“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want to see Mademoiselle Karsavina, the schoolteacher,” replied the bare-footed urchin, in a shrill voice.
“Why?”
To Sanine the name instantly recalled a vision of Sina, standing at the water’s edge in all her nude, sunlit loveliness.
“I have got a letter for her,” said the boy.
“Aha! She must be at the hospice over the way, as she is not here. You had better go there.”
The lad crept away, barefoot, like some little animal, disappearing so quickly in the darkness that it seemed as if he had hidden himself behind a bush.
Sanine slowly followed, breathing to the full the soft, honey-sweet air of the garden.
He went close up to the other hospice, so that the light from the window as he stood under it fell full upon his calm, pensive face, and illuminated large, heavy pears hanging on the dark orchard trees. By standing on tip-toe Sanine was able to pluck one, and, just as he did so he caught sight of Sina at the window.
He saw her in profile, clad in her night-dress. The light on her soft, round shoulders gave them a lustre as of satin. She was lost in her thoughts, that seemingly made her joyous yet ashamed, for her eyelids quivered, and on her lips there was a smile. To Sanine it was like the ecstatic smile of a maiden ripe and ready for a long, entrancing kiss. Riveted to the spot, he stood there and gazed.