The days passed by. Zinaída grew more and more strange, more and more
incomprehensible. One day I entered her house and found her sitting on a
straw-bottomed chair, with her head pressed against the sharp edge of a
table. She straightened up ... her face was again all bathed in tears.
“Ah! It’s you!”--she said, with a harsh grimace.--“Come hither.”
I went up to her: she laid her hand on my head and, suddenly seizing me
by the hair, began to pull it.
“It hurts” ... I said at last.
“Ah! It hurts! And doesn’t it hurt me? Doesn’t it hurt me?”--she
repeated.
“Aï!”--she suddenly cried, perceiving that she had pulled out a small
tuft of my hair.--“What have I done? Poor M’sieu Voldemar!” She
carefully straightened out the hairs she had plucked out, wound them
round her finger, and twisted them into a ring.
“I will put your hair in my locket and wear it,”--she said, and tears
glistened in her eyes.--“Perhaps that will comfort you a little ... but
now, good-bye.”
I returned home and found an unpleasant state of things there. A scene
was in progress between my father and my mother; she was upbraiding him
for something or other, while he, according to his wont, was maintaining
a cold, polite silence--and speedily went away. I could not hear what my
mother was talking about, neither did I care to know: I remember only,
that, at the conclusion of the scene, she ordered me to be called to her
boudoir, and expressed herself with great dissatisfaction about my
frequent visits at the house of the old Princess, who was, according to
her assertions, _une femme capable de tout_. I kissed her hand (I always
did that when I wanted to put an end to the conversation), and went off
to my own room. Zinaída’s tears had completely discomfited me; I
positively did not know what to think, and was ready to cry myself: I
was still a child, in spite of my sixteen years. I thought no more of
Malévsky, although Byelovzóroff became more and more menacing every day,
and glared at the shifty Count like a wolf at a sheep; but I was not
thinking of anything or of anybody. I lost myself in conjectures and
kept seeking isolated spots. I took a special fancy to the ruins of the
hothouse. I could clamber up on the high wall, seat myself, and sit
there such an unhappy, lonely, and sad youth that I felt sorry for
myself--and how delightful those mournful sensations were, how I gloated
over them!...
One day, I was sitting thus on the wall, gazing off into the distance
and listening to the chiming of the bells ... when suddenly something
ran over me--not a breeze exactly, not a shiver, but something
resembling a breath, the consciousness of some one’s proximity.... I
dropped my eyes. Below me, in a light grey gown, with a pink parasol on
her shoulder, Zinaída was walking hastily along the road. She saw me,
halted, and, pushing up the brim of her straw hat, raised her velvety
eyes to mine.
“What are you doing there, on such a height?”--she asked me, with a
strange sort of smile.--“There now,”--she went on,--“you are always
declaring that you love me--jump down to me here on the road if you
really do love me.”
Before the words were well out of Zinaída’s mouth I had flown down,
exactly as though some one had given me a push from behind. The wall was
about two fathoms high. I landed on the ground with my feet, but the
shock was so violent that I could not retain my balance; I fell, and
lost consciousness for a moment. When I came to myself I felt, without
opening my eyes, that Zinaída was by my side.--“My dear boy,”--she was
saying, as she bent over me--and tender anxiety was audible in her
voice--“how couldst thou do that, how couldst thou obey?... I love thee
... rise.”
Her breast was heaving beside me, her hands were touching my head, and
suddenly--what were my sensations then!--her soft, fresh lips began to
cover my whole face with kisses ... they touched my lips.... But at this
point Zinaída probably divined from the expression of my face that I had
already recovered consciousness, although I still did not open my
eyes--and swiftly rising to her feet, she said:--“Come, get up, you
rogue, you foolish fellow! Why do you lie there in the dust?”--I got up.
“Give me my parasol,”--said Zinaída.--“I have thrown it somewhere; and
don’t look at me like that what nonsense is this? You are hurt? You have
burned yourself with the nettles, I suppose. Don’t look at me like that,
I tell you.... Why, he understands nothing, he doesn’t answer me,”--she
added, as though speaking to herself.... “Go home, M’sieu Voldemar,
brush yourself off, and don’t dare to follow me--if you do I shall be
very angry, and I shall never again....”
She did not finish her speech and walked briskly away, while I sat down
by the roadside ... my legs would not support me. The nettles had stung
my hands, my back ached, and my head was reeling; but the sensation of
beatitude which I then experienced has never since been repeated in my
life. It hung like a sweet pain in all my limbs and broke out at last in
rapturous leaps and exclamations. As a matter of fact, I was still a
child.