“What has happened?” he asked.
“I have been reading a ghastly book,” I told him with a shudder. “The story of a mysterious plant, a sort of huge octopus that feeds on human flesh—”
“Ugh!” laughed Bozevsky, “how gruesome!” and he bent his sunny head over the page.
“Just imagine,” I continued, “its branches are long moving tentacles, its thick leaves are quite black and hard; they glitter and move like living scorpions....”
“Horrid, horrid,” said Bozevsky with his shining smile as he took the book out of my hand. “Forget the scorpions. To-night I shall read you some Italian poetry. I want you to make friends with Carducci.”
He opened a plainly bound volume at random, and read to me.
“Oh favolosi prati d'Eliseo...”
I forgot the tree of scorpions. I forgot Bozevsky. I forgot Aunt Sonia and the world. The unknown poet had wrapped my spirit in his giant wings and was bearing me far away.
It was about this time that Vassili took me to Moscow. There, one evening, our friends the Maximoffs brought a stranger to see us. They introduced him as an estimable Moscow lawyer of high repute. I was surrounded by other friends and I greeted him absently, without hearing his name. I remember casually noticing that he was neither young nor old, neither ugly nor handsome. His wife, a timid, fair-haired woman, was with him.
At Vassili's suggestion we all went to the “Strelna,” a famous night-restaurant. I remember that there was a great deal of laughter at the grotesque jokes which Vassili and Maximoff and also the estimable lawyer played on the pretty dark-faced tziganes.