Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – Acia – Contents
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Chapter XIII > > >
XII
She came back in an hour, stood in the doorway and beckoned to me.
‘Listen,’ she said; ‘if I were to die, would you be sorry?’
‘What ideas you have to-day!’ I exclaimed.
‘I fancy I shall die soon; it seems to me sometimes as though everything about me were saying good-bye. It’s better to die than live like this.… Ah! don’t look at me like that; I’m not pretending, really. Or else I shall begin to be afraid of you again.’
‘Why, were you afraid of me?’
‘If I am queer, it’s really not my fault,’ she rejoined. ‘You see, I can’t even laugh now.…’
She remained gloomy and preoccupied till evening. Something was taking place in her; what, I did not understand. Her eyes often rested upon me; my heart slowly throbbed under her enigmatic gaze. She appeared composed, and yet as I watched her I kept wanting to tell her not to let herself get excited. I admired her, found a touching charm in her pale face, her hesitating, slow movements, but she for some reason fancied I was out of humour.
‘Let me tell you something,’ she said to me not long before parting; ‘I am tortured by the idea that you consider me frivolous.… For the future believe what I say to you, only do you, too, be open with me; and I will always tell you the truth, I give you my word of honour.…’
This ‘word of honour’ set me laughing again.
‘Oh, don’t laugh,’ she said earnestly, ‘or I shall say to you to-day what you said to me yesterday, “why are you laughing?”’ and after a brief silence she added, ‘Do you remember you spoke yesterday of “wings”?… My wings have grown, but I have nowhere to fly.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said; ‘all the ways lie open before you.…’
Acia looked at me steadily, straight in the face.
‘You have a bad opinion of me to-day,’ she said, frowning.
‘I? a bad opinion of you!…’
‘Why is it you are both so low-spirited,’ Gagin interrupted me—‘would you like me to play a waltz, as I did yesterday?’
‘No, no,’ replied Acia, and she clenched her hands; ‘not to-day, not for anything!’
‘I’m not going to force you to; don’t excite yourself.’
‘Not for anything!’ she repeated, turning pale.
‘Can it be she’s in love with me?’ I thought, as I drew near the dark rushing waters of the Rhine.
< < < Chapter XI
Chapter XIII > > >
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – Acia – Contents
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