Close thickets of bushes were arrayed beside the mighty trees, and these, here and there, formed a charming frame for the small open spaces covered by the fresh and delicate greenery of spring.
In a similar idyllic spot in the oak-woods, servants and footmen, sent on in advance, waited with samovars and baskets.
The company assembled around the white tablecloths spread on the grass.
The ladies produced plates and cold meat, and the gentlemen helped them, amidst jokes and flirtations.
Olisar dressed himself up as a cook by putting on a couple of serviettes as cap and apron. After much fun and ceremony, the difficult problem of placing the guests was solved, in which entered the indispensable condition that the ladies should have a gentleman on each side.
The guests half-reclined or half-sat in rather uncomfortable positions, which was appreciated by all as being something new and interesting, and which finally caused the ever-silent Lieschtschenko to astonish those present, amidst general laughter, by the following famous utterance:
“Here we lie, just like the old Greek Romans.”
Shurochka had on one side Taliman, on the other side Romashov.
She was unusually cheerful and talkative, nay, sometimes in such high spirits that the attention of many was called to it.
Romashov had never found her so bewitching before.
He thought he noticed in her something new, something emotional and passionate, which feverishly sought an outlet.
Sometimes she turned without a word to Romashov and gazed at him intently for half a second longer than was strictly proper, and he felt then that a force, mysterious, consuming, and overpowering, gleamed from her eyes.
Osadchi, who sat by himself at the end of the improvised table, got on his knees.
After tapping his knife against the glass and requesting silence, he said, in a deep bass voice, the heavy waves of sound from which vibrated in the pure woodland air—
“Gentlemen, let us quaff the first beaker in honour of our fair hostess, whose name-day it is.
May God vouchsafe her every good—and the rank of a General’s consort.”
And after he had raised the great glass, he shouted with all the force of his powerful voice—
“Hurrah!”
It seemed as if all the trees in the vicinity sighed and drooped under this deafening howl, which resembled the thunder’s boom and the lion’s roar, and the echo of which died away between the oaks’ thick trunks.
Andrusevich, who sat next to Osadchi, fell backwards with a comic expression of terror, and pretended to be slightly deaf during the remainder of the banquet.
The gentlemen got up and clinked their glasses with Shurochka’s.
Romashov purposely waited to the last, and she observed it.
Whilst Shurochka turned towards him, she, silently and with a passionate smile, held forward her glass of white wine.
In that moment her eyes grew wider and darker, and her lips moved noiselessly, just as if she had clearly uttered a certain word; but, directly afterwards, she turned round laughing to Taliman, and began an animated conversation with him.
“What did she say?” thought Romashov. “What word was it that she would not or dared not say aloud?”
He felt nervous and agitated, and, secretly, he made an attempt to give his lips the same form and expression as he had just observed with Shurochka, in order, by that means, to guess what she said; but it was fruitless.
“Romochka?” “Beloved?” “I love?” No, that wasn’t it.
Only one thing he knew for certain, viz., that the mysterious word had three syllables.
After that he drank with Nikolaiev, and wished him success on the General Staff, as if it were a matter of course that Nikolaiev would pass his examination.
Then came the usual, inevitable toasts of “the ladies present,” of “women in general,” the “glorious colours of the regiment,” of the “ever-victorious Russian Army,” etc.
Now up sprang Taliman, who was already very elevated, and screamed in his hoarse, broken falsetto,
“Gentlemen, I propose the health of our beloved, idolized sovereign, for whom we are all ready at any time to sacrifice our lives to the last drop of our blood.”
At the last words his voice failed him completely.
The bandit look in his dark brown, gipsy eyes faded, and tears moistened his brown cheeks.
“The hymn to the Tsar,” shouted little fat Madame Andrusevich.
All arose.
The officers raised their hands to the peaks of their caps.
Discordant, untrained, exultant voices rang over the neighbourhood, but worse and more out of tune than all the rest screamed the sentimental Staff-Captain Lieschtschenko, whose expression was even more melancholy than usual.
They now began drinking hard, as, for the matter of that, the officers always did when they forgathered at mess, at each other’s homes, at excursions and picnics, official dinners, etc.
All talked at once, and individual voices could no longer be distinguished.
Shurochka, who had drunk a good deal of white wine, suddenly leaned her head near Romashov. Her cheeks and lips glowed, and the dark pupils of her beaming eyes had now attained an almost black hue.
“I can’t stand these provincial picnics,” she exclaimed. “They are always so vulgar, mean, and wearisome.
I was, of course, obliged to give a party before my husband started for his examination, but, good gracious! why could we not have stayed at home and enjoyed ourselves in our pretty, shady garden? Such a stupid notion.
And yet to-day, I don’t know why, I am so madly happy.
Ah, Romochka, I know the reason; I know it, and will tell you afterwards. Oh, no! No, no, Romochka, that is not true. I know nothing—absolutely nothing.”
Her beautiful eyes were half-closed, and her face, full of alluring, promising, and tormenting impatience, had become shamelessly beautiful, and Romashov, though he hardly understood what it meant, was instinctively conscious of the passionate emotion which possessed Shurochka and felt a sweet thrill run down his arms and legs and through his heart.
“You are so wonderful to-day—has anything happened?” he asked in a whisper.
She answered straightway with an expression of innocent helplessness.
“I have already told you—I don’t know—I can’t explain it.
Look at the sky. It’s blue, but why? It is the same with me.