Shurochka sank into a semi-recumbent position, with her elbow resting on the ground and her head resting in the palm of her hand. After a few moments’ silence she continued in an absent tone—
“This morning, when I awoke, a mad desire came over me to meet you. So intense was my longing that I do not know what would have happened if you had not come. I almost think I should have defied convention, and looked you up at your house. That was why I told you not to come before five o’clock. I was afraid of myself. Darling, do you understand me now?”
Hardly half an arshin from Romashov’s face lay her crossed feet—two tiny feet in very low shoes, and stockings clocked with white embroidery in the form of an arrow over the instep. With his temples throbbing and a buzzing in his ears, he madly pressed his eager lips against this elastic, live, cool part of her body, which he felt through the stocking.
“No, Romochka—stop.” He heard quite close above his head her weak, faltering, and somewhat lazy voice.
Romashov raised his head. Once more he was the fairy-tale prince in the wonderful wood. In scattered groups along the whole extensive slope in the dark grass stood the ancient, solemn oaks, motionless, but attentive to every sound that disturbed Nature’s holy, dream-steeped slumbers. High up, above the horizon and through the dense mass of tree trunks and crests, one could still discern a slender streak of twilight glow, not, as usual, light red or changing into blue, but of dark purple hue, reminiscent of the last expiring embers in the hearth, or the dull flames of deep red wine drawn out by the sun’s rays. And as it were, framed in all this silent magnificence, lay a young, lovely, white-clad woman—a dryad lazily reclining.
Romashov came closer to her. To him it seemed as if from Shurochka’s countenance there streamed a pale, faint radiance. He could not distinguish her eyes; he only saw two large black spots, but he felt that she was gazing at him steadily.
“This is a poem, a fairy-tale—a fairy-tale,” he whispered, scarcely moving his lips.
“Yes, my friend, it is a fairy-tale.”
He began to kiss her dress; he hid his face in her slender, warm, sweet-smelling hand, and, at the same time, stammered in a hollow voice—
“Sascha—I love you—love you.”