“I don’t want to,” she answered listlessly, “but, however, ladies, you’ve drunk some wine, chatted a bit—don’t wear the welcome off the mat.”
“Perhaps you’ll stay with me the whole night?” she asked Gladishev, when the others had gone away. “Don’t you be afraid, dearie; if you won’t have enough money, I’ll pay the difference for you. You see, how good-looking you are, that a wench does not grudge even money for you?” she began laughing.
Gladishev turned around to her; even his unobserving ear was struck by Jennka’s strange tone—neither sad, nor kindly, nor yet mocking.
“No, sweetie, I’d be very glad to; I’d like to remain myself, but I can’t possibly; I promised to be home toward ten o’clock.”
“That’s nothing, dear, they’ll wait; you’re altogether a grown-up man now. Is it possible that you have to listen to anybody? ... But, however, as you wish. Shall I put out the light entirely, perhaps; or is it all right the way it is? Which do you want—the outside or near the wall?”
“It’s immaterial to me,” he answered in a quavering voice; and, having embraced with his arm the hot, dry body of Jennka, he stretched with his lips toward her face. She slightly repulsed him.
“Wait, bear a while, sweetheart—we have time enough to kiss our fill yet. Just lie still for one little minute... So, now... quiet, peaceful... don’t stir...”
These words, passionate and imperious, acted like hypnosis upon Gladishev. He submitted to her and lay down on his back, putting his hands underneath his head. She raised herself a little, leant upon her elbow, and placing her head upon the bent hand, silently, in the faint half-light, was looking his body over—so white, strong, muscular; with a high and broad pectoral cavity; with well-made ribs; with a narrow pelvis; and with mighty, bulging thighs. The dark tan of the face and the upper half of the neck was divided by a sharp line from the whiteness of the shoulders and breast.
Gladishev blinked for a second. It seemed to him that he was feeling upon himself, upon his face, upon his entire body, this intensely fixed gaze, which seemed to touch his face and tickle it, like the cobwebby contact of a comb, which you first rub against a cloth—the sensation of a thin, imponderous, living matter.
He opened his eyes and saw altogether near him the large, dark, uncanny eyes of the woman, who seemed to him now an entire stranger.