The wrinkled surface of the pool had only just had time to become smooth again, when the flute-player, very silently, walked to the fig-tree and sat down in its shade. Almost immediately he began to play, and the melodies he invented were very melancholy. Katya smiled with malice, though she approved of and liked his skill.
“What a clever little fool it is!” she said to herself, as, giving herself to the water and pressing her feet against the side of the rock, she pushed herself out toward the middle of the pool and began slowly to swim in the flute-player’s direction. So quickly did she go, and so absorbed was he in his music, that he did not see her even when she was within a dozen yards of him and was standing, the water reaching to her waist, regarding him with wide, malicious eyes. She raised her hands and brought them down on the water with a heavy splash.
A run he was playing broke in the middle like a thread that is snapped, and, startled, he let his instrument fall to the ground. His eyes had the look of one whose dreams have come true; it was as though he had been evoking a nymph and she had at last arrived. Motionless and absorbed, he stared at her, his eyes very round, his lips parted; but he spoke no word, and something in the earnestness of his gaze—a look a little unearthly, indeed, holy—made her, who had wished to frighten him, herself afraid. There was no abashed look in his eyes, as she had expected, no look of dismay, no hint of fear: merely an expression of incredulity—the look of a boy to whom a long-awaited miracle has at last happened.
Their long gaze into each others’ eyes lasted many moments, and as his eyes did not droop under hers, but indeed, stared and stared unflinchingly, Katya began to experience the shame of a child who has been discovered in some wickedness. She had expected him, on her appearing, to run away in terror and shocked modesty. If he had blushed even, or had looked confused, or had turned his back upon her, or exhibited any of the signs of awkwardness and shame, she would have known how to continue the comedy. But he accepted her. Moreover, she knew that some wonder had been expected from that water. To him she was not human, but the spirit of the pool come at the bidding of his music.
Her courage and her impertinence deserted her, and, with a sudden movement, she disappeared under the water, and swam back to the deep bay where she had left her clothing. She heard him cry out excitedly, and, with equal excitement, she swam towards the edge of the water, touched the ground with her feet and began to walk to the shore. He was there waiting for her, for he had run rapidly round the pool, and now stood with his flute in his hand, his face full of ecstasy, with white teeth shining in the sun.
For a few moments he stood thus on a high rock looking down upon her. But when she had reached the cleft where her clothes were hidden, and when he saw her take them in her hands, his face instantly changed from ecstasy to bewilderment, and then from bewilderment to loathing.
“It’s you—you—you! You dreadful black woman!” he called out.
She raised her head to look at him, and saw that he was trembling with anger. His brown face was yellow and distorted. He tried to speak some more words, but his throat choked him, and his inability to speak increased his anger so greatly that all his body shook like one convulsed.
Raising his flute on high, he threw it into the water with terrific force, and, turning, ran up the mountain side with a frantic speed that had not decreased when she could no longer see him....
Pressing her white dress to her face, Katya wept and wept. She wept with shame, with mortification.... She wept with love.