II

FOR A LONG while after he had awakened Ordynov could not imagine what the time was. Was it the darkness of dawn or of twilight? How long had he been asleep? In any case his sleep had been of an unhealthy nature. He passed his hand over his face, as though to drive away the phantoms of the night, and tried to rise, but found his limbs refuse their office. Not only was he shivering with cold, but his head was aching badly. Yet with consciousness there was returning also memory, and he shuddered as a sudden flash of recollection recalled to him the whole of the preceding night. So vivid were his impressions of it that he could not believe that several hours had passed between it and the present moment. Surely it had all just happened? Surely Katerina had but this moment left the room? His eyes were wet with tears. Were those marks of emotion the tears of the past terrible night, or were they entirely new tears? Strangest fact of all, his sufferings now seemed to him pleasant, even though he was aware that his enfeebled frame could not support another such ordeal. At one moment, believing himself to be at the point of death (so bewildered was he with his impressions), he felt that death would come as a welcome guest; while, the next moment, rapture filled his soul to such a degree that his very vitality seemed to be bursting from him—his very soul seemed to be on fire, to be ready to break out into flame before expiring for ever!

Suddenly a voice began to sing such harmonies as occur to the soul only in hours of ineffable joy. Close at hand—almost (so it seemed to him) over his head—Katerina’s clear, firm voice was singing a tender, recurrent melody. It rose, it fell, and died away in a plaintive cadence, as though it were consumed with a suppressed, yet insatiable, passion—a passion that was close-locked in the recesses of an amorous heart. Next it rose in trills like those of a nightingale (true symbol of inextinguishable affection), and diffused a sea of melody which had in it all the vitality of love’s young dream. In the song Ordynov could distinguish certain simple, sentimental words which chimed wonderfully with the melody; yet it was not they which touched him, but the music itself. The simple, artless words which Katerina sang he found himself replacing with others which corresponded better to the hidden impulses of his passion—words which were full of her. First the song sounded like the last sob of hopeless passion. Anon it sounded like a cry of joy from a heart which has burst its chains, and is surrendering itself, in free and untrammelled serenity, to a noble devotion. Anon it spoke of the first accents of love, of modesty suffused with virgin blushes, of glittering tears, of timid, mysterious whisperings. Finally it seemed to voice the unsatisfied desire of a proud vestal who, rejoicing in her own strength, and standing unveiled to the light of day, opens to the full eyes which intoxicate the senses.