In the sky the first stars began to light up and display themselves to the eye as little, trembling, emerald, sparkling points.
From the right you might hear a weak echo of voices, laughter and the strains of a song; but in all the rest of the wood, which was sunk in soft, caressing darkness, reigned a deep, mysterious silence.
The great blazing pyre was not visible from this spot in the woods, but the crests from the nearest oaks now and then reflected the flaming red glow that, by its rapid changes from darkness to light, reminded one of distant and vivid sheet-lightning.
Shurochka softly and silently caressed Romashov’s hair and face. When he succeeded in seizing her fingers between his lips, she herself pressed the palm of her hand against his mouth.
“I do not love my husband,” she said slowly and in an absent voice.
“He is rough, indelicate, and devoid of any trace of fine feeling.
Ah, I blush when I speak of it—we women never forget how a man first takes forcible possession of us.
Besides, he is so insanely jealous.
Even to-day he worries me about that wretched Nasanski.
He forces confessions from me, and makes the most insignificant events of those times the ground for the wildest conclusions. Ah—shame, he has unblushingly dared to put the most disgusting questions to me.
Good God! all that was only an innocent, childish romance, but the mere mention of Nasanski’s name makes him furious.”
Now and then, whilst she spoke, a nervous trembling was noticeable in her voice, and her hand, still continuing its caress, was thrilled, as it were, by a shudder.
“Are you cold?” asked Romashov.
“No, dear—not at all,” she replied gently. “The night is so bewitchingly beautiful, you know.”
Suddenly, with a burst of uncontrollable passion, she exclaimed,
“Oh, my beloved, how sweet to be here with you.”
Romashov took her hand, softly caressed the delicate fingers, and said in a shy, diffident tone:
“Tell me, I beg you.
You have just said yourself that you do not love your husband. Why, then, do you live together?”
She arose with a rapid movement, sat up, and began nervously to pass her hands over her forehead and cheeks, as if she had awakened from a dream.
“It’s late; let us go.
Perhaps they are even now looking for us,” she answered in a calm and completely altered voice.
They got up from the grass, and both stood for a while silent, listening to each other’s breathings, eye to eye, but with lowered gaze.
“Good-bye,” she suddenly cried in a silvery voice.
“Good-bye, my bliss—my brief bliss.”
She twined her arms round his neck and pressed her moist, burning-hot lips to his mouth. With clenched teeth and a sigh of intense passion she pressed her body to his.
To Romashov’s eyes the black trunks of the oaks seemed to reel and softly bend towards the ground, where the objects ran into each other and disappeared before his eyes. Time stood still....
By a violent jerk she released herself from his arms, and said in a firm voice:
“Farewell—enough.
Let us go.”
Romashov without a sound sank down on the grass at her feet, embracing her knees, and pressing his lips against her dress in long, hot kisses.
“Sascha—Saschenka,” he whispered, having now lost all self-command, “have pity on me.”
“Get up, Georgi Alexandrovich!
Come—they might take us unawares.
Let us return to the others.”
They proceeded on their way in the direction from which they heard the sound of voices.
Romashov’s temples throbbed, his knees gave way, and he stumbled like a drunken man.
“No, I will not,” Shurochka answered at last in a fevered, panting voice. “I will not betray him. Besides, it would be something even worse than betrayal—it would be cowardice.
Cowardice enters into every betrayal.
I’ll tell you the whole truth. I have never deceived my husband, and I shall remain faithful to him until the very moment when I shall release myself from him—for ever.
His kisses and caresses are disgusting to me, and listen, now—no, even before—when I thought of you and your kisses, I understood what ineffable bliss it would be to surrender myself wholly to the man I love.
But to steal such a joy—never. I hate deceit and treacherous ways.”
They were approaching the spot where the picnic had taken place, and the flames from the pyre shone from between the trees, the coarse, bark-covered trunks of which were sharply outlined against the fire, and looked as if they were molten in some black metal.
“Well,” resumed Romashov, “if I shake off my sluggishness, if I succeed in attaining the same goal as that for which your husband is striving, or perhaps even something still higher—would you then ...?”
She pressed her cheek hard against his shoulder, and answered impetuously and passionately—
“Yes, then, then!”
They gained the open.
All the vast, burning pyre was visible; around it a crowd of small, dark figures were moving.
“Listen, Romochka, to still another last word.” Shurochka spoke fast, and there was a note of sorrow and anguish in her voice.
“I did not like to spoil this evening for you, but now it must be told.