The days passed by. Zinaïda became stranger and stranger, and more and
more incomprehensible. One day I went over to her, and saw her sitting
in a basket-chair, her head pressed to the sharp edge of the table. She
drew herself up … her whole face was wet with tears.
“Ah, you!” she said with a cruel smile. “Come here.”
I went up to her. She put her hand on my head, and suddenly catching
hold of my hair, began pulling it.
“It hurts me,” I said at last.
“Ah! does it? And do you suppose nothing hurts me?” she replied.
“Ai!” she cried suddenly, seeing she had pulled a little tuft of hair
out. “What have I done? Poor M’sieu Voldemar!”
She carefully smoothed the hair she had torn out, stroked it round her
finger, and twisted it into a ring.
“I shall put your hair in a locket and wear it round my neck,” she
said, while the tears still glittered in her eyes. “That will be some
small consolation to you, perhaps … and now good-bye.”
I went home, and found an unpleasant state of things there. My mother
was having a scene with my father; she was reproaching him with
something, while he, as his habit was, maintained a polite and chilly
silence, and soon left her. I could not hear what my mother was talking
of, and indeed I had no thought to spare for the subject; I only
remember that when the interview was over, she sent for me to her room,
and referred with great displeasure to the frequent visits I paid the
princess, who was, in her words, _une femme capable de tout_. I kissed
her hand (this was what I always did when I wanted to cut short a
conversation) and went off to my room. Zinaïda’s tears had completely
overwhelmed me; I positively did not know what to think, and was ready
to cry myself; I was a child after all, in spite of my sixteen years. I
had now given up thinking about Malevsky, though Byelovzorov looked
more and more threatening every day, and glared at the wily count like
a wolf at a sheep; but I thought of nothing and of no one. I was lost
in imaginings, and was always seeking seclusion and solitude. I was
particularly fond of the ruined greenhouse. I would climb up on the
high wall, and perch myself, and sit there, such an unhappy, lonely,
and melancholy youth, that I felt sorry for myself—and how consolatory
were those mournful sensations, how I revelled in them!…
One day I was sitting on the wall looking into the distance and
listening to the ringing of the bells…. Suddenly something floated up
to me—not a breath of wind and not a shiver, but as it were a whiff of
fragrance—as it were, a sense of some one’s being near…. I looked down.
Below, on the path, in a light greyish gown, with a pink parasol on her
shoulder, was Zinaïda, hurrying along. She caught sight of me, stopped,
and pushing back the brim of her straw hat, she raised her velvety eyes
to me.
“What are you doing up there at such a height?” she asked me with a
rather queer smile. “Come,” she went on, “you always declare you love
me; jump down into the road to me if you really do love me.”
Zinaïda had hardly uttered those words when I flew down, just as though
some one had given me a violent push from behind. The wall was about
fourteen feet high. I reached the ground on my feet, but the shock was
so great that I could not keep my footing; I fell down, and for an
instant fainted away. When I came to myself again, without opening my
eyes, I felt Zinaïda beside me. “My dear boy,” she was saying, bending
over me, and there was a note of alarmed tenderness in her voice, “how
could you do it, dear; how could you obey?… You know I love you…. Get
up.”
Her bosom was heaving close to me, her hands were caressing my head,
and suddenly—what were my emotions at that moment—her soft, fresh lips
began covering my face with kisses … they touched my lips…. But then
Zinaïda probably guessed by the expression of my face that I had
regained consciousness, though I still kept my eyes closed, and rising
rapidly to her feet, she said: “Come, get up, naughty boy, silly, why
are you lying in the dust?” I got up. “Give me my parasol,” said
Zinaïda, “I threw it down somewhere, and don’t stare at me like that …
what ridiculous nonsense! you’re not hurt, are you? stung by the
nettles, I daresay? Don’t stare at me, I tell you…. But he doesn’t
understand, he doesn’t answer,” she added, as though to herself…. “Go
home, M’sieu’ Voldemar, brush yourself, and don’t dare to follow me, or
I shall be angry, and never again …”
She did not finish her sentence, but walked rapidly away, while I sat
down by the side of the road … my legs would not support me. The
nettles had stung my hands, my back ached, and my head was giddy; but
the feeling of rapture I experienced then has never come a second time
in my life. It turned to a sweet ache in all my limbs and found
expression at last in joyful hops and skips and shouts. Yes, I was
still a child.