“And what will you say of those naked girls in his woods—is that also innocent?” asked Piotr rather spitefully.
“Of course,” replied Rameyev. “His problem is to lull to sleep the beast in man, and to awaken the man.”
“I have heard his discourses,” said Piotr, showing his annoyance, “and I do not believe them in the slightest. I’m only astonished that others can believe such nonsense. And I don’t believe either in his poetry or in his chemistry. He has too many secrets and mysteries, too many cunning mechanisms in his doors and his corridors. Then there are his quiet children—that I do not understand at all. Where have they come from? What does he do with them? There is something nasty behind it all.”
“That’s a work of the imagination,” answered Rameyev. “We see him often, we can always go to him, and we haven’t seen or heard anything in his house or in his colony to confirm the town tattle about him.”
Piotr recalled the evening that he met Trirodov on the river-bank. His sad but determined eyes suddenly flared up in Piotr’s memory—and the poison of his spite grew weaker. He seemed affected as by a strange bewitchment, as if some one persistently yet quietly urged him to believe that the ways of Trirodov were fair and clean. Piotr closed his eyes—and the radiant vision appeared before him of the semi-nude girls of the wood, who filed past him, and sanctified him by the serenity and the peace of their chaste eyes. Piotr sighed and said quietly, as if fatigued:
“I have no cause to say these malicious words. Perhaps you are right. But it is so hard for me!”
Nevertheless this conversation did much to soothe Piotr. Thoughts about Elena returned to him oftener and oftener, and became more and more tender.
It so happened that, acting upon some unspoken yet understood agreement, every one tried to direct Piotr’s attention to Elena. Piotr submitted to this general influence, and was affectionate and gentle with Elena. Elena expectantly waited for his love; and at night, turning her blazing face and loosened locks in the direction of the nymph’s laughter, she would whisper:
“I love you, I love you, I love you!”
And when left alone with Piotr, she would look at him with love-frightened eyes, all rosy like the spring, and pulsating with expectancy; and with every sigh of her tender breast, and with all the life of her passionate body she would repeat the same unspoken words: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” And Piotr began to understand that he had met his fate in Elena, and that whether he willed it or not he would grow to love her. This presentiment of a new love was like a sweet gnawing in a heart wounded by treacherous love.