“Oh! I see then—you are quite grown-up.”
She tapped me lightly on the fingers. “Hold your hands straight!” And
she applied herself busily to winding the ball.
I seized the opportunity when she was looking down and fell to watching
her, at first stealthily, then more and more boldly. Her face struck me
as even more charming than on the previous evening; everything in it
was so delicate, clever, and sweet. She was sitting with her back to a
window covered with a white blind, the sunshine, streaming in through
the blind, shed a soft light over her fluffy golden curls, her innocent
neck, her sloping shoulders, and tender untroubled bosom. I gazed at
her, and how dear and near she was already to me! It seemed to me I had
known her a long while and had never known anything nor lived at all
till I met her…. She was wearing a dark and rather shabby dress and an
apron; I would gladly, I felt, have kissed every fold of that dress and
apron. The tips of her little shoes peeped out from under her skirt; I
could have bowed down in adoration to those shoes…. “And here I am
sitting before her,” I thought; “I have made acquaintance with her …
what happiness, my God!” I could hardly keep from jumping up from my
chair in ecstasy, but I only swung my legs a little, like a small child
who has been given sweetmeats.
I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that room
for ever, have never left that place.
Her eyelids were slowly lifted, and once more her clear eyes shone
kindly upon me, and again she smiled.
“How you look at me!” she said slowly, and she held up a threatening
finger.
I blushed … “She understands it all, she sees all,” flashed through my
mind. “And how could she fail to understand and see it all?”
All at once there was a sound in the next room—the clink of a sabre.
“Zina!” screamed the princess in the drawing-room, “Byelovzorov has
brought you a kitten.”
“A kitten!” cried Zinaïda, and getting up from her chair impetuously,
she flung the ball of worsted on my knees and ran away.
I too got up and, laying the skein and the ball of wool on the
window-sill, I went into the drawing-room and stood still, hesitating.
In the middle of the room, a tabby kitten was lying with outstretched
paws; Zinaïda was on her knees before it, cautiously lifting up its
little face. Near the old princess, and filling up almost the whole
space between the two windows, was a flaxen curly-headed young man, a
hussar, with a rosy face and prominent eyes.
“What a funny little thing!” Zinaïda was saying; “and its eyes are not
grey, but green, and what long ears! Thank you, Viktor Yegoritch! you
are very kind.”
The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men I had seen the
evening before, smiled and bowed with a clink of his spurs and a jingle
of the chain of his sabre.
“You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a tabby
kitten with long ears … so I obtained it. Your word is law.” And he
bowed again.
The kitten gave a feeble mew and began sniffing the ground.
“It’s hungry!” cried Zinaïda. “Vonifaty, Sonia! bring some milk.”
A maid, in an old yellow gown with a faded kerchief at her neck, came
in with a saucer of milk and set it before the kitten. The kitten
started, blinked, and began lapping.
“What a pink little tongue it has!” remarked Zinaïda, putting her head
almost on the ground and peeping at it sideways under its very nose.
The kitten having had enough began to purr and move its paws
affectedly. Zinaïda got up, and turning to the maid said carelessly,
“Take it away.”
“For the kitten—your little hand,” said the hussar, with a simper and a
shrug of his strongly-built frame, which was tightly buttoned up in a
new uniform.
“Both,” replied Zinaïda, and she held out her hands to him. While he
was kissing them, she looked at me over his shoulder.
I stood stockstill in the same place and did not know whether to laugh,
to say something, or to be silent. Suddenly through the open door into
the passage I caught sight of our footman, Fyodor. He was making signs
to me. Mechanically I went out to him.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Your mamma has sent for you,” he said in a whisper. “She is angry that
you have not come back with the answer.”
“Why, have I been here long?”
“Over an hour.”
“Over an hour!” I repeated unconsciously, and going back to the
drawing-room I began to make bows and scrape with my heels.
“Where are you off to?” the young princess asked, glancing at me from
behind the hussar.
“I must go home. So I am to say,” I added, addressing the old lady,
“that you will come to us about two.”
“Do you say so, my good sir.”
The princess hurriedly pulled out her snuff-box and took snuff so
loudly that I positively jumped. “Do you say so,” she repeated,
blinking tearfully and sneezing.
I bowed once more, turned, and went out of the room with that sensation
of awkwardness in my spine which a very young man feels when he knows
he is being looked at from behind.
“Mind you come and see us again, M’sieu Voldemar,” Zinaïda called, and
she laughed again.
“Why is it she’s always laughing?” I thought, as I went back home
escorted by Fyodor, who said nothing to me, but walked behind me with
an air of disapprobation. My mother scolded me and wondered what ever I
could have been doing so long at the princess’s. I made her no reply
and went off to my own room. I felt suddenly very sad…. I tried hard
not to cry…. I was jealous of the hussar.
V
The princess called on my mother as she had promised and made a
disagreeable impression on her. I was not present at their interview,
but at table my mother told my father that this Prince Zasyekin struck
her as a _femme très vulgaire_, that she had quite worn her out begging
her to interest Prince Sergei in their behalf, that she seemed to have
no end of lawsuits and affairs on hand—_de vilaines affaires
d’argent_—and must be a very troublesome and litigious person. My
mother added, however, that she had asked her and her daughter to
dinner the next day (hearing the word “daughter” I buried my nose in my
plate), for after all she was a neighbour and a person of title. Upon
this my father informed my mother that he remembered now who this lady
was; that he had in his youth known the deceased Prince Zasyekin, a
very well-bred, but frivolous and absurd person; that he had been
nicknamed in society “_le Parisien_,” from having lived a long while in
Paris; that he had been very rich, but had gambled away all his
property; and for some unknown reason, probably for money, though
indeed he might have chosen better, if so, my father added with a cold
smile, he had married the daughter of an agent, and after his marriage
had entered upon speculations and ruined himself utterly.
“If only she doesn’t try to borrow money,” observed my mother.
“That’s exceedingly possible,” my father responded tranquilly. “Does
she speak French?”
“Very badly.”
“H’m. It’s of no consequence anyway. I think you said you had asked the
daughter too; some one was telling me she was a very charming and
cultivated girl.”
“Ah! Then she can’t take after her mother.”
“Nor her father either,” rejoined my father. “He was cultivated indeed,
but a fool.”
My mother sighed and sank into thought. My father said no more. I felt
very uncomfortable during this conversation.
After dinner I went into the garden, but without my gun. I swore to
myself that I would not go near the Zasyekins’ garden, but an
irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I had hardly
reached the fence when I caught sight of Zinaïda. This time she was
alone. She held a book in her hands, and was coming slowly along the
path. She did not notice me.
I almost let her pass by; but all at once I changed my mind and
coughed.
She turned round, but did not stop, pushed back with one hand the broad
blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled slowly, and
again bent her eyes on the book.
I took off my cap, and after hesitating a moment, walked away with a
heavy heart. “_Que suis-je pour elle?_” I thought (God knows why) in
French.
Familiar footsteps sounded behind me; I looked round, my father came up
to me with his light, rapid walk.
“Is that the young princess?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
“Why, do you know her?”
“I saw her this morning at the princess’s.”
My father stopped, and, turning sharply on his heel, went back. When he
was on a level with Zinaïda, he made her a courteous bow. She, too,
bowed to him, with some astonishment on her face, and dropped her book.
I saw how she looked after him. My father was always irreproachably
dressed, simple and in a style of his own; but his figure had never
struck me as more graceful, never had his grey hat sat more becomingly
on his curls, which were scarcely perceptibly thinner than they had
once been.
I bent my steps toward Zinaïda, but she did not even glance at me; she
picked up her book again and went away.