They’re rare now, you know, the Russians who are.”
“I know some of the people who are running these concerts.
I have a pass that admits two.
If you like to meet me next Sunday in the doorway, you can come in on it.”
“I don’t think I could quite do that.”
“Do you think it would be compromising?” he smiled.
“The crowd would surely be a sufficient chaperon.”
“I work in a dressmaker’s shop.
It would be hard to compromise me.
I don’t know that I can put myself under an obligation to a total stranger.”
“I am sure you are a very well-brought-up young lady, but you should not have unreasonable prejudices.”
She did not want to argue the point.
“Well, we’ll see.
In any case I thank you for the suggestion.”
They talked of other things till the conductor once more raised his baton.
At the end of the concert he turned to say good-bye to her.
“Till next Sunday then?” he said.
“We’ll see.
Don’t wait for me.”
They lost one another in the crowd that thronged towards the exits.
During the next week she thought from time to time of the good-looking young man with the large gray eyes.
She thought of him with pleasure.
She had not arrived at her age without having had to resist now and then the advances of men.
Both Alexey and his son the gigolo had made a pass at her, but she had not found it difficult to deal with them.
A smart box on the ear had made the lachrymose drunkard understand that there was nothing doing, and the boy she had kept quiet by a judicious mingling of ridicule and plain speech.
Often enough men had tried to pick her up in the street, but she was always too tired and often too hungry to be tempted by their advances; it caused her a grim amusement to reflect that the offer of a square meal would have tempted her much more than the offer of a loving heart.
She had felt, with her woman’s instinct, that the young man of the concert was not quite like that.
Doubtless, like any other youth of his age, he would not miss an opportunity for a bit of fun if he could get it, but it was not for the sake of that that he had offered to take her to the concert on Sunday.
She had no intention of going, but she was touched that he had asked her.
There was something very nice about him, something ingenuous and frank.
She felt that she could trust him.
She looked at the programme.
They were giving the Symphonie Pathetique, she didn’t much care about that, Tchaikovsky was too Europeanized for her taste, but they were giving also the Sacre du Printemps and Borodin’s string quartet.
She wondered whether the young man had really meant what he said.
It might very well be that his invitation had been issued on the spur of the moment and in half an hour completely forgotten.
When Sunday came she had half a mind to go and see, she did very much want to hear the concert, and she had not a penny more in her pocket than she needed for her Metro and her lunches during the week, she had had to give everything else to Evgenia to provide the household with food; if he was not there no harm would have been done, and if he was and really had a pass for two, well, it would cost him nothing and committed her to nothing.
Finally an impulse took her to the Salle Pleyel and there he was, where he had said he would be, waiting for her.
His eyes lit up and he shook her warmly by the hand as though they were old friends.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” he said.
“I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes.
I was so afraid I’d miss you.”
She blushed and smiled.
They went into the concert room and she found he had seats in the fifth row.
“Did you get these given you?” she asked with surprise.
“No, I bought them.
I thought it would be nice to be comfortable.”
“What folly!
I’m so used to standing.”
But she was flattered by his generosity and when presently he took her hand did not withdraw it.
She felt that if it gave him pleasure to hold it, it did her no harm, and she owed him that.