“But where is the gold to be?” inquired Maidánoff, tossing back his lank hair and inflating his nostrils.
“Where? On the shoulders, the hands, the feet, everywhere. They say that in ancient times women wore golden rings on their ankles.—The bacchantes call the young girls in the boat to come to them. The girls have ceased to chant their hymn,—they cannot go on with it,—but they do not stir; the river drifts them to the shore. And now suddenly one of them rises quietly.... This must be well described: how she rises quietly in the moonlight, and how startled her companions are.... She has stepped over the edge of the boat, the bacchantes have surrounded her, they have dashed off into the night, into the gloom.... Present at this point smoke in clouds; and everything has become thoroughly confused. Nothing is to be heard but their whimpering, and her wreath has been left lying on the shore.”
Zinaída ceased speaking. “Oh, she is in love!”—I thought again.
“Is that all?”—asked Maidánoff.
“That is all,”—she replied.
“That cannot be made the subject of an entire poem,”—he remarked pompously,—“but I will utilise your idea for some lyrical verses.”
“In the romantic vein?”—asked Malévsky.
“Of course, in the romantic vein—in Byron’s style.”
“But in my opinion, Hugo is better than Byron,”—remarked the young Count, carelessly:—“he is more interesting.”
“Hugo is a writer of the first class,”—rejoined Maidánoff, “and my friend Tonkoshéeff, in his Spanish romance, ‘El Trovador’....”