A minute passed in silence.… I gazed at the pretty girl, at her young, almost childish face, and was astonished that she could make such terrible jokes! I instantly pictured to myself Urbenin, elderly, fat, red-faced with his standing-out ears and hard hands, whose very touch could only scratch that young female body which had scarcely begun to live.… Surely the thought of such a picture must frighten this pretty wood fay, who knew how to look poetically at the sky when it is reft by lightning and thunder growls angrily! I, even I, was frightened!
“It's true he's a little old,” Olenka sighed, “but he loves me.… His love is trustworthy.”
“It's not a matter of trustworthy love, but of happiness.…”
“I shall be happy with him.… He has means, thank God, and he's no pauper, no beggar, but a nobleman. Of course, I'm not in love with him, but are only those who marry for love happy? Oh, I know those marriages for love!”
“My child, when have you had time to stuff your brain with this terrible worldly wisdom?” I asked. “Admitted that you are joking with me, but where have you learned to joke in such a coarse, old way?… Where? When?”
Olenka looked at me with astonishment and shrugged her shoulders.
“I don't understand what you are saying,” she said. “You don't like to see a young girl marry an old man? Is that so?”
Olenka suddenly blushed all over, her chin moved nervously, and without waiting for my answer she rattled on rapidly.
“This does not please you? Then have the goodness to go into the wood … into that dullness, where there is nothing except merlins and a mad father … and wait there until a young suitor comes along! It pleased you the other evening, but if you saw it in winter, when one only wishes … that death might come——”
“Oh, all this is absurd, Olenka, all this is unripe, silly! If you are not joking.… I don't even know what to say! You had better be silent and not offend the air with your tongue. I, in your place, would have hanged myself on seven aspens, and you buy linen … and smile. Akh!”