soul, not guilty of anything, but even so my jealous heart can’t bear it, and I’ll destroy her and myself.”

“What are you saying? Cross yourself,” I say. “You’re baptized: what will become of your soul?”

“No-o-o,” she says, “I won’t be sorry for my soul, let it go to hell. The hell here is worse!”

I could see that the woman was all upset and in a frenzied state of mind: I took her hands and held them, and I looked closely and marveled at how awfully changed she was. Where had all her beauty gone? There was even no flesh on her, only eyes burning in a dark face, like a wolf’s eyes at night, and they seemed to have grown twice bigger than before, and her womb had swollen, because her term had almost come; her little face was clenched like a fist, and strands of black hair hung on her cheeks. I looked at the dress she was wearing—it was a dark cotton dress, all in tatters, and her feet were bare in her shoes.

“Tell me,” I say, “where have you come here from? Where have you been, and how is it you’re so unsightly?”

And she suddenly smiled and said:

“What? … So I’m not beautiful? … Beautiful! The dear friend of my heart adorned me like this because of my faithful love for him: because I forgot for his sake the one I loved more than him and gave him my all, without mind or reason. For that he hid me away in a sure place and set guards to keep strict watch on my beauty …”

And at that she suddenly burst out laughing and said wrathfully:

“Ah, you fool of a little prince: is a Gypsy girl a young lady to be kept under lock and key? If I like, I’ll throw myself at your young wife right now and bite through her throat.”

I could see she was shaking all over from the torments of jealousy, and I thought: “Let me distract her from it, not by the fear of hell, but by a sweet memory,” and I said:

“But how he loved you! Oh, how he loved you! How he kissed your feet … He used to kneel by the sofa while you sang and kiss your red slipper all over, even on the sole …”

She listened to that, and her black eyelashes moved on her dry cheeks, and, looking into the water, she began in a hollow, quiet voice:

“He loved me, he loved me, the villain, he loved me, he spared nothing, as long as my heart wasn’t his, but when I came to love him—he abandoned me. And for what? … Is she, my interloper, better than I am, or is she going to love him more? … Foolish, foolish man! Winter’s sun gives no heat compared to summer’s, and he’ll never ever see a love to compare with my love for him; you tell him that: So Grusha, dying, foretold for you, and as your fate it will hold true.”

I was glad she had started talking, and I joined in, asking:

“What was it that went on between you and what brought it all about?”

And she clasped her hands and said:

“Ah, nothing brought it about, it all came from betrayal alone … I ceased to please him, that’s the whole reason”—and as she said it, she became tearful. “He had dresses made for me that were to his own taste, but that a pregnant woman has no need of: narrow in the waist. I’d put them on, show him, and he’d get angry and say: ‘Take it off, it doesn’t suit you.’ If I didn’t wear them and showed myself in a loose dress, he’d get twice as upset and say: ‘What a sight you are!’ I understood then that I couldn’t win him back, that I disgusted him …”

And with that she burst into sobs and, looking straight ahead, whispered to herself:

“I’d long been feeling that I was no longer dear to him, but I wanted to try his conscience. I thought: I won’t vex him in anything, I’ll see if he feels pity. And here’s how he pitied me …”

And she told me that her last break with the prince had occurred on account of such a trifle that I didn’t even understand, and don’t understand to this day, why the perfidious man parted with this woman forever.

XVIII