Augen
eines Paradiesvogels!»
XI
One day in the very height of summer, Kuzma Vassilyevitch, who had
spent the whole morning in the sun with contractors and workmen,
dragged himself tired and exhausted to the little gate that had become
so familiar to him. He knocked and was admitted. He shambled into the
so-called drawing-room and immediately lay down on the sofa. Emilie
went up to him and mopped his wet brow with a handkerchief.
«How tired he is, poor pet! How hot he is!» she said commiseratingly.
«Good gracious! You might at least unbutton your collar. My goodness,
how your throat is pulsing!»
«I am done up, my dear,» groaned Kuzma Vassilyevitch. «I’ve been on my
feet all the morning, in the baking sun. It’s awful! I meant to go
home. But there those vipers, the contractors, would find me! While
here with you it is cool…. I believe I could have a nap.»
«Well, why not? Go to sleep, my little chick; no one will disturb you
here.»…
«But I am really ashamed.»
«What next! Why ashamed? Go to sleep. And I’ll sing you … what do you
call it? … I’ll sing you to bye-bye, ‘Schlaf, mein Kindchen,
Schlafe!'» She began singing.
«I should like a drink of water first.»
«Here is a glass of water for you. Fresh as crystal! Wait, I’ll put a
pillow under your head…. And here is this to keep the flies off.»
She covered his face with a handkerchief.
«Thank you, my little cupid…. I’ll just have a tiny doze … that’s
all.»
Kuzma Vassilyevitch closed his eyes and fell asleep immediately.
«Schlaf, mein Kindchen, schlafe,» sang Emilie, swaying from
side to side and softly laughing at her song and her movements.
«What a big baby I have got!» she thought. «A boy!»
XII
An hour and a half later the lieutenant awoke. He fancied in his sleep
that someone touched him, bent over him, breathed over him. He
fumbled, and pulled off the kerchief. Emilie was on her knees close
beside him; the expression of her face struck him as queer. She jumped
up at once, walked away to the window and put something away in her
pocket.
Kuzma Vassilyevitch stretched.
«I’ve had a good long snooze, it seems!» he observed, yawning. «Come
here, meine züsse Fräulein!»
Emilie went up to him. He sat up quickly, thrust his hand into her
pocket and took out a small pair of scissors.
«Ach, Herr Je!» Emilie could not help exclaiming.
«It’s … it’s a pair of scissors?» muttered Kuzma Vassilyevitch.
«Why, of course. What did you think it was … a pistol? Oh, how funny
you look! You’re as rumpled as a pillow and your hair is all standing
up at the back…. And he doesn’t laugh…. Oh, oh! And his eyes are
puffy…. Oh!»
Emilie went off into a giggle.
«Come, that’s enough,» muttered Kuzma Vassilyevitch, and he got up
from the sofa. «That’s enough giggling about nothing. If you can’t
think of anything more sensible, I’ll go home…. I’ll go home,» he
repeated, seeing that she was still laughing.
Emilie subsided.
«Come, stay; I won’t…. Only you must brush your hair.»
«No, never mind…. Don’t trouble. I’d better go,» said Kuzma
Vassilyevitch, and he took up his cap.
Emilie pouted.
«Fie, how cross he is! A regular Russian! All Russians are cross. Now
he is going. Fie! Yesterday he promised me five roubles and today he
gives me nothing and goes away.»
«I haven’t any money on me,» Kuzma Vassilyevitch muttered grumpily in
the doorway. «Good-bye.»
Emilie looked after him and shook her finger.
«No money! Do you hear, do you hear what he says? Oh, what deceivers
these Russians are! But wait a bit, you pug…. Auntie, come here, I
have something to tell you.»
That evening as Kuzma Vassilyevitch was undressing to go to bed, he
noticed that the upper edge of his leather belt had come unsewn for
about three inches. Like a careful man he at once procured a needle
and thread, waxed the thread and stitched up the hole himself. He
paid, however, no attention to this apparently trivial circumstance.
XIII
The whole of the next day Kuzma Vassilyevitch devoted to his official
duties; he did not leave the house even after dinner and right into
the night was scribbling and copying out his report to his superior
officer, mercilessly disregarding the rules of spelling, always
putting an exclamation mark after the word but and a semi-colon
after however. Next morning a barefoot Jewish boy in a tattered
gown brought him a letter from Emilie—the first letter that Kuzma
Vassilyevitch had received from her.
«Mein allerliebstep Florestan,» she wrote to him, «can you really so
cross with your Zuckerpüppchen be that you came not yesterday? Please
be not cross if you wish not your merry Emilie to weep very bitterly
and come, be sure, at 5 o’clock to-day.» (The figure 5 was surrounded
with two wreaths.) «I will be very, very glad. Your amiable Emilie.»
Kuzma Vassilyevitch was inwardly surprised at the accomplishments of
his charmer, gave the Jew boy a copper coin and told him to say, «Very
well, I will come.»
XIV
Kuzma Vassilyevitch kept his word: five o’clock had not struck when he
was standing before Madame Fritsche’s gate. But to his surprise he did
not find Emilie at home; he was met by the lady of the house herself
who—wonder of wonders!—dropping a preliminary curtsey, informed him
that Emilie had been obliged by unforeseen circumstances to go out but
she would soon be back and begged him to wait. Madame Fritsche had on
a neat white cap; she smiled, spoke in an ingratiating voice and
evidently tried to give an affable expression to her morose
countenance, which was, however, none the more prepossessing for that,
but on the contrary acquired a positively sinister aspect.
«Sit down, sit down, sir,» she said, putting an easy chair for him,
«and we will offer you some refreshment if you will permit it.»
Madame Fritsche made another curtsey, went out of the room and
returned shortly afterwards with a cup of chocolate on a small iron
tray. The chocolate turned out to be of dubious quality; Kuzma
Vassilyevitch drank the whole cup with relish, however, though he was
at a loss to explain why Madame Fritsche was suddenly so affable and
what it all meant. For all that Emilie did not come back and he was
beginning to lose patience and feel bored when all at once he heard
through the wall the sounds of a guitar. First there was the sound of
one chord, then a second and a third and a fourth—the sound
continually growing louder and fuller. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was
surprised: Emilie certainly had a guitar but it only had three
strings: he had not yet bought her any new ones; besides, Emilie was
not at home. Who could it be? Again a chord was struck and so loudly
that it seemed as though it were in the room…. Kuzma Vassilyevitch
turned round and almost cried out in a fright. Before him, in a low
doorway which he had not till then noticed—a big cupboard screened
it—stood a strange figure … neither a child nor a grown-up girl.
She was wearing a white dress with a bright-coloured pattern on it and
red shoes with high heels; her thick black hair, held together by a
gold fillet, fell like a cloak from her little head over her slender
body. Her big eyes shone with sombre brilliance under the soft mass of
hair; her bare, dark-skinned arms were loaded with bracelets and her
hands covered with rings, held a guitar. Her face was scarcely
visible, it looked so small and dark; all that was seen was the
crimson of her lips and the outline of a straight and narrow nose.
Kuzma Vassilyevitch stood for some time petrified and stared at the
strange creature without blinking; and she, too, gazed at him without
stirring an eyelid. At last he recovered himself and moved with small
steps towards her.
The dark face began gradually smiling. There was a sudden gleam of
white teeth, the little head was raised, and lightly flinging back the
curls, displayed itself in all its startling and delicate beauty.
«What little imp is this?» thought Kuzma Vassilyevitch, and, advancing
still closer, he brought out in a low voice:
«Hey, little image! Who are you?»
«Come here, come here,» the «little image» responded in a rather husky
voice, with a halting un-Russian intonation and incorrect accent, and
she stepped back two paces.
Kuzma Vassilyevitch followed her through the doorway and found himself
in a tiny room without windows, the walls and floor of which were
covered with thick camel’s-hair rugs. He was overwhelmed by a strong
smell of musk. Two yellow wax candles were burning on a round table in
front of a low sofa. In the corner stood a bedstead under a muslin
canopy with silk stripes and a long amber rosary with a red tassle at
the end hung by the pillow.
«But excuse me, who are you?» repeated Kuzma Vassilyevitch.
«Sister … sister of Emilie.»
«You are her sister? And you live here?»
«Yes … yes.»
Kuzma Vassilyevitch wanted to touch «the image.» She drew back.
«How is it she has never spoken of you?»
«Could not … could not.»
«You are in concealment then … in hiding?»
«Yes.»
«Are there reasons?»
«Reasons … reasons.»
«Hm!» Again Kuzma Vassilyevitch would have touched the figure, again
she stepped back. «So that’s why I never saw you. I must own I never
suspected your existence. And the old lady, Madame Fritsche, is your
aunt, too?»
«Yes … aunt.»
«Hm! You don’t seem to understand Russian very well. What’s your name,
allow me to ask?»
«Colibri.»
«What?»
«Colibri.»
«Colibri! That’s an out-of-the-way name! There are insects like that
in Africa, if I remember right?»
XV
Colibri gave a short, queer laugh … like a clink of glass in her
throat. She shook her head, looked round, laid her guitar on the table
and going quickly to the door, abruptly shut it. She moved briskly and
nimbly with a rapid, hardly audible sound like a lizard; at the back
her hair fell below her knees.
«Why have you shut the door?» asked Kuzma Vassilyevitch.
Colibri put her fingers to her lips.
«Emilie … not want … not want her.»
Kuzma Vassilyevitch grinned.
«I say, you are not jealous, are you?»
Colibri raised her eyebrows.
«What?»
«Jealous … angry,» Kuzma Vassilyevitch explained.
«Oh, yes!»
«Really! Much obliged…. I say, how old are you?»
«Seventen.»
«Seventeen, you mean?»
«Yes.»
Kuzma Vassilyevitch scrutinised his fantastic companion closely.
«What a beautiful
