The sun had come out from behind the pear-tree that had shaded the
wagon, and even through the branches that Ústenka had fixed up it
scorched the faces of the sleeping girls. Maryánka woke up and began
arranging the kerchief on her head. Looking about her, beyond the
pear-tree she noticed their lodger, who with his gun on his shoulder
stood talking to her father. She nudged Ústenka and smilingly pointed
him out to her.
“I went yesterday and didn’t find a single one,” Olénin was saying as
he looked about uneasily, not seeing Maryánka through the branches.
“Ah, you should go out there in that direction, go right as by
compasses, there in a disused vineyard denominated as the Waste, hares
are always to be found,” said the cornet, having at once changed his
manner of speech.
“A fine thing to go looking for hares in these busy times! You had
better come and help us, and do some work with the girls,” the old
woman said merrily. “Now then, girls, up with you!” she cried.
Maryánka and Ústenka under the cart were whispering and could hardly
restrain their laughter.
Since it had become known that Olénin had given a horse worth fifty
rubles to Lukáshka, his hosts had become more amiable and the cornet in
particular saw with pleasure his daughter’s growing intimacy with
Olénin.
“But I don’t know how to do the work,” replied Olénin, trying not to
look through the green branches under the wagon where he had now
noticed Maryánka’s blue smock and red kerchief.
“Come, I’ll give you some peaches,” said the old woman.
“It’s only according to the ancient Cossack hospitality. It’s her old
woman’s silliness,” said the cornet, explaining and apparently
correcting his wife’s words. “In Russia, I expect, it’s not so much
peaches as pineapple jam and preserves you have been accustomed to eat
at your pleasure.”
“So you say hares are to be found in the disused vineyard?” asked
Olénin. “I will go there,” and throwing a hasty glance through the
green branches he raised his cap and disappeared between the regular
rows of green vines.
The sun had already sunk behind the fence of the vineyards, and its
broken rays glittered through the translucent leaves when Olénin
returned to his host’s vineyard. The wind was falling and a cool
freshness was beginning to spread around. By some instinct Olénin
recognized from afar Maryánka’s blue smock among the rows of vine, and,
picking grapes on his way, he approached her. His highly excited dog
also now and then seized a low-hanging cluster of grapes in his
slobbering mouth. Maryánka, her face flushed, her sleeves rolled up,
and her kerchief down below her chin, was rapidly cutting the heavy
clusters and laying them in a basket. Without letting go of the vine
she had hold of, she stopped to smile pleasantly at him and resumed her
work. Olénin drew near and threw his gun behind his back to have his
hands free. “Where are your people? May God aid you! Are you alone?” he
meant to say but did not say, and only raised his cap in silence.
He was ill at ease alone with Maryánka, but as if purposely to torment
himself he went up to her.
“You’ll be shooting the women with your gun like that,” said Maryánka.
“No, I shan’t shoot them.”
They were both silent.
Then after a pause she said: “You should help me.”
He took out his knife and began silently to cut off the clusters. He
reached from under the leaves low down a thick bunch weighing about
three pounds, the grapes of which grew so close that they flattened
each other for want of space. He showed it to Maryánka.
“Must they all be cut? Isn’t this one too green?”
“Give it here.”
Their hands touched. Olénin took her hand, and she looked at him
smiling.
“Are you going to be married soon?” he asked.
She did not answer, but turned away with a stern look.
“Do you love Lukáshka?”
“What’s that to you?”
“I envy him!”
“Very likely!”
“No really. You are so beautiful!”
And he suddenly felt terribly ashamed of having said it, so commonplace
did the words seem to him. He flushed, lost control of himself, and
seized both her hands.
“Whatever I am, I’m not for you. Why do you make fun of me?” replied
Maryánka, but her look showed how certainly she knew he was not making
fun.
“Making fun? If you only knew how I—”
The words sounded still more commonplace, they accorded still less with
what he felt, but yet he continued, “I don’t know what I would not do
for you—”
“Leave me alone, you pitch!”
But her face, her shining eyes, her swelling bosom, her shapely legs,
said something quite different. It seemed to him that she understood
how petty were all things he had said, but that she was superior to
such considerations. It seemed to him she had long known all he wished
and was not able to tell her, but wanted to hear how he would say it.
“And how can she help knowing,” he thought, “since I only want to tell
her all that she herself is? But she does not wish to understand, does
not wish to reply.”
“Hullo!” suddenly came Ústenka’s high voice from behind the vine at no
great distance, followed by her shrill laugh. “Come and help me, Dmítri
Andréich. I am all alone,” she cried, thrusting her round, naïve little
face through the vines.
Olénin did not answer nor move from his place.
Maryánka went on cutting and continually looked up at Olénin. He was
about to say something, but stopped, shrugged his shoulders and, having
jerked up his gun, walked out of the vineyard with rapid strides.