cavalier went and sat down beside her. On the contrary, she only laughed
her sweet, musical laugh, and made a sign with her head that he had
chosen right. Since nobody chose me, I always had the mortification of
finding myself left over, and of hearing them say, 'Who has been left
out? Oh, Nicolinka. Well, DO take him, somebody.' Consequently, whenever
it came to my turn to guess who had chosen me, I had to go either to
my sister or to one of the ugly elder princesses. Sonetchka seemed so
absorbed in Seriosha that in her eyes I clearly existed no longer. I do
not quite know why I called her 'the traitress' in my thoughts, since
she had never promised to choose me instead of Seriosha, but, for all
that, I felt convinced that she was treating me in a very abominable
fashion. After the game was finished, I actually saw 'the traitress'
(from whom I nevertheless could not withdraw my eyes) go with Seriosha
and Katenka into a corner, and engage in secret confabulation.
Stealing softly round the piano which masked the conclave, I beheld the
following:
Katenka was holding up a pocket-handkerchief by two of its corners, so
as to form a screen for the heads of her two companions. 'No, you have
lost! You must pay the forfeit!' cried Seriosha at that moment, and
Sonetchka, who was standing in front of him, blushed like a criminal
as she replied, 'No, I have NOT lost! HAVE I, Mademoiselle Katherine?'
'Well, I must speak the truth,' answered Katenka, 'and say that you HAVE
lost, my dear.' Scarcely had she spoken the words when Seriosha embraced
Sonetchka, and kissed her right on her rosy lips! And Sonetchka smiled
as though it were nothing, but merely something very pleasant!
Horrors! The artful 'traitress!'
XIV. THE RETRIBUTION
Instantly, I began to feel a strong contempt for the female sex in
general and Sonetchka in particular. I began to think that there was
nothing at all amusing in these games--that they were only fit for
girls, and felt as though I should like to make a great noise, or to do
something of such extraordinary boldness that every one would be forced
to admire it. The opportunity soon arrived. St. Jerome said something to
Mimi, and then left the room, I could hear his footsteps ascending the
staircase, and then passing across the schoolroom, and the idea occurred
to me that Mimi must have told him her story about my being found on the
landing, and thereupon he had gone to look at the register. (In those
days, it must be remembered, I believed that St. Jerome's whole aim in
life was to annoy me.) Some where I have read that, not infrequently,
children of from twelve to fourteen years of age--that is to say,
children just passing from childhood to adolescence--are addicted to
incendiarism, or even to murder. As I look back upon my childhood, and
particularly upon the mood in which I was on that (for myself) most
unlucky day, I can quite understand the possibility of such terrible
crimes being committed by children without any real aim in view--without
any real wish to do wrong, but merely out of curiosity or under the
influence of an unconscious necessity for action. There are moments when
the human being sees the future in such lurid colours that he
shrinks from fixing his mental eye upon it, puts a check upon all his
intellectual activity, and tries to feel convinced that the future will
never be, and that the past has never been. At such moments--moments
when thought does not shrink from manifestations of will, and the carnal
instincts alone constitute the springs of life--I can understand that
