“Ah!” He removed his cap, majestically passed his hand over his thick, curly hair whose roots started almost at his eyebrows, and, looking around with dignity, covered his precious head again cautiously. “And I almost forgot all about it. Besides, you see, it’s raining.” He yawned again. “I have a lot of work to do; you can’t look after everything, and he is yet scolding. We are leaving to-morrow—”
“To-morrow?” uttered the girl, and fixed a frightened look upon him.
“To-morrow—Come, come, come, please,” he replied quickly, vexed, noticing that she quivered, and bowed her head in silence. “Please, Akulina, don’t cry. You know I can’t bear it” (and he twitched his flat nose). “If you don’t stop, I’ll leave you right away. What nonsense—to whimper!”
“Well, I shan’t, I shan’t,” said Akulina hastily, swallowing the tears with an effort. “So you’re going away to-morrow?” she added, after a brief silence. “When will it please God to have me meet you again, Victor Alexandrich?”
“We’ll meet, we’ll meet again. If it isn’t next year, it’ll be later. My master, it seems, wants to enter the service in St. Petersburg,” he went on, pronouncing the words carelessly and somewhat indistinctly. “And it may be that we’ll go abroad.”
“You will forget me, Victor Alexandrich,” said Akulina sadly.
“No—why should I? I’ll not forget you, only you had rallier be sensible; don’t make a fool of yourself; obey your father—And I’ll not forget you—Oh, no; oh, no.” And he stretched himself calmly and yawned again.
“Do not forget me, Victor Alexandrich,” she resumed in a beseeching voice. “I have loved you so much, it seems—all, it seems, for you—You tell me to obey father, Victor Alexandrich—How am I to obey my father—?”
“How’s that?” He pronounced these words as if from the stomach, lying on his back and holding his hands under his head.
“Why, Victor Alexandrich—you know it yourself—”