“Yes,” answered Trirodov, “I have a few films ready.”
Alkina laughed gleefully and said:
“Now kiss me.”
She bent over Trirodov and almost fell into his arms. The kisses seemed tranquil and innocent; it might have been a sister kissing a brother. How gentle and elastic her skin was under his hands! Alkina pressed against him with a submissive, yielding movement. Trirodov carried her to the wide, soft couch. She lay in his arms timidly and quietly and looked straight into his eyes with a simple, innocent look.
When the sweet and deep minutes passed, followed by fatigue and shame, Alkina lay there motionlessly with half-closed eyes—and then said suddenly:
“I’ve been wanting to ask you, and somehow couldn’t decide to. Do you detest me? Perhaps you think me very shameless?”
She turned her face towards him and looked at him with frightened, ashamed eyes. And he answered her with his usual resolution:
“No, Katya. Shame is often needed, in order that we may gain control over it.”
Alkina once more lay back calmly, basking naked under his glances, as under the rays of the high Dragon. Trirodov was silent. Alkina laughed quietly and said:
“My husband used to be so respectable, mean and polite. He never beat me—he was not a cultured man for nothing—and he never even used coarse words. If he had but called me a fool! I sometimes think that I wouldn’t have left him if our quarrels hadn’t passed so quietly, if he had but beat me, pulled me by my hair, lashed me with something.”