“Do you love me?” he said in a low voice.
She turned round to him, laughing.
“Yes,” she said, looking at him.
“Then kiss me.”
“No, not now.”
“Why not now?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why don’t you want to?”
She shook her head, still laughing into his eyes.
“But if I command you?”
“Ah! command! … Then I certainly will not.”
His hand tightened on her arm and she did not draw away.
“Kiss me.”
“No.”
“I say yes.”
“I say no.”
He suddenly caught her, held her to him as though he would kill her and kissed her furiously, on her eyes, her mouth, her hair. With his violence he pushed back her headdress. I could see his back bent like a bow, and his thick short legs wide apart, every muscle taut. She lay quite motionless, as though asleep in his arms, giving him no response—then quite suddenly she flung her hands round his neck and kissed him as passionately as he had kissed her. At last they parted, both of them laughing.
He looked at her, and then with a gentleness and courtesy that I had never seen in him before nor dreamed that he possessed, very softly kissed her hand.
“I love you and—and you love me,” he said.
“Yes … I love you,” she answered gravely. “At least, part of me does.”
“It shall be all of you soon,” he answered.
“If there’s time enough,” she replied.
“Time! … I’ll follow you wherever you go—”
“I really believe you will,” she answered, laughing again. They waited then, looking at one another. A bell rang. “Ah! I’m hungry. … Supper time. …” To my relief they passed away from the bandaging room towards the other part of the house.
Meanwhile his irritation at Marie Ivanovna’s kindness to Trenchard increased with every hour. His attitude to the man had changed since Trenchard’s night at the Position; he was vexed, I think, to hear that the fellow had proved himself a man—and a practical man with common sense. Semyonov was honest about this. He did not doubt Nikitin’s word, he even congratulated Trenchard, but he certainly disliked him more than ever. He thought, I suppose, as he had thought about Nikitin: “How can a man with his wits about him be at the same time such a fool?” And then he saw that Marie Ivanovna was delighted with Trenchard’s little piece of good luck. She laughed at Semyonov about it. “We all know you’re a very brave man,” she cried. “But you’re not so brave as Mr.” And Semyonov, because he knew that Trenchard was a fool and that he himself was not, was vexed, as a bull is vexed by a red flag. These things made him think a great deal about Trenchard. I have seen him watching him with angry and puzzled gaze as though he would satisfy himself why this gnat of a man worried him!
Then, finally, was Andrey Vassilievitch. … The little man had not given me much of his company during these last weeks. I fancy that since that night at the battle of S⸺ when he had revealed his terror he had been shy of me although, God knows, he had no need to be. He never forgot if anyone had seen him in an unfortunate position, and, although he bore me no grudge, he was nervous and embarrassed with me. It happened, however, that during this same week of which I have been speaking I had a conversation with him. I was standing alone by the Cross watching a long trail of wagons cross the bridge far beneath me, watching too a high bank of black cloud that was passing away from the sky above the forest, blown by a wind that rolled the surface of the river into silver. He too had come to look at the view and was surprised and disturbed at finding me there. Of course he was exaggerated in expressions of pleasure: “Why, Ivan Andreievitch, this is delightful!” he cried. “If I only had known we might have walked here together!”
We sat down on the stone seat.
“You don’t think it will rain?” he asked anxiously. “No, those clouds are going away, I see. Well … this is delightful …” and then sat there gloomily looking in front of him.
I could see that he was depressed.
“Well, Andrey Vassilievitch,” I said to him. “You’re depressed about something?”
“Yes,” he said very gloomily indeed. “I have many unhappy hours, Ivan Andreievitch.”
I did not get up and leave him as I very easily might have done. I had had, since the night when Nikitin had spoken to me so frankly, a desire to know the little man’s side of that affair. In some curious fashion that silent plain wife of his had been very frequently in my thoughts; there had not been enough in Nikitin’s account to explain to me his passion for her, and yet her ghost, as though evoked by the memories both of Nikitin and her husband, had seemed to me, sometimes, to be present with us. …
I waited.
“Tell me frankly,” Andrey Vassilievitch said at last, “am I of any use here?”
“Of use?” I repeated, taken by surprise.
“Yes. Am I doing only what anyone else can do as well? Would it be better perhaps if another were here?”
“No, certainly not,” I answered warmly. “Your business training is of the greatest value to us. Molozov has said to me ‘that he does not know what we should do without you.’ ”
(This was not strictly true.)
“Ah!” the little man was greatly pleased. “I am glad, very glad—to hear what you say. Semyonov made me feel—”
“You should not be influenced,” I hurriedly interrupted him, “by what Semyonov thinks. It is of no importance.”
“He has a bad character,” Andrey Vassilievitch said suddenly with great excitement, “a bad character. And why cannot he leave me alone? Why should he laugh always? I do my best. I am quiet and not in his way. I can do things that he cannot. I am not big as he but at least I do not rob men
