Of course I knew that big lads and even men fell in love. I was familiar also with coarse ideas on this subject. I felt uncomfortable, sorry for Kostrom, and reluctant to look at his angular figure and angry, black eyes.
I saw the lame girl on the evening of the same day. Coming down the steps into the yard, she let her crutch fall, and stood helplessly on the step, holding on to the balustrade with her transparent, thin, fragile hands. I tried to pick up the crutch, but my bandaged hands were not much use, and I had a lot of trouble and vexation in doing it. Meanwhile she, standing above me, and laughing gently, watched me.
"What have you done to your hands?" she said.
"Scalded them."
"And I—am a cripple. Do you belong to this yard? Were you long in the hospital? I was there a lo-o-ong time." She added, with a sigh, "A very long time."
She had a white dress and light blue overshoes, old, but clean; her smoothly brushed hair fell across her breast in a thick, short plait. Her eyes were large and serious; in their quiet depths burned a blue light which lit up the pale, sharp-nosed face. She smiled pleasantly, but I did not care about her. Her sickly figure seemed to say, "Please don't touch me!" How could my friends be in love with her?
"I have been lame a long time," she told me, willingly and almost boastfully. "A neighbor bewitched me; she had a quarrel with mother, and then bewitched me out of spite. Were you frightened in the hospital?"
"Yes."
I felt awkward with her, and went indoors.
About midnight grandmother tenderly awoke me.