“Hit me! Try!”
The moment was crucial. On it depended the character of our future
relationship. I waited, but my opponent continued to fix me with the
same scrutinising gaze and did not move.
“I’ll hit--too----” I said, but more peaceably this time.
Meanwhile the little girl, with her tiny hands resting on the floor of
the chapel, was trying to scramble up out of the trap-door. She fell
down, got up again, and at last came tottering with uncertain steps
toward the boy. Having reached him, she seized him and nestled closely
to him, at the same time fixing eyes of wonder and fear upon my face.
This decided the affair. It was obvious that the boy could not fight
under conditions such as these. Of course I was too generous to take
advantage of the awkward situation he was in.
“What’s your name?” asked the boy, stroking the little girl’s fair
curls.
“Vasia. What’s yours?”
“Mine’s Valek. I know you. You live in the garden near the pond. You
have big apples.”
“Yes, our apples are fine. Don’t you want some?”
Taking out of my pocket two apples that had been intended as payment
for my shamefully fugitive band, I gave one to Valek and held out the
other to the little girl. But she only hid her face and pressed closer
to Valek.
“She’s frightened,” he said, and handed the apple to the child himself.
“What did you come down here for?” he asked next. “Did I ever come into
_your_ garden?”
“You can come if you want to. I wish you would!” I answered joyfully.
Valek was taken back.
“I can’t play with you,” he answered sadly.
“Why not?” I asked, deeply grieved by the sorrowful voice in which he
had spoken these words.
“Your father is a judge.”
“Well, what if he is?” I asked with candid amazement. “You’d play with
me, not with my father!”
Valek shook his head.
“Tiburtsi wouldn’t let me.” And as if the name had reminded him of
something, he suddenly recollected himself and went on: “Look here,
you’re a fine boy, but you’d better go. If Tiburtsi should find you
here it would be awful.”
I agreed that it was time for me to go. The last rays of the setting
sun were already fading behind the windows of the chapel, and the town
was some distance away.
“How can I get out of here?”
“I’ll show you. We’ll go out together.”
“And what about her?” I asked, pointing to the little girl.
“What, Marusia? She’ll come with us.”
“How? Through the window?”
Valek reflected a moment.
“I’ll tell you what; I’ll help you to climb through the window and
we’ll go out another way.”
With the help of my new friend I climbed up to the window-sill. Untying
the belt, I slipped it around the sill, seized both ends, and swung
myself into the air. Then, releasing one end, I dropped to the ground
and jerked down the belt. Valek and Marusia were already waiting for me
outside, at the foot of the wall.
The sun had just set behind the hill. The town was sunk in purple mist,
only the tall poplars on the island, stained by the last glow of the
sunset, stood out sharply defined in pure gold. I felt as if I had been
in the old cemetery for a day and a night; it was as if I had come
there the day before.
“It’s lovely here!” I exclaimed, struck by the freshness of the evening
and filling my lungs with the cool, damp air.
“It’s lonely here,” said Valek sadly.
“Do you live here?” I asked, as the three of us began to descend the
hill.
“Yes.”
“Where’s your house?”