"Yes, I understand," murmurs she, tonelessly.
"Hm! it was plain enough. You are dying of heat, I of cold!" says he, and laughing slightly to himself, he adds: "Do you still remember how I lectured you at that time in Rome?"
Instead of any answer, she pulls her hand away from his arm. Compassionately her brother looks at her through the gray veil of the now fast-descending twilight. "Poor Natascha!" he says. "You surely do not believe that I will return to my wisdom of that time--no! I will make you a great confession!" His voice sounds hissingly close to her ear. She feels his breath unpleasantly hot on her cheeks. "There are moments when I envy you!" he whispers. "Bah! that one must say of one's self: it is over, one is old, one will die, without once having been deeply shaken by a true shudder of delight,--sans avoir connu le grand frisson--it is horrible! I know what you have to bear, Natalie, and still--yes, there are moments when I envy you!"
"Who has then permitted himself to assert that I have anything to bear?" Natalie bursts out.
"Who?" Sergei raises his eyebrows. "You surely do not fancy that it is a secret?" says he. "Many wonder that you endure it; as it seems, he exercises an incredible charm over all women!"
Her eyes and his meet in the sultry half darkness. "What have they told you?" asks Natalie, with difficulty.
But then he replies with fearful emphasis: "You surely do not demand an answer of me in earnest?"
She breathes heavily. "It is not true!" says she. "They have lied to you!"
Thereupon he remains silent. The sultriness becomes ever more oppressive. Heavy thunder-clouds creep slowly and threateningly over the roof of the fortress and blot out the stars from the heavens.
Natalie has turned away from her brother, and with uneasy haste she hurries to the gate of the yard; he comes after her. "I am sorry to have wounded you," he says. "I had not that intention."