He could not finish. The boldness that had surged over him was suddenly gone.
“That you what? What were you going to say?” asked Nina, with feigned indifference, but in a voice which quivered in spite of her, and casting down her eyes.
She expected a confession of love, which always thrills the hearts of young girls so strongly and so sweetly, no matter whether they share the sentiment or not. Her cheeks had paled slightly.
“Not now – some other time,” Bobrov stammered. “I’ll tell you some other day. But not now, for goodness’ sake,” he added entreatingly.
“All right. But still, why were you angry?”
“Because, after those few moments, I walked into the dining-room in a most – how shall I put it? – in a most tender mood, and when I walked in – ”
“You were shocked by the talk about Kvashnin’s income, is that it?” Nina prompted, with that instinctive perspicacity which sometimes comes to the most narrow-minded women. “Am I right?” She faced him squarely, and once more enveloped him in a deep, caressing gaze. “Be frank. You mustn’t keep anything from your friend.’”
Some three or four months before, while boating with a crowd of others, Nina, excited and softened by the beauty of the warm summer night, had offered Bobrov her friendship to the end of time. He had accepted the offer’ very earnestly, and for a whole week had called her his’ friend, just as she had called him hers. And whenever; she had said my friend, slowly and significantly, with her usual languorous air, the two short words had gone straight to his heart. Now he recalled the joke, and replied with a sigh:
“Good, ‘my friend,’ I’ll tell you the whole truth though it won’t be easy. You always inspire me with a painfully divided feeling. As we talk there are moments when, by just one word, one gesture, or even one look, you suddenly make me so happy! Ah, but how can I put such a sensation into words? Have you ever noticed it?”
“Yes,” she replied almost in a whisper, and lowered her eyes, with a sly flutter of lashes.
“And then, all of a sudden, you would become a provincial young lady, with a standard vocabulary of stock phrases and an affected manner. Please don’t be cross with me for my frankness. I wouldn’t have spoken if it hadn’t tormented me so terribly.” “I’ve noticed that, too.”
“Well, there you are. I’ve always been sure that you have a responsive and tender heart. But why don’t you want to be always as you are at this moment?”
She turned to face him again, and even moved her hand, as if to touch his. They were walking up and down the vacant end of the platform.
“You never tried to understand me, Andrei Ilyich,” she said reproachfully. “You’re nervous and impatient. You exaggerate all that is good in me, but then you won’t forgive me for being what I am, though, in the environment in which I live, I can’t really be anything else. It would be ridiculous if I were – it would bring discord into our family. I’m too weak and, to tell the truth, too insignificant to fight and be independent. I go where everybody else does, and I look on things and judge them as everybody else does. And don’t imagine I don’t know I’m common. But when I’m with the others I don’t feel it as I do with you. In your presence I lose all sense of proportion because – ” She faltered. “Oh, well – because you’re quite different, because I’ve never met anyone like you in my life.”
She thought she was speaking sincerely. The invigorating freshness of the autumn air, the bustle at the station, the consciousness of her own beauty, and the pleasure she felt sensing Bobrov’s loving gaze fixed upon her, electrified her, like all hysterical characters, into lying with inspiration and charm, and quite unwittingly. Admiring herself in her new role of a young lady craving for moral support, she wanted to say agreeable things to Bobrov.
“I know you look on me as a flirt. Please don’t deny it – I admit I give you cause to think that. For example, I often chat with Miller and laugh at his jokes. But if you only knew how I detest that oily cherub! Or take those two students. A handsome man is disagreeable because he’s always admiring himself, if for no other reason. Believe me, although it may sound strange, plain men have always appealed to me particularly.”
As she uttered this charming sentence in her most tender accents, Bobrov drew a mournful sigh. Alas! he had heard this cruel consolation from women more than once, a consolation they never refuse to their ugly admirers.
“So I may hope to appeal to you some day?” he asked in a joking tone which, however, clearly suggested bitter self-mockery.
Nina hastened to make up for her blunder. “See what a man you are. I positively can’t talk with you. Must you fish for compliments, sir? Shame on you!”
She was a little embarrassed by her own gaucherie, and to change the subject she asked in a playfully imperious voice, “Well, now, what was it you were going to tell me in different circumstances? Kindly answer me at once!”
“I don’t know – I don’t remember,” Bobrov stammered, his ardour damped.
“Then I’ll remind you, my secretive friend. You began by speaking of last night. You said something about wonderful moments, and then you said that I must have noticed long ago – but noticed what? You didn’t finish. So kindly say it now. I demand it, do you hear?”
She was looking at him with a smile shining in her eyes – a smile at once sly and promising and tender. For one sweet moment his heart stood still in his chest, and he felt a fresh surge of his former courage. “She knows, she wants me to speak,” he thought, bracing himself.
They halted on the very edge of the platform, where they were quite alone. Both were excited. Nina was awaiting his reply, enjoying the piquancy of the game she had started, while Bobrov was casting about for words, breathing heavily with agitation. But just then, following the shrill sound of signal horns, a hubbub broke out on the platform.
“I’m waiting, do you hear?” Nina whispered, walking away from Bobrov. “It’s more important for me than you think.”
An express train, wrapped in black smoke, leapt into view from beyond a curve. A few minutes later, clattering over the points, it slowed down smoothly, and pulled up at the platform. At its tail end was a long service carriage shining with fresh blue paint, and the crowd rushed towards it.
The conductors hurried respectfully to open the carriage door; a ladder was unfolded instantly. Red with running and excitement, a frightened look on his face, the station master was urging the workmen uncoupling the service carriage. Kvashnin was one of the principal shareholders of the X Railway and travelled on its branch-lines with greater pomp than was sometimes accorded even to the highest railway officials.
Only four men entered the carriage: Shelkovnikov, Andreas, and two influential Belgian engineers. Kvashnin was sitting in an easy chair, his enormous legs thrown apart and his belly thrust forward. He wore a round felt hat, his fiery hair shining under it; his face, shaved like an actor’s, with flabby jowls and a triple chin, and mottled with big freckles, seemed drowsy and annoyed; his lips were curled in a contemptuous, sour grimace.
With an effort he rose to greet the engineers.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said in a husky, deep voice, holding out his huge chubby hand for them to touch respectfully by turns. “How’s everything at the mill?”
Shelkovnikov began to report in the stiff language of an official account. Everything was all right at the mill, he said. They had been waiting for Vasily Terentyevich’s arrival to blow in the blast-furnace and lay the foundations of new buildings. The workmen and foremen had been hired at suitable rates. The great flow of orders induced the management to start the construction as early as possible.
Kvashnin