Natasha smiles. And what pride there is in her smile! She speaks, and her voice is tranquil: “No, Boris, I feel happy.”
Boris observes that her face is really happy, and that her dark, flaming eyes are cheerful enough. Looking at her thus, her tranquillity communicates itself to him, and inspires him with a calm confidence in himself and in the business in hand.
The children go farther. Boris again gathers the cornflowers. Natasha is musing about something. She has broken off an ear of rye, and is absently nibbling at the grain.
XXXIX
It is a long, hot, sultry day. The inexorable Dragon looks down indifferently upon the children. Unwearying, he aims his bright, vivid shafts at the sunburnt, fiery-eyed lad and at the slender, erect, black-eyed girl. His blazing shafts are evil, and they are well aimed; and his strong clear light is pitiless—but she walks on, and in her eyes there is hope, and in her eyes there is resolution, and in her dark eyes there is a flame which sets the soul afire to achieve deeds beyond the powers of man.
Natasha suddenly pauses at the end of the path by the dusty road. Her eyes look at Boris full of tender admiration. It is evident that she desires to stamp upon her memory all the beloved features of the familiar tanned face—the curve of the dense brows, the rigid set of the red lips, the firm outlines of the chin, the stern profile.
Natasha sighs lightly and addresses Boris gently and cheerfully:
“Enough, dearest. They may not let me into the train with a heap like this. They will say: ‘This should be put in the luggage van.’”
Both laugh carelessly. And still Boris is loath to leave the cornflowers. He says:
“Only a few more. I want you to have a gigantic bouquet.”