LITMIR.BIZ

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are you saying?”

      And Madame Leotard flared up.

      Madame Leotard was a splendid woman, and above all things disliked hurting anyone’s feelings; but touch one of her favourites, trouble the classic shades of Corneille, or Racine, insult Voltaire, call Jean Jacques Rousseau a bad man, call him a barbarian and — good heavens! Tears came into Madame Leotard’s eyes, and the old lady trembled with excitement.

      “You are forgetting yourself, prince!” she said at last, beside herself with agitation.

      The prince pulled himself up at once and begged her pardon, then came up to me, kissed me with great feeling, made the sign of the cross over me, and left the room.

      “Pauvre prince!” said Madame Leotard growing sentimental in her turn. Then we sat down to the schoolroom table.

      But Katya was very inattentive at her lessons. Before going in to dinner she came up to me, looking flushed, with a laugh on her lips, stood facing me, seized me by the shoulders and said hurriedly as though ashamed:

      “Well? You were shut up for a long time for me, weren’t you? After dinner let us go and play in the drawing-room.”

      Someone passed by, and Katya instantly turned away from me.

      In the dusk of evening we went down together to the big drawing-room, hand in hand. Katya was much moved and breathless with excitement. I was happy and joyful as I had never been before.

      “Would you like a game of ball?” she said. “Stand here.”

      She set me in one corner of the room, but instead of walking away and throwing the ball to me, she stopped three steps from me, glanced at me, flushed crimson and sank on the sofa, hiding her face in both hands. I made a movement towards her; she thought that I meant to go away.

      “Don’t go, Nyetochka, stay with me,” she said. “I shall be all right in a minute.”

      But in a flash she had jumped up from her place, and flushed and in tears flung herself on my neck. Her cheeks were wet, her lips were swollen like cherries, her curls were in disorder. She kissed me as though she were frantic, she kissed my face, eyes, lips, neck and hands, she sobbed as though she were in hysterics; I hugged her tight and we embraced each other sweetly, joyfully, like friends, like lovers who had met after a long separation. Katya’s heart beat so violently that I could hear every throb.

      But we heard a voice in the next room. Katya was called to go to her mother. She kissed me for the last time, quietly, silently, warmly, and flew from me at Nastya’s call. I ran upstairs as though I had risen from the dead, flung myself on the sofa, hid my face in the pillow and sobbed with rapture. My heart was thumping as though it would burst my chest. I don’t know how I existed until the night. At last it struck eleven and I went to bed. Katya did not come back till twelve; she smiled at me from a distance but did not say a word. Nastya began undressing her slowly as though on purpose.

      “Make haste, make haste, Nastya,” Katya muttered.

      “What’s the matter with you, princess? Have you been running upstairs that your heart beats so?…” Nastya inquired.

      “Oh, dear, how tiresome you are, Nastya! Make haste, make haste!” And Katya stamped on the floor in her vexation.

      “Ah, what a little heart!” said Nastya, kissing the little foot from which she was taking off the shoe.

      At last everything was done, Katya got into bed and Nastya went out of the room. Instantly Katya jumped out of bed and flew to me. I cried out as she came to me.

      “Get into my bed, sleep with me!” she said, pulling me out of bed. A minute later I was in her bed. We embraced and hugged each other eagerly. Katya kissed and kissed me.

      “Ah, I remember how you kissed me in the night,” she said, flushing as red as a poppy.

      I sobbed.

      “Nyetochka!” whispered Katya through her tears, “my angel, I have loved you for so long, for so long! Do you know since when?’’

      “Since when?”

      “Ever since father told me to beg your pardon that time when you stood up for your father, Nyetochka… my little for — lorn one,” she said, showering kisses on me again. She was crying and laughing together.

      “Oh, Katya!”

      “Oh, what — oh, what?”

      “Why have we waited so long… so long..,” and I could not go on. We hugged each other and said nothing for three minutes.

      “Listen, what did you think of me?” asked Katya.

      “Oh, what a lot I thought about you, Katya. I have been thinking about you all the time, I thought about you day and night.”

      “And at night you talked about me.”

      “Really?”

      “You cried ever so many times.”

      “I say, why were you so proud all the time?”

      “I was stupid, you know, Nyetochka. It comes upon me, and then it’s all over with me. I was angry with you.”

      “What for?”

      “Because I was horrid. First, because you were better than I was; and then because father loves you more than me! And father is a kind man, Nyetochka, isn’t he?”

      “Oh, yes,” I said, thinking with tears of the prince.

      “He’s a good man,” said Katya gravely. “But what am I to do with him? He’s always so…. Well, then I asked your forgiveness, and I almost cried, and that made me cross again.”

      “And I saw, I saw that you wanted to cry.”

      “Well, hold your tongue, you little silly, you’re a cry-baby yourself,” Katya exclaimed, putting her hand over my mouth. “Listen. I very much wanted to like you, and then all at once began to want to hate you; and I did hate you so, I did hate you so!…”

      “What for?”

      “Oh, because I was cross with you. I don’t know what for! And then I saw that you couldn’t live without me, and I thought, ‘I’ll torment her, the horrid thing!’”

      “Oh, Katya!”

      “My darling!” said Katya, kissing my hand. “Then I wouldn’t speak to you, I wouldn’t for anything. But do you remember how I stroked Falstaff?”

      “Ah, you fearless girl!”

      “Wasn’t I fri-ight-ened!” Katya drawled. “Do you know why I went up to him?”

      “Why?”

      “Why, you were looking at me. When I saw that you were looking… Ah, come what may, I would go up to him. I gave you a fright, didn’t I? Were you afraid for me?”

      “Horribly!”

      “I saw. And how glad I was that Falstaff went away! Goodness, how frightened I was afterwards when he had gone, the mo-on-ster!’’

      And the little princess broke into an hysterical laugh; then she raised her feverish head and looked intently at me. Tears glistened like little pearls on her long eyelashes.

      “Why, what is there in you that I should have grown so fond of you? Ah, you poor little thing with your flaxen hair; you silly little thing, such a cry-baby, with your little blue eyes; my little orphan girl!”

      And Katya bent down to give me countless kisses again. A few drops of her tears fell on my cheeks. She was deeply moved.

      “How I loved you, but still I kept thinking, ‘No, no! I won’t tell her.’ And you know how obstinate I was! What was I afraid of, why was I ashamed of you? See how happy we are now!”

      “Katya! How it hurt me!” I said in a frenzy of joy. “It broke my heart!”

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