'It's the same thing,' I said, already deeply prejudiced against the hermit. 'And what sort of glance has your Trituzny got? Like a touch, too?'
Missing the sarcasm in my question, Angelika replied eagerly:
'Oh, quite an ordinary glance, but a terrific kick! What a pity you missed the match with Enika!. That was a game! Zuzya made a break-through from the centre of the field and knocked the goal-keeper over with the ball. Our supporters simply screamed with delight!'
'What of it!' I said rudely, tugging at the oars. 'We played the Berdichev youth team once with Bobir as goalkeeper. Both our backs were knocked out and three of their players came down on Sasha who was all alone. Do you think Sasha let the ball through?... Not him! Of course, I had to give one of their insides a smack on the jaw for trying to trip me. The ref stopped the game and gave Berdichev a penalty: Right in front of the goal. And Sasha stopped it again, and that dirty dog went off the field with a crease in his mug!'
'Oh, Vasil, Vasil, you must learn how to talk properly. . .' Lika said reprovingly. 'If only you knew how those slang expressions of yours appal me! You're a nice boy, but sometimes you sound so unpolished.'
For a start I didn't know what she meant by that fancy word 'appal.' But even without that, her cold, edifying tone would have made me furious.
I said sharply: 'It was unpolished men that made the Revolution, you ought to remember that sometimes!'
Angelika could not find an answer to this or perhaps she did not want to continue the conversation.
Only the purple crown of the dying sun showed above the horizon, tinting the water with an ominous fiery glow. Behind us the sea was already an oily black. The faint swell caught the last pink reflections of the sunset and the shadow of the breakwater running back to the harbour wall.
Patting her hair carelessly, Lika said: 'How calm it is! I like the sea best of all as it is now.'
'I thought you liked storms best. The sea was very rough when you dived into it that time.'
'I was brought up by the sea and I can't live a day without bathing. It's a habit. But to me the best thing in the world is calm, stillness. And to have a cat purring beside me... To sit on a swing and just
stroke a little cat. With electricity crackling in its fur... What could be better!'
How could I listen calmly to such talk!
I said: 'But that's bourgeois petty-mindedness! You haven't started life yet, and you want peace and quiet already.'
'Oho!' Lika puckered her eyes. 'The quiet boy starts to show his little claws. How interesting! I didn't know you were so fond of arguing. My admirers usually listen to me without a word of objection.'
What cheek! Who said she could count me as one of her admirers!
'No, seriously, Vasil, I'm naughty. I like to mope on my own, to get away from the cares of the world. I love to dream. . .'
And quite unexpectedly Lika began singing in a soft, pleasant voice:
In a little grey house on the edge of the town,
In a little grey house where sadness abides. . .
'Specially in winter,' she went on. 'When twilight comes and day still lingers among the purple shadows, I like to be alone and talk to yearning. . . She comes out from behind the curtain over the door—a kind, sad fairy, with ash-grey hair, just like the colour of the sea now, and she soothes me.. .'
'It's the life of luxury her father gives her that makes her have all these daft ideas!' I thought. This was the first time I had met such an outspoken philistine at close quarters.
'What do you live for then?'
'By inertia. I'm waiting for a lucky chance. Perhaps some strong man will turn up and change everything for me.'
'Why not do it yourself, without a nurse?'
'I've never tried.'
'You ought to.'
'Oh, I'm too bored!'
'What's the sense in living then? If you just wait for someone strong to turn up and moan: 'I'm bored, I'm bored. . .' '
I could see my words had stung Angelika sharply. Again an angry little spark leapt into her eyes, as it had done a short while ago, in Rogale-Piontkovskaya's saloon.
'And what do you live for, my dear sir? Do you enjoy your monotonous work in the foundry?'
'Monotonous?' I exclaimed indignantly. 'That's just what it isn't! Today I make one kind of mould, tomorrow another. I turn out thousands of new parts. It makes me glad to think that I'm working for my people and not swindling anyone. Isn't that worth doing? Monotonous, my foot! There aren't any boring jobs, but there are boring, hopeless people.'
'All right, suppose you've found out everything, experienced everything, what then?'
'Study!'
'But it's so difficult to study. Never any time to rest after dinner, always having to jump up and rush off to lectures.'
'Who will study if we don't? Your grey fairy?'
'There's another way out. If you like, I'll ask Daddy and he'll give you an easy job. In the office, for instance?'
'What good is that to me? I don't want to be an office worker.'
'You are funny, Vasil! I want to help you, and you bristle up like a hedgehog.'
'Your Zuzya can go out for the easy jobs, I don't want them.'
'Why are you so much against Zuzya? He's quite a nice, harmless boy...'
'Boy? Strong as a bull, and messing about with papers all day! It makes you sick to look at him!'
'What makes you so intolerant towards people, Vasil? Such a terrible temper!'
'When people are on the wrong path, what are you supposed to do—praise them for it? How can we remake the world with such people?' I said, getting really angry.
'Who's asking you to remake the world? Let it stay as it is.'
' 'Who's asking! '... Perhaps you like the old world? Perhaps you'd like to live under the tsar or old man Makhno?'
I thought Angelika would either deny my accusation or change the subject. But she said with surprising calm:
'My father lived very well under the tsar too. Caiworth had a great respect for Daddy. He said himself such engineers were hard to come by.'
'And how did the workers live?'
'That's nothing to do with me... And it's all such a bore anyway... Look how quickly the moon has risen! Isn't it beautiful?'
A shimmering bar of moonlight stretched across the calm bay almost to the sand-bank, where the lighthouse was already blinking. The water was silver.
'When the moon shines on a strip of water like that, people call it 'the path to happiness,' ' Angelika said. 'Two years ago I believed in that saying, so I took a boat out and followed the moonlight across the sea. I got as far as the sand-bank, then a north-easter sprang up and the sea got rough and I couldn't go back. I pulled the boat up on the sand, spread out some seaweed and made a place to sleep in under the boat. How frightened I was!'
'Fancy being frightened of the wind!' As I spoke, I unconsciously drew my hand across my forehead.
Lika noticed my gesture and asked quickly:
'What's that scar on your forehead?'
'Oh, nothing.'
'Tell me.'
'A scratch from a grenade splinter.'
'A grenade splinter? Who did that to you?'
I had to tell the story of my encounter with the bandits at the state farm on the bank of the Dniester.
'How terrible and thrilling it all sounds!' Lika said. 'Only I don't like politics,' she pouted. 'Politics are so boring. But what you've just been telling me is very interesting.'
