"I have three thousand rubles," said the soldier. "Of what use are they to me? To-night I go to the front. You like the bag. I like to give it to you. Come. Do not let us argue in the street like this. We will buy the bag, and afterward we will have tea together, and then I shall go my way and you will go your way. It is better that I spend two thousand rubles on buying you a bag that you want than to gamble them away. You are French. It is necessary that I do something for you."
"I'm English," Sylvia corrected. "Half English—half French."
"So much the better," the soldier said. "I have never met an Englishwoman. None of the soldiers in my company have ever met an Englishwoman. When I tell them that in Kieff I met an Englishwoman and gave her a golden bag, they will envy me my good fortune. Are we not suffering all of us together? And is that not a reason why I should give you something that you very much want?"
"Why do you think I am suffering?" she asked.
"There is sorrow in your eyes," the soldier answered, gravely.
The simplicity of the man overcame her scruples; she felt that her acceptance of his gift would give him a profound pleasure of which for a motive of petty pride she had no right to rob him. As for herself, the meeting with this young soldier had washed away like purest water every stain with which Russia had marked her—from the brutality of the drunken officer to the vileness of that cinema theater. Sylvia hesitated no longer; she accompanied him into the shop and came out again with the golden bag upon her wrist. Then they went to a confectioner's shop and ate cakes together; outside in the darkness sleet was falling, but in her mood of elation Sylvia thought that everything was beautiful.
"It is time for me to go back to the barracks," the soldier announced at last.
While they were having tea, Sylvia had told him of many events in her life, and he had listened very seriously, though she doubted if he was able to understand half of what she told him. He in his turn had not told her much; but he was still very young, only twenty-one, and he explained that in his village not much could have happened to him. Soon after war was declared, his father had died, and, having no brothers or sisters or mother, he had sold all he had and quitted his village with thirty-five hundred rubles in his pocket. Five hundred rubles he had spent riotously and without satisfaction; and he still rejoiced in the money he had spent on the bag and was even anxious to give Sylvia the thousand rubles that were left, but she begged him to keep them.
"And so you must really go?" she said.
She walked with him through the darkness and sleet toward the barracks; soon there was a sound of bugles, and he exclaimed that he must hurry.