The Rendezvous | Page 3

almost at his eyebrows, and, looking
around with dignity, covered his precious head again cautiously. "And I
almost forgot all about it. Besides, you see, it's raining." He yawned
again. "I have a lot of work to do; you can't look after everything, and
he is yet scolding. We are leaving to-morrow--"
"To-morrow?" uttered the girl, and fixed a frightened look upon him.
"To-morrow--Come, come, come, please," he replied quickly, vexed,
noticing that she quivered, and bowed her head in silence. "Please,
Akulina, don't cry. You know I can't bear it" (and he twitched his flat
nose). "If you don't stop, I'll leave you right away. What nonsense--to
whimper!"

"Well, I shan't, I shan't," said Akulina hastily, swallowing the tears with
an effort. "So you're going away to-morrow?" she added, after a brief
silence. "When will it please God to have me meet you again, Victor
Alexandrich?"
"We'll meet, we'll meet again. If it isn't next year, it'll be later. My
master, it seems, wants to enter the service in St. Petersburg," he went
on, pronouncing the words carelessly and somewhat indistinctly. "And
it may be that we'll go abroad."
"You will forget me, Victor Alexandrich," said Akulina sadly.
"No--why should I? I'll not forget you, only you had rallier be sensible;
don't make a fool of yourself; obey your father--And I'll not forget
you--Oh, no; oh, no." And he stretched himself calmly and yawned
again.
"Do not forget me, Victor Alexandrich," she resumed in a beseeching
voice. "I have loved you so much, it seems--all, it seems, for you--You
tell me to obey father, Victor Alexandrich--How am I to obey my
father--?"
"How's that?" He pronounced these words as if from the stomach, lying
on his back and holding his hands under his head.
"Why, Victor Alexandrich--you know it yourself--"
She fell silent. Victor fingered his steel watch-chain.
"Akulina, you are not a foolish girl," he said at last, "therefore don't talk
nonsense. It's for your own good, do you understand me? Of course,
you are not foolish, you're not altogether a peasant, so to say, and your
mother wasn't always a peasant either. Still, you are without
education--therefore you must obey when you are told to."
"But it's terrible, Victor Alexandrich."
"Oh, what nonsense, my dear--what is she afraid of! What is that you

have there," he added, moving close to her, "flowers?"
"Flowers," replied Akulina sadly. "I have picked some field tansies,"
she went on, with some animation. "They're good for the calves, And
here I have some marigolds--for scrofula. Here, look, what a pretty
flower! I haven't seen such a pretty flower in all my life. Here are
forget-me-nots, and--and these I have picked for you," she added,
taking from under the tansies a small bunch of cornflowers, tied around
with a thin blade of grass; "do you want them?"
Victor held out his hand lazily, took the flowers, smelt them carelessly,
and began to turn them around in his fingers, looking up with
thoughtful importance. Akulina gazed at him. There was so much
tender devotion, reverent obedience, and love in her pensive eyes. She
at once feared him, and yet she dared not cry, and inwardly she bade
him farewell, and admired him for the last time; and he lay there,
stretched out like a sultan, and endured her admiration with
magnanimous patience and condescension. I confess I was filled with
indignation as I looked at his red face, which betrayed satisfied
selfishness through his feigned contempt and indifference. Akulina was
so beautiful at this moment. All her soul opened before him trustingly
and passionately;--it reached out to him, caressed him, and he--He
dropped the cornflowers on the grass, took out from the side-pocket of
his coat a round glass in a bronze frame and began to force it into his
eye; but no matter how hard he tried to hold it with his knitted brow,
his raised cheek, and even with his nose, the glass dropped out and fell
into his hands.
"What's this?" asked Akulina at last, with surprise.
"A lorgnette," he replied importantly.
"What is it for?"
"To see better."
"Let me see it."

Victor frowned, but gave her the glass.
"Look out; don't break it."
"Don't be afraid, I'll not break it." She lifted it timidly to her eye.
"I can't see anything," she said naively.
"Shut your eye," he retorted in the tone of a dissatisfied teacher. She
closed the eye before which she held the glass.
"Not that eye, not that one, you fool! The other one!" exclaimed Victor,
and, not allowing her to correct her mistake, he took the lorgnette away
from her.
Akulina blushed, laughed slightly, and turned away.
"It seems it's not for us."
"Of course not!"
The poor girl maintained silence, and heaved a deep sigh.
"Oh, Victor