to the sofa and bent over Colibri, but

before he had time to utter a word she held out her hand and, still

laughing in her handkerchief, put her little, rough fingers into his

hair and instantly ruffled the well-arranged curls on the top of his

head.

«What next?» exclaimed Kuzma Vassilyevitch, not altogether pleased by

such unceremoniousness. «Oh, you naughty girl!»

Colibri took the handkerchief from her face.

«Not nice so; better now.» She moved away

to the further end of the sofa and drew her feet

up under her. «Sit down … there.»

Kuzma Vassilyevitch sat down on the spot indicated.

«Why do you move away?» he said, after a brief silence. «Surely you

are not afraid of me?»

Colibri curled herself up and looked at him sideways.

«I am not afraid … no.»

«You must not be shy with me,» Kuzma Vassilyevitch said in an

admonishing tone. «Do you remember your promise yesterday to give me a

kiss?»

Colibri put her arms round her knees, laid her head on them and looked

at him again.

«I remember.»

«I should hope so. And you must keep your word.»

«Yes … I must.»

«In that case,» Kuzma Vassilyevitch was beginning, and he moved

nearer.

Colibri freed her plaits which she was holding tight with her knees

and with one of them gave him a flick on his hand.

«Not so fast, sir!»

Kuzma Vassilyevitch was embarrassed.

«What eyes she has, the rogue!» he muttered, as though to himself.

«But,» he went on, raising his voice, «why did you call me … if that

is how it is?»

Colibri craned her neck like a bird … she listened. Kuzma

Vassilyevitch was alarmed.

«Emilie?» he asked.

«No.»

«Someone else?»

Colibri shrugged her shoulder.

«Do you hear something?»

«Nothing.» With a birdlike movement, again Colibri drew back her

little oval-shaped head with its pretty parting and the short growth

of tiny curls on the nape of her neck where her plaits began, and

again curled herself up into a ball. «Nothing.»

«Nothing! Then now I’ll …» Kuzma Vassilyevitch craned forward

towards Colibri but at once pulled back his hand. There was a drop of

blood on his finger. «What foolishness is this!» he cried, shaking his

finger. «Your everlasting pins! And the devil of a pin it is!» he

added, looking at the long, golden pin which Colibri slowly thrust

into her sash. «It’s a regular dagger, it’s a sting…. Yes, yes, it’s

your sting, and you are a wasp, that’s what you are, a wasp, do you

hear?»

Apparently Colibri was much pleased at Kuzma Vasselyevitch’s

comparison; she went off into a thin laugh and repeated several times

over:

«Yes, I will sting … I will sting.»

Kuzma Vassilyevitch looked at her and thought: «She is laughing but

her face is melancholy.

«Look what I am going to show you,» he said aloud.

«Tso?»

«Why do you say tso? Are you a Pole?»

«Nee.»

«Now you say nee! But there, it’s no matter.» Kuzma

Vassilyevitch got out his present and waved it in the air. «Look at

it…. Isn’t it nice?»

Colibri raised her eyes indifferently.

«Ah! A cross! We don’t wear.»

«What? You don’t wear a cross? Are you a Jewess then, or what?»

«We don’t wear,» repeated Colibri, and, suddenly starting, looked back

over her shoulder. «Would you like me to sing?» she asked hurriedly.

Kuzma Vassilyevitch put the cross in the pocket of his uniform and he,

too, looked round.

«What is it?» he muttered.

«A mouse … a mouse,» Colibri said hurriedly, and suddenly to Kuzma

Vassilyevitch’s complete surprise, flung her smooth, supple arms round

his neck and a rapid kiss burned his cheek … as though a red-hot

ember had been pressed against it.

He pressed Colibri in his arms but she slipped away like a snake—her

waist was hardly thicker than the body of a snake—and leapt to her

feet.

«Wait,» she whispered, «you must have some coffee first.»

«Nonsense! Coffee, indeed! Afterwards.»

«No, now. Now hot, after cold.» She took hold of the coffee pot by the

handle and, lifting it high, began pouring out two cups. The coffee

fell in a thin, as it were, twirling stream; Colibri leaned her head

on her shoulder and watched it fall. «There, put in the sugar …

drink … and I’ll drink.»

Kuzma Vassilyevitch put a lump of sugar in the cup and drank it off at

one draught. The coffee struck him as very strong and bitter. Colibri

looked at him, smiling, and faintly dilated her nostrils over the edge

of her cup. She slowly put it down on the table.

«Why don’t you drink it?» asked Kuzma Vassilyevitch.

«Not all, now.»

Kuzma Vassilyevitch got excited.

«Do sit down beside me, at least.»

«In a minute.» She bent her head and, still keeping her eyes fixed on

Kuzma Vassilyevitch, picked up the guitar. «Only I will sing first.»

«Yes, yes, only sit down.»

«And I will dance. Shall I?»

«You dance? Well, I should like to see that. But can’t that be

afterwards?»

«No, now…. But I love you very much.»

«You love? Mind now … dance away, then, you queer creature.»

XXI

Colibri stood on the further side of the table and running her fingers

several times over the strings of the guitar and to the surprise of

Kuzma Vassilyevitch, who was expecting a lively, merry song, began

singing a slow, monotonous air, accompanying each separate sound,

which seemed as though it were wrung out of her by force, with a

rhythmical swaying of her body to right and left. She did not smile,

and indeed knitted her brows, her delicate, high, rounded eyebrows,

between which a dark blue mark, probably burnt in with gunpowder,

stood out sharply, looking like some letter of an oriental alphabet.

She almost closed her eyes but their pupils glimmered dimly under the

drooping lids, fastened as before on Kuzma Vassilyevitch. And he, too,

could not look away from those marvellous, menacing eyes, from that

dark-skinned face that gradually began to glow, from the half-closed

and motionless lips, from the two black snakes rhythmically moving on

both sides of her graceful head. Colibri went on swaying without

moving from the spot and only her feet were working; she kept lightly

shifting them, lifting first the toe and then the heel. Once she

rotated rapidly and uttered a piercing shriek, waving the guitar high

in the air…. Then the same monotonous movement accompanied by the

same monotonous singing, began again. Kuzma Vassilyevitch sat

meanwhile very quietly on the sofa and went on looking at Colibri; he

felt something strange and unusual in himself: he was conscious of

great lightness and freedom, too great lightness, in fact; he seemed,

as it were, unconscious of his body, as though he were floating and at

the same time shudders ran down him, a sort of agreeable weakness

crept over his legs, and his lips and eyelids tingled with drowsiness.

He had no desire now, no thought of anything … only he was

wonderfully at ease, as though someone were lulling him, «singing him

to bye-bye,» as Emilie had expressed it, and he whispered to himself,

«little doll!» At times the face of the «little doll» grew misty. «Why

is that?» Kuzma Vassilyevitch wondered. «From the smoke,» he reassured

himself. «There is such a blue smoke here.» And again someone was

lulling him and even whispering in his ear something so sweet … only

for some reason it was always unfinished. But then all of a sudden in

the little doll’s face the eyes opened till they were immense,

incredibly big, like the arches of a bridge…. The guitar dropped,

and striking against the floor, clanged somewhere at the other end of

the earth…. Some very near and dear friend of Kuzma Vassilyevitch’s

embraced him firmly and tenderly from behind and set his cravat

straight. Kuzma Vassilyevitch saw just before his own face the hooked

nose, the thick moustache and the piercing eyes of the stranger with

the three buttons on his cuff … and although the eyes were in the

place of the moustache and the nose itself seemed upside down, Kuzma

Vassilyevitch was not in the least surprised, but, on the contrary,

thought that this was how it ought to be; he was even on the point of

saying to the nose, «Hullo, brother Grigory,» but he changed his mind

and preferred … preferred to set off with Colibri to Constantinople

at once for their forthcoming wedding, as she was a Turk and the Tsar

promoted him to be an actual Turk.

XXII

And opportunely a little boat appeared: he lifted his foot to get into

it and though through clumsiness he stumbled and hurt himself rather

badly, so that for some time he did not know where anything was, yet

he managed it and getting into the boat, floated on the big river,

which, as the River of Time, flows to Constantinople in the map on the

walls of the Nikolaevsky High School. With great satisfaction he

floated down the river and watched a number of red ducks which

continually met him; they would not let him come near them, however,

and, diving, changed into round, pink spots. And Colibri was going

with him, too, but to escape the sultry heat she hid, under the boat

and from time to time knocked on the bottom of it…. And here at last

was Constantinople. The houses, as houses should, looked like Tyrolese

hats; and the Turks had all big, sedate faces; only it did not do to

look at them too long: they began wriggling, making faces and at last

melted away altogether like thawing snow. And here was the palace in

which he would live with Colibri…. And how well everything was

arranged in it! Walls with generals’ gold lace on it, everywhere

epaulettes, people blowing trumpets in the corners and one could float

into the drawing-room in the boat. Of course, there was a portrait of

Mahomet…. Only Colibri kept running ahead through the rooms and her

plaits trailed after her on the floor and she would not turn round,

and she kept growing smaller and smaller…. And now it was not

Colibri but a boy in a jacket and he was the boy’s tutor and he had to

climb after the boy into a telescope, and the telescope got narrower

and narrower, till at last he could not move … neither backwards nor

forwards, and something fell on his back … there was earth in his

mouth.

XXIII

Kuzma Vassilyevitch opened his eyes. It was daylight and everything

was still … there