“Why do you ask?” she whispered.
“What?” said I. (I am slightly deaf, as you know.)
She waited, and I, being timid, added, “After all, we are ‘allies’ in a
sort of way....”
She repeated softly: “Why do you ask?”
She had soft, warm lips; I held my breath back; it was long before I
released it; and I wasn’t thinking of the night. “My hand----”
Vera Solomonovna became fidgety with excitement. “Lyova! Lyova!” she
cried out; and when Finkelstein appeared, she said, “Come here, all of
you. Boris Nikolàech is telling of a romantic episode from his life.
It’s most attractive, I assure you, most _piquant_.”
Finkelstein and his stock-exchange associates, abandoning their game of
cards, sauntered into the drawing-room, and, still smoking, sank into
chairs and stretched out their legs, ready to listen.
“Well, go on,” said Vera Solomonovna.
“My hand, I think I said, was round her waist----”
“Whose waist?” said Finkelstein.
“Zina’s,” explained his wife.
“Who’s Zina, anyhow?”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. Go on, Boris Nikolàech.”
“My hand was round her waist. She pressed it to her bosom. I looked
round. There was not a soul around, not a sound abroad but for the waves
that broke on the sea shore. Dark clouds ran swiftly across the sky.
“Let us go there,” she said, pointing to the wood. We made our way
across the shrubbery. I held her in my arms; she began to breathe in a
queer, panting way.
“What is it?” I asked ignorantly.
“It’s ... good,” she whispered.
The moon showed between the tall trees; in a few yards’ distance the sea
roared before us. Then a big, heavy drop of rain fell on my face--it was
warm; and then another.
I sat on the moss, dazed, completely overtaken by the wonder of it all.
Suddenly, I heard the rustle of her movements; she had disappeared
behind a bush.
“What are you doing?”
There was no answer. I was rather shy about it all, for I was only
seventeen. “Don’t!”
She stood behind a shrub and I could hear the rustle of the twigs, the
rustle of silk linen, the hollow sound of press-studs. “Don’t,” I said.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“But why? Why?” I said confusedly. “I don’t want to.”
Unveiled, she stood behind me. The big pale moon looked down upon her,
but she didn’t mind it. The dark blue wood leered from behind at her;
and the roaring sea rushed to her--and receded, rushed and receded. Drop
after drop, at long interval, the soft warm rain fell from the dark
gathering clouds. “I want, I want you to remember me,” she said softly,
“_always_, and now you can’t forget ... that the first woman you have
ever seen like that ... was _me_.” Then she crouched to the ground. She
began to sob and laugh at the same time. “What am I doing? Oh, I’m mad,
mad.... I couldn’t help it. I’ve been reading--all day long I’ve been
reading ... such a wicked book. It was awful, unbearable. These silly
people on the veranda talked such nonsense, but it wouldn’t have really
mattered what they’d said; I would’ve disagreed with them all the same.
I couldn’t bear it any longer. And then I felt I wanted--I wanted to do
as she, the woman in the book, had done to him. Besides,” she added,
“you really are rather attractive, aren’t you? Oh, do you think it’s
going to rain properly? It didn’t in the book.”
The Lieutenant ceased.
“Well?” we said. “Go on.”
“That’s all,” said the Lieutenant.
“But what happened afterwards?” asked Vera Solomonovna.
“Nothing happened.”
“But _how_?” she said in a tone as though she had been wronged.
“Well, that’s all there is to tell.”
“But--it’s no proper story even.”
“I can’t help that,” he answered almost angrily. “This is what happened,
and this is where it ended. I can’t falsify the facts to suit your
taste. We don’t, my dear Vera Solomonovna, live our lives to provide
plots for stories.”
“Well, I _am_ disappointed in you, Boris Nikolàech. Really! To begin so
well, so fascinatingly, and then, suddenly, to break off ... so
shamelessly! Well, really, you’re just like a boy of twelve. You have no
sense of proportion, Boris Nikolàech. None whatever! The whole thing,
as it stands, is silly....”
“You are a hopeless washout!” Finkelstein was teasing him. “Miss your
opportunity like that! My goodness! And call yourself a Don Juan at
that!”
“If that’s the end of it,” said Vera Solomonovna, “there was no need to
tell the story. You had no business to begin, Boris Nikolàech. It’s
simply disappointing.”
“Well,” said Lieutenant Barahmeiev, who seemed hurt, “if it comes to
disappointment, I think I have been disappointed more than anyone.”
“The more fool you,” said Finkelstein.
“Nothing to do with me. Didn’t I tell you it was raining?”
“Raining?”
“Pouring! It came on suddenly, burst upon us through the sky. A flood.
The revenge of heaven on us.”
“But what’s the point of your story, anyhow?” asked Finkelstein.
“The point?”
“Yes, the moral? Why have you been telling it?”
“Oh, well, I told it to Vera Solomonovna by way of illustrating the
psychology of women, because, like Zina, she affects derision of human
passion, calls my amorous advances ‘idiotic’; but just you wait and
before the day is up---- There you are!”
Vera Solomonovna rose and left the room in protest.
“There,” said Finkelstein, “you’ve disgusted Vera.”
“Disgusted her! Ha! ha! Don’t you believe it. Bluff! my dear fellow. All
bluff. You don’t know women.”
“You’re a funny fellow, Boris Nikolàech. One can’t say you’re altogether
stupid, but there are things you simply cannot understand. Impossible to
penetrate yon marble brow of yours; it’s just like throwing a rubber
ball at a stone wall: jumps back at you every time. And you don’t know
women. To take my wife, for instance. She’s had enough of you already;
she’s gone back to her bedroom in disgust.”
“To _her_ bedroom?” questioned the Lieutenant in a derisive tone of
voice.
“You don’t expect her to go to yours, do you!”
“Why.... Oh, well, really, my dear fellow, I can see that you don’t know
women--although you’ve got a wife. Believe me, I know a thing or two
about them. Wasn’t born yesterday. Disgusted! Ha, ha, ha! You wait till
I finish my cigarette and retire to my bedroom. You may be sure
she’s----”
“Boris Nikolàech,” said Finkelstein, looking at him tranquilly through
the smoke from his cigar, “you are an optimist.”
And, looking dignified and prepossessing, he sauntered over to his study
where his stock-exchange associates were already waiting for him to
resume their game of cards.
“Just a moment ...” muttered the Lieutenant, “ ...finish my
cigarette....”