She nudged him not to disturb the song.
“Marfa Vassilievna,” he whispered, “something so good, so wonderful is happening to me, something I have never felt before. It is as if everything in me was astir. At this moment,” he went on as she remained silent, “I should like to fling myself on horseback, and ride, ride, till I had no breathe left, or fling myself into the Volga and swim to the opposite bank. Do you feel anything like that?”
“Let us go away from here. Grandmother will be angry.”
“Just a minute more. How the nightingale does sing! What does he sing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just what I should like to say to you, but don’t know how to say.”
“How do you know what he sings? Can you speak nightingale language?”
“He is singing of love, of my love for you,” and startled by his own words he drew her hand to his lips and covered it with kisses.
She drew it back, and ran at full speed down the avenue towards the house; on the steps she waited a moment to take breath.
“Not a step farther,” she cried breathlessly, clinging to the doorpost as he overtook her. “Go home.”