' By practising oftener,' replied Alexandr.
o
'Oh, is that it!' she thought, with a flutter of delight; ' that means I am to come here oftener. I understand! Very well, I will come, but I shall pay you out, sir misanthrope, for all your impertinence.'
This was how the spirit of coquetry interpreted Alexandras reply to her, but on that day he said nothing more.
' She's fancying, God knows what all, I daresay! ' he said to himself; ' she is going to put on airs and flirt .... how imbecile!'
From that day the visits of the old man and the young girl were repeated every day. Sometimes Liza came with her nurse, without the old man. She brought work and books with her and sat down under a tree, with an appearance of complete unconsciousness of Alexandra existence.
She thought in this way to pique his vanity and, as she expressed it, ' to pay him out.' She talked aloud to her nurse about her home and household affairs, to show that she did not even see Adouev. And he sometimes actually did not see her, and when he saw her, bowed coolly without a word.
Seeing that this ordinary method availed her nothing, she changed her plan of attack, and on two occasions volunteered a remark herself; sometimes she took a rod from him.
Alexandr, by degrees, became more talkative with her, but was thoroughly on his guard, and did not give vent to any kind of 'sincere outburst;' whether through prudence on his part or that his old wounds were still not healed, as he expressed it, he was rather chilly even in conversation with her.
One day the old man had a samovar sent down to the river-bank. Liza poured out tea. Alexandr at once refused any tea, saying that he did not drink it in the evening.
' All this tea-drinking leads up to acquaintance with them —intimacy—no, thank you !' he thought.
' What's the matter with you ? why, yesterday you drank four glasses,' said Kostyakoff.
' I never drink out of doors,' Alexandr added hastily.
w What a mistake !' said Kostyakoff, ' most capital tea, prime, cost fifteen roubles, I should say. If you please, a little more, miss, and how good it would be with rum.'
Rum, too, was brought.
The old man invited Alexandr to go and see him, but he flatly declined. Liza bit her lip when she heard his refusal. She began to try to discover from him the reason of his unsociability. However artfully she turned the conversation to this topic, Alexandr still more artfully got out of it.
This mystery only^excited curiosity and possibly some other emotion in (^izaj) Her face, hitherto as clear as a summer sky, began to wear an expression of anxiety and thoughtfulness. She often turned a melancholy glance on Alexandr, removed her eyes from him with a sigh, and bent them on the ground, and seemed to be thinking to herself, ' You are unhappy, perhaps deceived. Oh, how well I should have known how to make you happy; how I would have cherished you and loved you. I would have guarded you from fate itself—and so on.'
This is how most women think, and most of them deceive those who trust in this siren's song. Alexandr apparently noticed nothing. He talked to her as he would have talked to a friend, or to his uncle, without a shade of that tenderness which involuntarily enters into the friendship of a man and a woman, and makes these relations unlike ^^fri^ndship. This is why it is said that friendship between a man and woman is impossible, because what is called friendship between them is either the beginning or the end of love, or else indeed is love itself. But seeing Adouev's attitude to Liza, one might almost believe that such a friendship did exist.
Once only he partly revealed or wanted to reveal his way
of thinking to her. He took up from the bench the book
she had brought with her and turned over the pages. It was
V--'' Childe Harold ' in the French translation. Alexandr shook
his head, sighed and put the book- down without speaking.
'Don't you like Byron ? Have you an antipathy to Byron?' she said. 'Byron was such a great poet—and you don't like him !'
' I have said nothing and you attack me,' he replied.
' Why did you shake your head ? '
' Oh, I'm sorry that book has fallen into your hands.'
' Who are you sorry for—the book or me ? '
Alexandr did not answer.
' Why should I not read Byron ? ' she asked.
' For two reasons,' said Alexandr, after a short pause.
He laid his hand on hers, to emphasise his words perhaps, or perhaps because her little hand was very white and soft, and he began to speak in soft and measured tones, fixing his eyes first on Liza's curls, then on her neck, then on her waist As he progressed through these stages his voice gradually rose.
' In the first place,' he said, ' because you are reading Byron in French and consequently the beauty and force of the poet's language is lost for you. Only see how pale and colourless and poor the language is in this! This is the mere ashes of a great poet; his ideas seemed to have been melted into a solution. In the second place, I should not have advised you to read Byron at all, because he will perhaps stir chords in your heart which might else have been for ever silent'
Here he squeezed her hand warmly and expressively, as though he wished to add weight to his words.
' Why should you read Byron ? ' he went on ; ' it may be that your life is flowing as smoothly as this stream; you see how small, how tiny it is; it does not reflect the whole sky nor clouds on its surface; there are no rocks or steep places on its banks, it trickles playfully; scarcely does the slightest ripple stir its surface; it reflects only the green of its banks, patches of sky and tiny cloudlets. So no doubt your life might run its course, but you are bringing on yourself storms and agitations for no object; you want to look at life and man through a gloomy medium. Give it up, don't read it! look on everything with a smiling face, don't gaze into the distance, live day by day, don't dwell on the dark sides of life and men, or else '
' Else what ? '
' Nothing!' said Alexandr, as though recollecting himself.
' No, tell me; you have no doubt had an experience of some kind ? '
' Where is my rod ? Exquse me, it's time I took it.'
He seemed disturbed at having spoken out so unguardedly.
' No, one word more,' said Liza, ' of course a poet must arouse one's interest. Byron was a great poet; why don't you want me to be interested in him? Am I so stupid, so frivolous that I can't understand ? '
She was wounded.
' Not that at all: take an interest in what is fitting for your womanly heart; seek what is in harmony with it, or perhaps there may be a fearful discordance between head and heart.' At this point he shook his head to suggest that he himself was a victim of this discordance.
' One will show you,' he said, ' the flower and teach you to enjoy its beauty and its sweet perfume, but another will only present to you the poisonous sap in its calyx, then beauty and fragrance too will be all over for you ? He will make you grieve that the sap is there and you will forget that there is fragrance there too. There is a difference between these two kinds of men and between one's interest in them. Don't seek the poison, don't try to trace to its origin everything that happens to us and about us ; don't seek needless experience; it is not that that leads to happiness.'
She paused. She was listening to him with dreamy attention.
'Speak, speak,' she said with childlike submissiveness. 11 1 am ready to listen to you for whole days, to obey you in everything.'
' Me ?' said Alexandr coldly, ' excuse me, what right have I to dictate to your wishes ? I beg your pardon for having allowed myself to make a remark on them. Read what you like—Childe Harold is a very fine work. Byron is a great poet!'
' No, don't dissemble 1 don't speak so. Tell me, what am I to read ? '
With pedantic solemnity he began to propose to her several historical works and travels, but she said she had been bored by those already at school. Then he selected for her Walter Scott, Cowper, a few French and English
