I was in the habit of wandering about our garden every evening on the
look-out for rooks. I had long cherished a hatred for those wary, sly,
and rapacious birds. On the day of which I have been speaking, I went
as usual into the garden, and after patrolling all the walks without
success (the rooks knew me, and merely cawed spasmodically at a
distance), I chanced to go close to the low fence which separated our
domain from the narrow strip of garden stretching beyond the lodge to
the right, and belonging to it. I was walking along, my eyes on the
ground. Suddenly I heard a voice; I looked across the fence, and was
thunder-struck…. I was confronted with a curious spectacle.
A few paces from me on the grass between the green raspberry bushes
stood a tall slender girl in a striped pink dress, with a white
kerchief on her head; four young men were close round her, and she was
slapping them by turns on the forehead with those small grey flowers,
the name of which I don’t know, though they are well known to children;
the flowers form little bags, and burst open with a pop when you strike
them against anything hard. The young men presented their foreheads so
eagerly, and in the gestures of the girl (I saw her in profile), there
was something so fascinating, imperious, caressing, mocking, and
charming, that I almost cried out with admiration and delight, and
would, I thought, have given everything in the world on the spot only
to have had those exquisite fingers strike me on the forehead. My gun
slipped on to the grass, I forgot everything, I devoured with my eyes
the graceful shape and neck and lovely arms and the slightly disordered
fair hair under the white kerchief, and the half-closed clever eye, and
the eyelashes and the soft cheek beneath them….
“Young man, hey, young man,” said a voice suddenly near me: “is it
quite permissible to stare so at unknown young ladies?”
I started, I was struck dumb…. Near me, the other side of the fence,
stood a man with close-cropped black hair, looking ironically at me. At
the same instant the girl too turned towards me…. I caught sight of big
grey eyes in a bright mobile face, and the whole face suddenly quivered
and laughed, there was a flash of white teeth, a droll lifting of the
eyebrows…. I crimsoned, picked up my gun from the ground, and pursued
by a musical but not ill-natured laugh, fled to my own room, flung
myself on the bed, and hid my face in my hands. My heart was fairly
leaping; I was greatly ashamed and overjoyed; I felt an excitement I
had never known before.
After a rest, I brushed my hair, washed, and went downstairs to tea.
The image of the young girl floated before me, my heart was no longer
leaping, but was full of a sort of sweet oppression.
“What’s the matter?” my father asked me all at once: “have you killed a
rook?”
I was on the point of telling him all about it, but I checked myself,
and merely smiled to myself. As I was going to bed, I rotated—I don’t
know why—three times on one leg, pomaded my hair, got into bed, and
slept like a top all night. Before morning I woke up for an instant,
raised my head, looked round me in ecstasy, and fell asleep again.