“You are dear to me! I . . . I love you! Allow me to speak.”
And Alice turned pale—probably from dismay, reflecting that after this declaration she could not come here again and get a rouble a lesson. With a frightened look in her eyes she said in a loud whisper:
“Ach, you mustn’t! Don’t speak, I entreat you! You mustn’t!”
And Vorotov did not sleep all night afterwards; he was tortured by shame; he blamed himself and thought intensely. It seemed to him that he had insulted the girl by his declaration, that she would not come to him again.
He resolved to find out her address from the address bureau in the morning, and to write her a letter of apology. But Alice came without a letter. For the first minute she felt uncomfortable, then she opened a book and began briskly and rapidly translating as usual:
“‘Oh, young gentleman, don’t tear those flowers in my garden which I want to be giving to my ill daughter. . . .’”
She still comes to this day. Four books have already been translated, but Vorotov knows no French but the word “Mémoires,” and when he is asked about his literary researches, he waves his hand, and without answering, turns the conversation to the weather.