I started.... I thought I heard the creak of an opening door, then the light crackling of a broken twig. In two bounds I had descended from the ruin—and stood petrified on the spot. Swift, light but cautious footsteps were plainly audible in the garden. They were coming toward me. “Here he is.... Here he is, at last!”—darted through my heart. I convulsively jerked the knife out of my pocket, convulsively opened it—red sparks whirled before my eyes, the hair stood up on my head with fright and wrath.... The steps were coming straight toward me—I bent over, and went to meet them.... A man made his appearance.... My God! It was my father!
I recognised him instantly, although he was all enveloped in a dark cloak,—and had pulled his hat down over his face. He went past me on tiptoe. He did not notice me although nothing concealed me; but I had so contracted myself and shrunk together that I think I must have been on a level with the ground. The jealous Othello, prepared to murder, had suddenly been converted into the school-boy.... I was so frightened by the unexpected apparition of my father that I did not even take note, at first, in what direction he was going and where he had disappeared. I merely straightened up at the moment and thought: “Why is my father walking in the garden by night?”—when everything around had relapsed into silence. In my alarm I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not even try to find it; I felt very much ashamed. I became sobered on the instant. But as I wended my way home, I stepped up to my little bench under the elder-bush and cast a glance at the little window of Zinaída’s chamber. The small, somewhat curved panes of the little window gleamed dully blue in the faint light which fell from the night sky. Suddenly their colour began to undergo a change.... Behind them—I saw it, saw it clearly,—a whitish shade was lowered, descended to the sill,—and there remained motionless.
“What is the meaning of that?”—I said aloud, almost involuntarily, when I again found myself in my own room.—“Was it a dream, an accident, or....” The surmises which suddenly came into my head were so new and strange that I dared not even yield to them.
XVIII
I rose in the morning with a headache. My agitation of the night before had vanished. It had been replaced by an oppressive perplexity and a certain, hitherto unknown sadness,—exactly as though something had died in me.
“What makes you look like a rabbit which has had half of its brain removed?”—said Lúshin, who happened to meet me. At breakfast I kept casting covert glances now at my father, now at my mother; he was calm, as usual; she, as usual, was secretly irritated. I waited to see whether my father would address me in a friendly way, as he sometimes did.... But he did not even caress me with his cold, everyday affection.—“Shall I tell Zinaída all?”—I thought.... “For it makes no difference now—everything is over between us.” I went to her, but I not only did not tell her anything,—I did not even get a chance to talk to her as I would have liked. The old Princess’s son, a cadet aged twelve, had come from Petersburg to spend his vacation with her; Zinaída immediately confided her brother to me.—“Here, my dear Volódya,”—said she (she called me so for the first time), “is a comrade for you. His name is Volódya also. Pray, like him; he’s a wild little fellow still, but he has a good heart. Show him Neskútchny Park, walk with him, take him under your protection. You will do that, will you not? You, too, are such a good fellow!”—She laid both hands affectionately on my shoulder—and I was reduced to utter confusion. The arrival of that boy turned me into a boy. I stared in silence at the cadet, who riveted his eyes in corresponding silence on me. Zinaída burst out laughing and pushed us toward each other.—“Come, embrace, children!”—We embraced.—“I’ll take you into the garden if you wish,—shall I?”—I asked the cadet.
“Certainly, sir,”—he replied, in a hoarse, genuine cadet voice. Again Zinaída indulged in a burst of laughter.... I managed to notice that never before had she had such charming colour in her face. The cadet and I went off together. In our garden stood an old swing. I seated him on the thin little board and began to swing him. He sat motionless in his new little uniform of thick cloth with broad gold galloon, and clung tightly to the ropes.
“You had better unhook your collar,”—I said to him.
“Never mind, sir,[7] we are used to it, sir,”—he said, and cleared his throat.
He resembled his sister; his eyes were particularly suggestive of her. It was pleasant to me to be of service to him; and, at the same time, that aching pain kept quietly gnawing at my heart. “Now I really am a child,” I thought; “but last night....” I remembered where I had dropped my knife and found it. The cadet asked me to lend it to him, plucked a thick stalk of lovage, cut a whistle from it, and began to pipe. Othello piped also.