Torrents of Spring — Chapters XLIII-XLIV

XLIII

This was what Dimitri Sanin remembered when in the stillness of his room turning over his old papers he found among them a garnet cross.

The events we have described rose clearly and consecutively before his mental vision….

But when he reached the moment when he addressed that humiliating prayer to Madame Polozov, when he grovelled at her feet, when his slavery began, he averted his gaze from the images he had evoked, he tried to recall no more.

And not that his memory failed him, oh no!

he knew only too well what followed upon that moment, but he was stifled by shame, even now, so many years after; he dreaded that feeling of self-contempt, which he knew for certain would overwhelm him, and like a torrent, flood all other feelings if he did not bid his memory be still.

But try as he would to turn away from these memories, he could not stifle them entirely.

He remembered the scoundrelly, tearful, lying, pitiful letter he had sent to Gemma, that never received an answer….

See her again, go back to her, after such falsehood, such treachery, no!

no!

he could not, so much conscience and honesty was left in him.

Moreover, he had lost every trace of confidence in himself, every atom of self-respect; he dared not rely on himself for anything.

Sanin recollected too how he had later on—oh, ignominy!

—sent the Polozovs’ footman to Frankfort for his things, what cowardly terror he had felt, how he had had one thought only, to get away as soon as might be to Paris—to Paris; how in obedience to Maria Nikolaevna, he had humoured and tried to please Ippolit Sidoritch and been amiable to Dönhof, on whose finger he noticed just such an iron ring as Maria Nikolaevna had given him!!!

Then followed memories still worse, more ignominious … the waiter hands him a visiting card, and on it is the name, “Pantaleone Cippatola, court singer to His Highness the Duke of Modena!

” He hides from the old man, but cannot escape meeting him in the corridor, and a face of exasperation rises before him under an upstanding topknot of grey hair; the old eyes blaze like red-hot coals, and he hears menacing cries and curses: “_Maledizione!

_” hears even the terrible words: “_Codardo!

Infame traditore!

_” Sanin closes his eyes, shakes his head, turns away again and again, but still he sees himself sitting in a travelling carriage on the narrow front seat … In the comfortable places facing the horses sit Maria Nikolaevna and Ippolit Sidoritch, the four horses trotting all together fly along the paved roads of Wiesbaden to Paris!

to Paris!

Ippolit Sidoritch is eating a pear which Sanin has peeled for him, while Maria Nikolaevna watches him and smiles at him, her bondslave, that smile he knows already, the smile of the proprietor, the slave-owner….

But, good God, out there at the corner of the street not far from the city walls, wasn’t it Pantaleone again, and who with him?

Can it be Emilio?

Yes, it was he, the enthusiastic devoted boy!

Not long since his young face had been full of reverence before his hero, his ideal, but now his pale handsome face, so handsome that Maria Nikolaevna noticed him and poked her head out of the carriage window, that noble face is glowing with anger and contempt; his eyes, so like _her_ eyes!

are fastened upon Sanin, and the tightly compressed lips part to revile him….

And Pantaleone stretches out his hand and points Sanin out to Tartaglia standing near, and Tartaglia barks at Sanin, and the very bark of the faithful dog sounds like an unbearable reproach….

Hideous!

And then, the life in Paris, and all the humiliations, all the loathsome tortures of the slave, who dare not be jealous or complain, and who is cast aside at last, like a worn-out garment….

Then the going home to his own country, the poisoned, the devastated life, the petty interests and petty cares, bitter and fruitless regret, and as bitter and fruitless apathy, a punishment not apparent, but of every minute, continuous, like some trivial but incurable disease, the payment farthing by farthing of the debt, which can never be settled….

The cup was full enough.

How had the garnet cross given Sanin by Gemma existed till now, why had he not sent it back, how had it happened that he had never come across it till that day?

A long, long while he sat deep in thought, and taught as he was by the experience of so many years, he still could not comprehend how he could have deserted Gemma, so tenderly and passionately loved, for a woman he did not love at all….

Next day he surprised all his friends and acquaintances by announcing that he was going abroad.

The surprise was general in society.

Sanin was leaving Petersburg, in the middle of the winter, after having only just taken and furnished a capital flat, and having even secured seats for all the performances of the Italian Opera, in which Madame Patti … Patti, herself, herself, was to take part!

His friends and acquaintances wondered; but it is not human nature as a rule to be interested long in other people’s affairs, and when Sanin set off for abroad, none came to the railway station to see him off but a French tailor, and he only in the hope of securing an unpaid account “_pour un saute-en-barque en velours noir tout à fait chic_.

” XLIV

Sanin told his friends he was going abroad, but he did not say where exactly: the reader will readily conjecture that he made straight for Frankfort.

Thanks to the general extension of railways, on the fourth day after leaving Petersburg he was there.

He had not visited the place since 1840. The hotel, the White Swan, was standing in its old place and still flourishing, though no longer regarded as first class.

The _Zeile_, the principal street of Frankfort was little changed, but there was not only no trace of Signora Roselli’s house, the very street in which it stood had disappeared.

Sanin wandered like a man in a dream about the places once so familiar, and recognised nothing; the old buildings had vanished; they were replaced by new streets of huge continuous houses and fine villas; even the public garden, where that last interview with Gemma had taken place, had so grown up and altered that Sanin wondered if it really were the same garden.

What was he to do?

How and where could he get information?

Thirty years, no little thing!

had passed since those days.

No one to whom he applied had even heard of the name Roselli; the hotel-keeper advised him to have recourse to the public library, there, he told him, he would find all the old newspapers, but what good he would get from that, the hotel-keeper owned he didn’t see.

Sanin in despair made inquiries about Herr Klüber.

That name the hotel-keeper knew well, but there too no success awaited him.

The elegant shop-manager, after making much noise in the world and rising to the position of a capitalist, had speculated, was made bankrupt, and died in prison….

This piece of news did not, however, occasion Sanin the slightest regret.

He was beginning to feel that his journey had been rather precipitate….

But, behold, one day, as he was turning over a Frankfort directory, he came on the name: Von Dönhof, retired major.

He promptly took a carriage and drove to the address, though why was this Von Dönhof certain to be that Dönhof, and why even was the right Dönhof likely to be able to tell him any news of the Roselli family?

No matter, a drowning man catches at straws.

Sanin found the retired major von Dönhof at home, and in the grey-haired gentleman who received him he recognised at once his adversary of bygone days.

Dönhof knew him too, and was positively delighted to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the escapades of his youth.

Sanin heard from him that the Roselli family had long, long ago emigrated to America, to New York; that Gemma had married a merchant; that he, Dönhof, had an acquaintance also a merchant, who would probably know her husband’s address, as he did a great deal of business with America.

Sanin begged Dönhof to consult this friend, and, to his delight, Dönhof brought him the address of Gemma’s husband, Mr. Jeremy Slocum, New York, Broadway, No. 501. Only this address dated from the year 1863. “Let us hope,” cried Dönhof, “that our Frankfort belle is still alive and has not left New York!

By the way,” he added, dropping his voice, “what about that Russian lady, who was staying, do you remember, about that time at Wiesbaden—Madame von Bo … von Bolozov, is she still living?

” “No,” answered Sanin, “she died long ago.

” Dönhof looked up, but observing that Sanin had turned away and was frowning, he did not say another word, but took his leave.

That same day Sanin sent a letter to Madame Gemma Slocum, at New York.

In the letter he told her he was writing to her from Frankfort, where he had come solely with the object of finding traces of her, that he was very well aware that he was absolutely without a right to expect that she would answer his appeal; that he had not deserved her forgiveness, and could only hope that among happy surroundings she had long ago forgotten his existence.

He added that he had made up his mind to recall himself to her memory in consequence of a chance circumstance which had too vividly brought back to him the images of the past; he described his life, solitary, childless, joyless; he implored her to understand the grounds that had induced him to address her, not to let him carry to the grave the bitter sense of his own wrongdoing, expiated long since by suffering, but never forgiven, and to make him happy with even the briefest news of her life in the new world to which she had gone away.

“In writing one word to me,” so Sanin ended his letter, “you will be doing a good action worthy of your noble soul, and I shall thank you to my last breath.

I am stopping here at the _White Swan_ (he underlined those words) and shall wait, wait till spring, for your answer.

” He despatched this letter, and proceeded to wait.

For six whole weeks he lived in the hotel, scarcely leaving his room, and resolutely seeing no one.

No one could write to him from Russia nor from anywhere; and that just suited his mood; if a letter came addressed to him he would know at once that it was the one he was waiting for.

He read from morning till evening, and not journals, but serious books—historical works.

These prolonged studies, this stillness, this hidden life, like a snail in its shell, suited his spiritual condition to perfection; and for this, if nothing more, thanks to Gemma!

But was she alive?

Would she answer?

At last a letter came, with an American postmark, from New York, addressed to him.

The handwriting of the address on the envelope was English….

He did not recognise it, and there was a pang at his heart.

He could not at once bring himself to break open the envelope.

He glanced at the signature—Gemma!

The tears positively gushed from his eyes: the mere fact that she signed her name, without a surname, was a pledge to him of reconciliation, of forgiveness!

He unfolded the thin sheet of blue notepaper: a photograph slipped out.

He made haste to pick it up—and was struck dumb with amazement: Gemma, Gemma living, young as he had known her thirty years ago!

The same eyes, the same lips, the same form of the whole face!

On the back of the photograph was written, “My daughter Mariana.

” The whole letter was very kind and simple.

Gemma thanked Sanin for not having hesitated to write to her, for having confidence in her; she did not conceal from him that she had passed some painful moments after his disappearance, but she added at once that for all that she considered—and had always considered—her meeting him as a happy thing, seeing that it was that meeting which had prevented her from becoming the wife of Mr. Klüber, and in that way, though indirectly, had led to her marriage with her husband, with whom she had now lived twenty-eight years, in perfect happiness, comfort, and prosperity; their house was known to every one in New York.

Gemma informed Sanin that she was the mother of five children, four sons and one daughter, a girl of eighteen, engaged to be married, and her photograph she enclosed as she was generally considered very like her mother.

The sorrowful news Gemma kept for the end of the letter.

Frau Lenore had died in New York, where she had followed her daughter and son-in-law, but she had lived long enough to rejoice in her children’s happiness and to nurse her grandchildren.

Pantaleone, too, had meant to come out to America, but he had died on the very eve of leaving Frankfort.

“Emilio, our beloved, incomparable Emilio, died a glorious death for the freedom of his country in Sicily, where he was one of the ‘Thousand’ under the leadership of the great Garibaldi; we all bitterly lamented the loss of our priceless brother, but, even in the midst of our tears, we were proud of him—and shall always be proud of him—and hold his memory sacred!

His lofty, disinterested soul was worthy of a martyr’s crown!

” Then Gemma expressed her regret that Sanin’s life had apparently been so unsuccessful, wished him before everything peace and a tranquil spirit, and said that she would be very glad to see him again, though she realised how unlikely such a meeting was….

We will not attempt to describe the feelings Sanin experienced as he read this letter.

For such feelings there is no satisfactory expression; they are too deep and too strong and too vague for any word.

Only music could reproduce them.

Sanin answered at once; and as a wedding gift to the young girl, sent to “Mariana Slocum, from an unknown friend,” a garnet cross, set in a magnificent pearl necklace.

This present, costly as it was, did not ruin him; during the thirty years that had elapsed since his first visit to Frankfort, he had succeeded in accumulating a considerable fortune.

Early in May he went back to Petersburg, but hardly for long.

It is rumoured that he is selling all his lands and preparing to go to America.

FIRST LOVE

The party had long ago broken up.

The clock struck half-past twelve.

There was left in the room only the master of the house and Sergei Nikolaevitch and Vladimir Petrovitch.

The master of the house rang and ordered the remains of the supper to be cleared away.

“And so it’s settled,” he observed, sitting back farther in his easy-chair and lighting a cigar; “each of us is to tell the story of his first love.

It’s your turn, Sergei Nikolaevitch.

” Sergei Nikolaevitch, a round little man with a plump, light-complexioned face, gazed first at the master of the house, then raised his eyes to the ceiling.

“I had no first love,” he said at last;

“I began with the second.

” “How was that?

” “It’s very simple.

I was eighteen when I had my first flirtation with a charming young lady, but I courted her just as though it were nothing new to me; just as I courted others later on.

To speak accurately, the first and last time I was in love was with my nurse when I was six years old; but that’s in the remote past.

The details of our relations have slipped out of my memory, and even if I remembered them, whom could they interest?

” “Then how’s it to be?

” began the master of the house.

“There was nothing much of interest about my first love either; I never fell in love with any one till I met Anna Nikolaevna, now my wife,—and everything went as smoothly as possible with us; our parents arranged the match, we were very soon in love with each other, and got married without loss of time.

My story can be told in a couple of words.

I must confess, gentlemen, in bringing up the subject of first love, I reckoned upon you, I won’t say old, but no longer young, bachelors.

Can’t you enliven us with something, Vladimir Petrovitch?

” “My first love, certainly, was not quite an ordinary one,” responded, with some reluctance, Vladimir Petrovitch, a man of forty, with black hair turning grey.

“Ah!

” said the master of the house and Sergei Nikolaevitch with one voice: “So much the better….

Tell us about it.

” “If you wish it … or no; I won’t tell the story; I’m no hand at telling a story; I make it dry and brief, or spun out and affected.

If you’ll allow me, I’ll write out all I remember and read it you.

” His friends at first would not agree, but Vladimir Petrovitch insisted on his own way.

A fortnight later they were together again, and Vladimir Petrovitch kept his word.

His manuscript contained the following story:— I

I was sixteen then.

It happened in the summer of 1833. I lived in Moscow with my parents.

They had taken a country house for the summer near the Kalouga gate, facing the Neskutchny gardens.

I was preparing for the university, but did not work much and was in no hurry.

No one interfered with my freedom.

I did what I liked, especially after parting with my last tutor, a Frenchman who had never been able to get used to the idea that he had fallen “like a bomb” (_comme une bombe_) into Russia, and would lie sluggishly in bed with an expression of exasperation on his face for days together.

My father treated me with careless kindness; my mother scarcely noticed me, though she had no children except me; other cares completely absorbed her.

My father, a man still young and very handsome, had married her from mercenary considerations; she was ten years older than he.

My mother led a melancholy life; she was for ever agitated, jealous and angry, but not in my father’s presence; she was very much afraid of him, and he was severe, cold, and distant in his behaviour….

I have never seen a man more elaborately serene, self-confident, and commanding.

I shall never forget the first weeks I spent at the country house.

The weather was magnificent; we left town on the 9th of May, on St. Nicholas’s day.

I used to walk about in our garden, in the Neskutchny gardens, and beyond the town gates; I would take some book with me—Keidanov’s Course, for instance—but I rarely looked into it, and more often than anything declaimed verses aloud; I knew a great deal of poetry by heart; my blood was in a ferment and my heart ached—so sweetly and absurdly; I was all hope and anticipation, was a little frightened of something, and full of wonder at everything, and was on the tiptoe of expectation; my imagination played continually, fluttering rapidly about the same fancies, like martins about a bell-tower at dawn; I dreamed, was sad, even wept; but through the tears and through the sadness, inspired by a musical verse, or the beauty of evening, shot up like grass in spring the delicious sense of youth and effervescent life.

I had a horse to ride; I used to saddle it myself and set off alone for long rides, break into a rapid gallop and fancy myself a knight at a tournament.

How gaily the wind whistled in my ears!

or turning my face towards the sky, I would absorb its shining radiance and blue into my soul, that opened wide to welcome it.

I remember that at that time the image of woman, the vision of love, scarcely ever arose in definite shape in my brain; but in all I thought, in all I felt, lay hidden a half-conscious, shamefaced presentiment of something new, unutterably sweet, feminine….

This presentiment, this expectation, permeated my whole being; I breathed in it, it coursed through my veins with every drop of blood …

it was destined to be soon fulfilled.

The place, where we settled for the summer, consisted of a wooden manor-house with columns and two small lodges; in the lodge on the left there was a tiny factory for the manufacture of cheap wall-papers….

I

had more than once strolled that way to look at about a dozen thin and dishevelled boys with greasy smocks and worn faces, who were perpetually jumping on to wooden levers, that pressed down the square blocks of the press, and so by the weight of their feeble bodies struck off the variegated patterns of the wall-papers.

The lodge on the right stood empty, and was to let.

One day—three weeks after the 9th of May—the blinds in the windows of this lodge were drawn up, women’s faces appeared at them—some family had installed themselves in it.

I

remember the same day at dinner, my mother inquired of the butler who were our new neighbours, and hearing the name of the Princess Zasyekin, first observed with some respect, “Ah!

a princess!

” … and then added, “A poor one, I suppose?

” “They arrived in three hired flies,” the butler remarked deferentially, as he handed a dish: “they don’t keep their own carriage, and the furniture’s of the poorest.

” “Ah,” replied my mother, “so much the better.

” My father gave her a chilly glance; she was silent.

Certainly the Princess Zasyekin could not be a rich woman; the lodge she had taken was so dilapidated and small and low-pitched that people, even moderately well-off in the world, would hardly have consented to occupy it.

At the time, however, all this went in at one ear and out at the other.

The princely title had very little effect on me; I had just been reading Schiller’s _Robbers_.

II

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.

III

“How can I make their acquaintance?

” was my first thought when I waked in the morning.

I went out in the garden before morning tea, but I did not go too near the fence, and saw no one.

After drinking tea, I walked several times up and down the street before the house, and looked into the windows from a distance….

I fancied her face at a curtain, and I hurried away in alarm.

“I must make her acquaintance, though,” I thought, pacing distractedly about the sandy plain that stretches before Neskutchny park … “but how, that is the question.

” I recalled the minutest details of our meeting yesterday; I had for some reason or other a particularly vivid recollection of how she had laughed at me….

But while I racked my brains, and made various plans, fate had already provided for me.

In my absence my mother had received from her new neighbour a letter on grey paper, sealed with brown wax, such as is only used in notices from the post-office or on the corks of bottles of cheap wine.

In this letter, which was written in illiterate language and in a slovenly hand, the princess begged my mother to use her powerful influence in her behalf; my mother, in the words of the princess, was very intimate with persons of high position, upon whom her fortunes and her children’s fortunes depended, as she had some very important business in hand.

“I address myself to you,” she wrote, “as one gentlewoman to another gentlewoman, and for that reason am glad to avail myself of the opportunity.

” Concluding, she begged my mother’s permission to call upon her.

I found my mother in an unpleasant state of indecision; my father was not at home, and she had no one of whom to ask advice.

Not to answer a gentlewoman, and a princess into the bargain, was impossible.

But my mother was in a difficulty as to how to answer her.

To write a note in French struck her as unsuitable, and Russian spelling was not a strong point with my mother herself, and she was aware of it, and did not care to expose herself.

She was overjoyed when I made my appearance, and at once told me to go round to the princess’s, and to explain to her by word of mouth that my mother would always be glad to do her excellency any service within her powers, and begged her to come to see her at one o’clock.

This unexpectedly rapid fulfilment of my secret desires both delighted and appalled me.

I made no sign, however, of the perturbation which came over me, and as a preliminary step went to my own room to put on a new necktie and tail coat; at home I still wore short jackets and lay-down collars, much as I abominated them.

IV

In the narrow and untidy passage of the lodge, which I entered with an involuntary tremor in all my limbs, I was met by an old grey-headed servant with a dark copper-coloured face, surly little pig’s eyes, and such deep furrows on his forehead and temples as I had never beheld in my life.

He was carrying a plate containing the spine of a herring that had been gnawed at; and shutting the door that led into the room with his foot, he jerked out, “What do you want?

” “Is the Princess Zasyekin at home?

” I inquired.

“Vonifaty!

” a jarring female voice screamed from within.

The man without a word turned his back on me, exhibiting as he did so the extremely threadbare hindpart of his livery with a solitary reddish heraldic button on it; he put the plate down on the floor, and went away.

“Did you go to the police station?

” the same female voice called again.

The man muttered something in reply.

“Eh….

Has some one come?

” I heard again….

“The young gentleman from next door.

Ask him in, then.

” “Will you step into the drawing-room?

” said the servant, making his appearance once more, and picking up the plate from the floor.

I

mastered my emotions, and went into the drawing-room.

I found myself in a small and not over clean apartment, containing some poor furniture that looked as if it had been hurriedly set down where it stood.

At the window in an easy-chair with a broken arm was sitting a woman of fifty, bareheaded and ugly, in an old green dress, and a striped worsted wrap about her neck.

Her small black eyes fixed me like pins.

I went up to her and bowed.

“I have the honour of addressing the Princess Zasyekin?

” “I am the Princess Zasyekin; and you are the son of Mr. V.?

” “Yes.

I have come to you with a message from my mother.

” “Sit down, please.

Vonifaty, where are my keys, have you seen them?

” I communicated to Madame Zasyekin my mother’s reply to her note.

She heard me out, drumming with her fat red fingers on the window-pane, and when I had finished, she stared at me once more.

“Very good; I’ll be sure to come,” she observed at last.

“But how young you are!

How old are you, may I ask?

” “Sixteen,” I replied, with an involuntary stammer.

The princess drew out of her pocket some greasy papers covered with writing, raised them right up to her nose, and began looking through them.

“A good age,” she ejaculated suddenly, turning round restlessly on her chair.

“And do you, pray, make yourself at home.

I don’t stand on ceremony.

” “No, indeed,” I thought, scanning her unprepossessing person with a disgust I could not restrain.

At that instant another door flew open quickly, and in the doorway stood the girl I had seen the previous evening in the garden.

She lifted her hand, and a mocking smile gleamed in her face.

“Here is my daughter,” observed the princess, indicating her with her elbow.

“Zinotchka, the son of our neighbour, Mr. V.

What is your name, allow me to ask?

” “Vladimir,” I answered, getting up, and stuttering in my excitement.

“And your father’s name?

” “Petrovitch.

” “Ah!

I used to know a commissioner of police whose name was Vladimir Petrovitch too.

Vonifaty!

don’t look for my keys; the keys are in my pocket.

” The young girl was still looking at me with the same smile, faintly fluttering her eyelids, and putting her head a little on one side.

“I have seen Monsieur Voldemar before,” she began.

(The silvery note of her voice ran through me with a sort of sweet shiver.

) “You will let me call you so?

” “Oh, please,” I faltered.

“Where was that?

” asked the princess.

The young princess did not answer her mother.

“Have you anything to do just now?

” she said, not taking her eyes off me.

“Oh, no. ” “Would you like to help me wind some wool?

Come in here, to me.

” She nodded to me and went out of the drawing-room.

I followed her.

In the room we went into, the furniture was a little better, and was arranged with more taste.

Though, indeed, at the moment, I was scarcely capable of noticing anything; I moved as in a dream and felt all through my being a sort of intense blissfulness that verged on imbecility.

The young princess sat down, took out a skein of red wool and, motioning me to a seat opposite her, carefully untied the skein and laid it across my hands.

All this she did in silence with a sort of droll deliberation and with the same bright sly smile on her slightly parted lips.

She began to wind the wool on a bent card, and all at once she dazzled me with a glance so brilliant and rapid, that I could not help dropping my eyes.

When her eyes, which were generally half closed, opened to their full extent, her face was completely transfigured; it was as though it were flooded with light.

“What did you think of me yesterday, M’sieu Voldemar?

” she asked after a brief pause.

“You thought ill of me, I expect?

” “I … princess … I thought nothing … how can I?

…” I answered in confusion.

“Listen,” she rejoined.

“You don’t know me yet.

I’m a very strange person; I like always to be told the truth.

You, I have just heard, are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I’m a great deal older than you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth … and to do what I tell you,” she added.

“Look at me: why don’t you look at me?

” I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her.

She smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation.

“Look at me,” she said, dropping her voice caressingly: “I don’t dislike that … I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends.

But do you like me?

” she added slyly.

“Princess …” I was beginning.

“In the first place, you must call me Zinaïda Alexandrovna, and in the second place it’s a bad habit for children”—(she corrected herself) “for young people—not to say straight out what they feel.