Sanine

For a moment Lialia stood there irresolute, touching things nervously

on the table. Then she approached the door.

"Oh! what have I done!" thought Yourii, as, sincerely grieved, he

listened to the sound of her faltering footsteps. As she went towards

the other room, Lialia, doubting and distressed, felt as if she were

frozen. It seemed as though she were wandering in a dark wood. She

glanced at a mirror, and saw the reflection of her own rueful

countenance.

"He shall just see me looking like this!" she thought.

Riasantzeff was standing in the dining-room, saying in his remarkably

pleasant voice to Nicolai Yegorovitch; "Of course, it's rather strange, but quite harmless."

At the sound of his voice Lialia felt her heart throb violently, as if

it must break. When Riasantzeff saw her, he suddenly stopped talking

and came forward to meet her with outstretched arms. She alone knew

that this gesture signified his desire to embrace her.

Lialia looked up shyly at him, and her lips trembled. Without a word

she pulled her hand away, crossed the room and opened the glass door

leading to the balcony. Riasantzeff watched her, calmly, but with

slight astonishment.

"My Ludmilla Nicolaijevna is cross," he said to Nicolai Yegorovitch

with serio-comic gravity of manner. The latter burst out laughing.

"You had better go and make it up."

"There's nothing else to be done!" sighed Riasantzeff, in droll

fashion, as he followed Lialia on to the balcony.

It was still raining. The monotonous sound of falling drops filled the

air; but the sky seemed clearer now, and there was a break in the

clouds.

Lialia, her cheek propped against one of the cold, damp pillars of the

veranda, let the rain beat upon her bare head, so that her hair was wet

through.

"My princess is displeased ... Lialitschka!" said Riasantzeff, as he

drew her closer to him, and lightly kissed moist, fragrant hair.

At this touch, so intimate and familiar, something seemed to melt in

Lialia's breast, and without knowing what she did, she flung her arms

round her lover's strong neck as, amid a shower of kisses, she

murmured: "I am very, very angry with you! You're a bad man!"

All the while she kept thinking that after all there was nothing so

bad, or awful, or irreparable as she had supposed. What did it matter?

All that she wanted was to love and be loved by this big, handsome man.

Afterwards, at table, it was painful to her to notice Yourii's look of

amazement, and, when the chance came, she whispered to him, "It's awful

of me, I know!" at which he only smiled awkwardly. Yourii was really

pleased that the matter should have ended happily like this, while yet

affecting to despise such an attitude of bourgeois complacency and

toleration. He withdrew to his room, remaining there alone until the

evening, and as, before sunset, the sky grew clear, he took his gun,

intending to shoot in the same place where he and Riasantzeff had been

yesterday.