"Well, here I've seen you, and already I feel better. How is it you haven't been here for so long?"

"I couldn't s.n.a.t.c.h away the time, nohow-camping. You know yourself...

We had to put away twenty-five versts a day. The whole day drilling and drilling: field, formation, garrison. With a full pack. Used to get so f.a.gged out from morning to night that towards evening you couldn't feel your legs under you... We were at the manoeuvres also... It isn't sweet..."

"Oh, you poor little things!" Little White Manka suddenly clasped her hands. "And what do they torture you for, angels that you are? If I was to have a brother like you, or a son--my heart would just simply bleed.

Here's to your health, little cadet!"

They clinked gla.s.ses. Jennka was just as attentively scrutinizing Gladishev.

"And you, Jennechka?" he asked, extending a gla.s.s.

"I don't want to," she answered listlessly, "but, however, ladies, you've drunk some wine, chatted a bit--don't wear the welcome off the mat."

"Perhaps you'll stay with me the whole night?" she asked Gladishev, when the others had gone away. "Don't you be afraid, dearie; if you won't have enough money, I'll pay the difference for you. You see, how good-looking you are, that a wench does not grudge even money for you?"

she began laughing.

Gladishev turned around to her; even his un.o.bserving ear was struck by Jennka's strange tone--neither sad, nor kindly, nor yet mocking.

"No, sweetie, I'd be very glad to; I'd like to remain myself, but I can't possibly; I promised to be home toward ten o'clock."

"That's nothing, dear, they'll wait; you're altogether a grown-up man now. Is it possible that you have to listen to anybody? ... But, however, as you wish. Shall I put out the light entirely, perhaps; or is it all right the way it is? Which do you want--the outside or near the wall?"

"It's immaterial to me," he answered in a quavering voice; and, having embraced with his arm the hot, dry body of Jennka, he stretched with his lips toward her face. She slightly repulsed him.

"Wait, bear a while, sweetheart--we have time enough to kiss our fill yet. Just lie still for one little minute... So, now... quiet, peaceful... don't stir..."

These words, pa.s.sionate and imperious, acted like hypnosis upon Gladishev. He submitted to her and lay down on his back, putting his hands underneath his head. She raised herself a little, leant upon her elbow, and placing her head upon the bent hand, silently, in the faint half-light, was looking his body over--so white, strong, muscular; with a high and broad pectoral cavity; with well-made ribs; with a narrow pelvis; and with mighty, bulging thighs. The dark tan of the face and the upper half of the neck was divided by a sharp line from the whiteness of the shoulders and breast.

Gladishev blinked for a second. It seemed to him that he was feeling upon himself, upon his face, upon his entire body, this intensely fixed gaze, which seemed to touch his face and tickle it, like the cobwebby contact of a comb, which you first rub against a cloth--the sensation of a thin, imponderous, living matter.

He opened his eyes and saw altogether near him the large, dark, uncanny eyes of the woman, who seemed to him now an entire stranger.

"What are you looking at, Jennie?" he asked quietly. "What are you thinking of?"

"My dear little boy! ...They call you Kolya: isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"Don't be angry at me, carry out a certain caprice of mine, please: shut your eyes again... no, even tighter, tighter... I want to turn up the light and have a good look at you. There now, so... If you only knew how beautiful you are now... right now... this second. Later you will become coa.r.s.e, and you will begin giving off a goatish smell; but now you give off an odour of fur and milk... and a little of some wild flower. But shut them--shut your eyes!"

She added light, returned to her place, and sat down in her favourite pose--Turkish fashion. Both kept silent. In the distance, several rooms away, a broken-down grand piano was tinkling; somebody's vibrating laughter floated in; while from the other side--a little song, and rapid, merry talking. The words could not be heard. A cabby was rumbling by somewhere through the distant street...

"And now I will infect him right away, just like all the others,"

pondered Jennka, gliding with a deep gaze over his well-made legs, his handsome torso of a future athlete, and over his arms, thrown back, upon which, above the bend of the elbow, the muscles tautened--bulging, firm. "Why, then, am I so sorry for him? Or is it because he is such a good-looking little fellow? No. I am long since a stranger to such feelings. Or is it because he is a boy? Why, only a little over a year ago I shoved apples in his pocket, when he was going away from me at night. Why have I not told him then that which, I can, and dare, tell him now? Or would he not have believed me, anyway? Would have grown angry? Would have gone to another? For sooner or later this turn awaits every man... And that he bought me for money--can that be forgiven? Or did he act just as all of them do--blindly? ..."

"Kolya!" she said quietly, "Open your eyes."

He obeyed, opened his eyes, turned to her; entwined her neck with his arm, drew her a little to him, and wanted to kiss her in the opening of her chemise--on the breast. She again tenderly but commandingly repulsed him.

"No, wait a while, wait a while--hear me out... one little minute more.

Tell me, boy, why do you come here to us--to the women?"

Kolya quietly and hoa.r.s.ely began laughing.

"How silly you are! Well, what do they all come for? Am I not also a man? For, it seems, I'm at that age when in every man ripens... well, a certain need... for woman. For I'm not going to occupy myself with all sorts of nastiness!"

"Need? Only need? That means, just as for that chamber which stands under my bed?"

"No, why so?" retorted Kolya, with a kindly laugh. "I liked you very much... From the very first time... If you will, I'm even... a little in love with you... at least, I never stayed with any of the others."

"Well, all right! But then, the first time, could it possibly have been need?"

"No, perhaps, it wasn't need even; but somehow, vaguely, I wanted woman... My friends talked me into it... Many had already gone here before me... So then, I too..."

"But, now, weren't you ashamed the first time?"

Kolya became confused; all this interrogation was to him unpleasant, oppressive. He felt, that this was not the empty, idle bed talk, so well known to him, out of his small experience; but something else, of more import.

"Let's say... not that I was ashamed... well, but still I felt kind of awkward. I drank that time to get up courage."

Jennie again lay down on her side; leaned upon her elbow, and again looked at him from time to time, near at hand and intently.

"But tell me, sweetie," she asked, in a barely audible voice, so that the cadet with difficulty made out her words, "tell me one thing more; but the fact of your paying money, these filthy two roubles--do you understand?--paying them for love, so that I might caress, kiss you, give all my body to you--didn't you feel ashamed to pay for that?

Never?"

"Oh, my G.o.d! What strange questions you put to me to-day! But then they all pay money! Not I, then some one else would have paid--isn't it all the same to you?"

"And have you been in love with any one, Kolya? Confess! Well, now, if not in real earnest, then just so... at soul... Have you done any courting? Brought little flowers of some sort... Strolled arm-in-arm with her under the moon? Wasn't that so?"

"Well, yes," said Koiya in a sedate ba.s.s. "What follies don't happen in one's youth! It's a matter anyone can understand..."

"Some sort of a little first cousin? An educated young lady? A boarding school miss? A high school girl? ... There has been, hasn't there?"

"Well, yes, of course--everybody has them."

"Why, you wouldn't have touched her, would you? ... You'd have spared her? Well, if she had only said to you: take me, but only give me two roubles--what would you have said to her?"

"I don't understand you, Jennka!" Gladishev suddenly grew angry. "What are you putting on airs for! What sort of comedy are you trying to put over! Honest to G.o.d, I'll dress myself at once and go away."

"Wait a while, wait a while, Kolya! One more, one more, the last, the very, very last question."

"Oh, you!" growled Kolya displeased.

"And could you never imagine... well, imagine it right now, even for a second... that your family has suddenly grown poor, become ruined.

You'd have to earn your bread by copying papers; or, now, let's say, through carpenter or blacksmith work; and your sister was to go wrong, like all of us... yes, yes, yours, your own sister... if some blockhead seduced her and she was to go travelling... from hand to hand... what would you say then?"

"Bosh! ... That can't be..." Kolya cut her short curtly. "But, however, that's enough--I'm going away!"