XI
As I set off next day to the Gagins, I did not ask myself whether I was in love with Acia, but I thought a great deal about her, her fate absorbed me, I rejoiced at our unexpected intimacy. I felt that it was only yesterday I had got to know her; till then she had turned away from me. And now, when she had at last revealed herself to me, in what a seductive light her image showed itself, how fresh it was for me, what secret fascinations were modestly peeping out.…
I walked boldly up the familiar road, gazing continually at the cottage, a white spot in the distance. I thought not of the future—not even of the morrow—I was very happy.
Acia flushed directly I came into the room; I noticed that she had dressed herself in her best again, but the expression of her face was not in keeping with her finery; it was mournful. And I had come in such high spirits! I even fancied that she was on the point of running away as usual, but she controlled herself and remained. Gagin was in that peculiar condition of artistic heat and intensity which seizes amateurs all of a sudden, like a fit, when they imagine they are succeeding in ‘catching nature and pinning her down.’ He was standing with dishevelled locks, and besmeared with paint, before a stretched canvas, and flourishing the brush over it; he almost savagely nodded to me, turned away, screwed up his eyes, and bent again over his picture. I did not hinder him, but went and sat down by Acia. Slowly her dark eyes turned to me.
‘You’re not the same to-day as yesterday,’ I observed, after ineffectual efforts to call up a smile on her lips.
‘No, I’m not,’ she answered, in a slow and dull voice. ‘But that means nothing. I did not sleep well, I was thinking all night.’
‘What about?’
‘Oh, I thought about so many things. It’s a way I have had from childhood; ever since I used to live with mother—’
She uttered the word with an effort, and then repeated again—