She pressed closer and closer to me, and I could feel how her strong, vigorous, fervent body pulsed beneath my hands, how quickly her heart beat against my chest. Her passionate kisses poured like intoxicating wine into my head, still weak with disease, and I began to lose my hold upon myself.
‘Olyessia, for God’s sake, don’t ... leave me,’ I said, trying to unclasp her hands. ‘Now I am afraid.... I’m afraid of myself.... Let me go, Olyessia.’
She raised her head. Her face was all lighted with a slow, languid smile.
‘Don’t be afraid, my darling,’ she said with an indescribable expression of tender passion and touching fearlessness. ‘I shall never reproach you, never be jealous of any one.... Tell me only, do you love me?’
‘I love you, Olyessia. I loved you long ago, and I love you passionately. But ... don’t kiss me any more.... I grow weak, my head swims, I can’t answer for myself....’
Her lips were once more pressed to mine in a long, painful sweetness. I did not hear, rather I divined her words.
‘Then don’t be afraid. Don’t think of anything besides.... To-day is ours; no one can take it from us.’
* * * * *
And the whole night melted into a magical fairy tale. The moon rose, and its radiance poured fantastically in motley and mysterious colours over the forest. It lay amid the darkness in pale blue stains upon the gnarled tree-trunks, on the bent branches and the soft carpet of moss. The high birch-trunks showed clear and keenly white, and it seemed that a silvery transparent veil of gauze had been thrown over the thin leaves. In places the light could by no means penetrate the thick canopy of pine branches. There was complete, impenetrable darkness, save only that in the middle a ray slipped in unknown from somewhere and suddenly shone brightly on a long row of trees, casting a straight narrow path on the earth, as bright and trim and beautiful as a path fashioned by fairies for the triumphant procession of Oberon and Titania. And we walked with our arms enlocked through this vivid, smiling fairy tale, without a single word, under the weight of our happiness and the dreadful silence of the night.
‘Darling, I’ve forgotten quite that you must hurry home,’ Olyessia suddenly remembered. ‘What a wicked girl I am! You’re only just recovering from your illness and I’ve kept you all this while in the forest.’