V.
Meanwhile the sun, revolving as it were in the glowing atmosphere, vanished below the dark line of the horizon. For a moment the golden rim of the fiery ball had lingered on the edge, leaving two or three burning sparks behind, and then the dark outlines of the distant forest became at once defined by an uninterrupted blue line. The wind blew fresh from the river.
The girl had ceased crying; only now and then a sob would break forth in spite of her. Petrùsya sat with bowed head as if hardly able to comprehend so lively an expression of sympathy.
“I am—sorry,” she said at last, by way of explaining her weakness, but her voice was still broken by sobs. Then after a short silence, having partially regained her self-control, she made an attempt to change the conversation to some topic of which they could both speak with composure. “The sun has set,” she said thoughtfully.
“I don’t know how it looks,” was the mournful reply. “I only—feel it.”
“You don’t know the sun?”
“No.”
“And you don’t know your mamma, either?”
“Yes, I know mamma. I can tell her step from a distance.”
“Yes, of course you can. I can tell my mother when my eyes are shut.”
The conversation had assumed a less agitating tone.
“I can feel the sun,” said the blind boy, growing more animated, “and I can tell when it has set.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because—don’t you see?—I can’t tell why myself.”
“Yes,” said the girl, and she seemed quite satisfied with this reply, and both were silent.
“I can read,” Petrùsya was the first to break the silence, “and I shall soon begin to learn to write with a pen.”
“How do you manage?” she inquired, and suddenly paused abashed, reluctant to pursue the delicate subject.
But he understood her. “I read from my own book, with my fingers,” he explained.
“With your fingers? I could never learn to read with my fingers. I read poorly enough with my eyes. My father says that it is difficult for women to learn.”
“And I can even read French.”
“How clever you are!” she exclaimed admiringly. “But I am afraid that you will take cold,” she added; “see how the fog is rising over the river.”
“And you yourself?”
“I am not afraid. What harm can it do me?”
“Neither am I afraid. Could a man possibly take cold more easily than a woman? Uncle Maxim says a man must never fear anything, neither cold nor hunger, nor the thunderbolt, nor the hurricane.”
“Maxim,—the one on crutches? I have seen him. He is terrible.”
“No, indeed. He is very kind.”
“No, he is terrible,” she persisted. “You cannot know, because you never saw him.”
“I do know him. He teaches me everything.”
“Does he beat you?”
“Never. He never beats me or screams at me,—never.”
“Well, I am glad of that. How could anybody strike a blind boy? It would be a sin.”
“He never strikes any one,” said Petrùsya, in an abstracted tone of voice, for his sensitive ear had caught the sound of Joachim’s steps.
In fact the tall figure of the Hohòl appeared a moment later on the summit of the rising ground that separated the estate from the shore, and his voice resounded through the tranquil evening air,—“Panitch!”
“They are calling you,” said the girl, rising.
“I know it; but I don’t want to go.”
“Oh, yes, do go. I will come to see you to-morrow. They are waiting for you now, and for me too.”
The girl was faithful to her promise, and appeared even earlier than Petrùsya could have expected her. The next day as he was sitting in his room at his daily lesson with Maxim, he suddenly raised his head, listened, and exclaimed eagerly, “May I go for a minute? The girl has come.”
“What girl do you mean?” inquired Maxim, as he followed the boy out of the door.
Petrùsya’s acquaintance of yesterday had in fact entered the yard of the mansion at that very moment, and on seeing Anna Michàilovna who was in the act of crossing it, deliberately went up to her.
“What do you wish, dear child?” asked the former, supposing that she had been sent on some errand.
The little woman offered her hand, as she demurely inquired, “Are you the mother of the blind boy? Yes?”
“Yes, my dear,” replied Pani Popèlska, admiring the girl’s clear eyes and the ease of her manners.
“Well, Mamma gave me permission to come to see him. May I see him?”
At that moment Petrùsya himself ran up to her, and behind him in the vestibule appeared Maxim.
“That’s yesterday’s girl, Mamma,—the one I told you of,” exclaimed the boy, as he greeted the child. “But I am taking my lesson now.”
“Well, Uncle Maxim will excuse you this time,” said Anna Michàilovna. “I will ask him.”
Meanwhile the little woman, perfectly at home, approached Maxim, who was advancing toward her with his crutch and cane, and extending her hand, remarked with the most gracious condescension, “It is very good of you not to strike a blind boy. He has told me of it.”
“Indeed, my young lady!” exclaimed Maxim, with a comical affectation of gravity, clasping between his own broad palms the girl’s tiny hand. “How grateful I ought to be to my pupil that he won your good-will in my behalf!” And Maxim laughed, as he patted the hand he retained in his own. Meanwhile the girl stood looking at him with her clear, open gaze, which completely subjugated his woman-hating heart.
“Well, Annùsya,” said Maxim to his sister with a quizzical smile, “it seems that our Peter is beginning to choose his own friends. And you cannot deny, Annya, that he has made a good choice, even though he is blind. Has he not?”
“What do you mean, Max?” asked the young woman, gravely, as the color mounted to her cheeks.
“I was only joking,” replied the brother, briefly, perceiving that his sally had touched a sensitive chord, which responding revealed a hidden thought in the maternal heart.
Anna Michàilovna blushed still more deeply; she stooped hastily, and with a sudden passionate tenderness embraced the girl, who received this unexpected and impulsive caress with her usual serene though slightly surprised expression.