“That is my second terrible sin. I was silent, and did not tell you to beware of the precipice. Your dead Mother will call me to account for my failure, I know. She comes to me in my dreams, and is now here between us. Do you also forgive me, Departed One,” she cried wildly, stretching out her arms in supplication.
“Forgive me, Vera. I ask forgiveness of you both. We will pray.”
Vera tried to raise her to her feet, and Tatiana Markovna raised herself with difficulty, and sat down on the divan.
Vera bathed her temples with eau de Cologne, and gave her a sedative; then she kneeled down before her and covered her hand with kisses.
“What is hidden must be revealed,” began Tatiana Markovna, when she had recovered a little. “For forty-five years only two human beings beside myself have known it, _he_ and Vassilissa, and I thought the secret would die with me. And now it is made public. My God!” she cried, wildly, stretching her folded arms to the picture of the Christ. “Had I known that this stroke would ever fall on another, on _my_ child, I would have confessed my sin there and then to the all world in the Cathedral square.”
Vera still hesitated to believe what she heard. Was it a heroic measure, a generous invention to rescue and restore her own self-respect? But her aunt’s prayers, her tears, her appeal to Vera’s dead mother, no actress would have dared to use such devices, and her aunt was the soul of truth and honour.
Warm life pulsed in Vera’s heart, and her heart was lightened. She felt as if life was streaming through her veins after an evil dream. Peace tapped at the door of her soul, the dark forsaken temple, which was now gaily lighted once more and a home of prayer. She felt that Tatiana Markovna and she were inseparable sisters, and she even began involuntarily to address her as “thou,” as she had done Raisky when her heart responded to his kindness. As these thoughts whirled in her head, she had a sensation of lightness and freedom, like a prisoner whose fetters have been removed.
“Grandmother,” she said, rising, “you have forgiven me, and you love me more than you do any of the others, more than Marfinka, that I realise. But do you know and understand my love for you? I should not have suffered as I did, but for my love for you. How long we have been strangers!”