The Chorus Girl and Other Stories | Page 7

of memories that if I could
gather them together into a whole it would make a good nugget of gold!
I don't understand why clever, perceptive people crowd into Petersburg
and Moscow and don't come here. Is there more truth and freedom in
the Nevsky and in the big damp houses than here? Really, the idea of
artists, scientific men, and journalists all living crowded together in
furnished rooms has always seemed to me a mistake."
Twenty paces from the copse the road was crossed by a small narrow
bridge with posts at the corners, which had always served as a
resting-place for the Kuznetsovs and their guests on their evening
walks. From there those who liked could mimic the forest echo, and
one could see the road vanish in the dark woodland track.
"Well, here is the bridge!" said Ognev. "Here you must turn back."
Vera stopped and drew a breath.
"Let us sit down," she said, sitting down on one of the posts. "People
generally sit down when they say good-bye before starting on a
journey."
Ognev settled himself beside her on his bundle of books and went on
talking. She was breathless from the walk, and was looking, not at Ivan
Alexeyitch, but away into the distance so that he could not see her face.
"And what if we meet in ten years' time?" he said. "What shall we be
like then? You will be by then the respectable mother of a family, and I
shall be the author of some weighty statistical work of no use to anyone,
as thick as forty thousand such works. We shall meet and think of old
days. . . . Now we are conscious of the present; it absorbs and excites us,
but when we meet we shall not remember the day, nor the month, nor
even the year in which we saw each other for the last time on this
bridge. You will be changed, perhaps . . . . Tell me, will you be

different?"
Vera started and turned her face towards him.
"What?" she asked.
"I asked you just now. . . ."
"Excuse me, I did not hear what you were saying."
Only then Ognev noticed a change in Vera. She was pale, breathing fast,
and the tremor in her breathing affected her hands and lips and head,
and not one curl as usual, but two, came loose and fell on her
forehead. . . . Evidently she avoided looking him in the face, and, trying
to mask her emotion, at one moment fingered her collar, which seemed
to be rasping her neck, at another pulled her red shawl from one
shoulder to the other.
"I am afraid you are cold," said Ognev. "It's not at all wise to sit in the
mist. Let me see you back _nach-haus_."
Vera sat mute.
"What is the matter?" asked Ognev, with a smile. "You sit silent and
don't answer my questions. Are you cross, or don't you feel well?"
Vera pressed the palm of her hand to the cheek nearest to Ognev, and
then abruptly jerked it away.
"An awful position!" she murmured, with a look of pain on her face.
"Awful!"
"How is it awful?" asked Ognev, shrugging his shoulders and not
concealing his surprise. "What's the matter?"
Still breathing hard and twitching her shoulders, Vera turned her back
to him, looked at the sky for half a minute, and said:
"There is something I must say to you, Ivan Alexeyitch. . . ."
"I am listening."
"It may seem strange to you. . . . You will be surprised, but I don't
care. . . ."
Ognev shrugged his shoulders once more and prepared himself to
listen.
"You see . . ." Verotchka began, bowing her head and fingering a ball
on the fringe of her shawl. "You see . . . this is what I wanted to tell
you. . . . You'll think it strange . . . and silly, but I . . . can't bear it any
longer."
Vera's words died away in an indistinct mutter and were suddenly cut
short by tears. The girl hid her face in her handkerchief, bent lower than

ever, and wept bitterly. Ivan Alexeyitch cleared his throat in confusion
and looked about him hopelessly, at his wits' end, not knowing what to
say or do. Being unused to the sight of tears, he felt his own eyes, too,
beginning to smart.
"Well, what next!" he muttered helplessly. "Vera Gavrilovna, what's
this for, I should like to know? My dear girl, are you . . . are you ill? Or
has someone been nasty to you? Tell me, perhaps I could, so to say . . .
help you. . . ."
When, trying to console her, he ventured