A fortnight elapsed after these events. I went every day to make Gaguine
a visit. Annouchka seemed to shun me, and no longer indulged in those
head-shakings that had annoyed me so much in the first days of our
acquaintance. She seemed to conceal a grief or a secret trouble; she
laughed more rarely. I continued to observe her with curiosity.
French and German were quite familiar to her, but a number of things
made me divine that she had been without a woman's care in her infancy,
that she had received a strange, desultory education, quite different
from that of Gaguine. In him, in spite of his blouse and Van Dyck hat,
you quickly discovered the Russian gentleman, nonchalant and slightly
effeminate; she in no wise resembled a noble lady. All her movements
implied a kind of restlessness; she was a seedling newly grafted, a wine
that yet fermented. Naturally timid and distrustful of herself, she was
vexed at feeling _gauche_, and sought in spite of it to give herself an
unconstrained and bold manner, but not always with success. Several
times I led the conversation to her past, and her way of living in
Russia; I saw that she replied with a bad grace to my questions. All
that I could learn was that at the time she left Russia she was living
in the country. One day I found her alone and reading; her head leaning
on her hands, her fingers thrust in her hair, she was devouring the book
before her with her eyes.
"Bravo!" I cried, approaching. "What, a love of study?"
She raised her head, and, looking at me with a serious and dignified
air, "You thought, then, I could do nothing but laugh?" she said, and
she rose to leave.