Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [370]
And still, dear God, no one thought to look at Olga.
She was sitting a little back from Tatiana. She had only to move her face two inches to place it in shadow, and now she had done so, and bowed her head. But he had seen – even in the moonlight – he had seen her blush, then seen the tears upon her cheeks. Dear God, she knew. At last she understood.
They sat for several moments then Sergei suggested: ‘The night is young. Why don’t we walk to the skit where the monks live!’ The little hermitage lay at the end of the path. Karpenko at once endorsed the idea; Pinegin seemed agreeable. But Ilya and the two older women were disinclined. ‘We’ll go back to the cart and go home,’ Tatiana declared. ‘Let the young people go on.’ And so the party divided.
Those who continued were led by Sergei along the path. He had young Arina and Pinegin close beside him. Olga, seemingly lost in thought, walked just behind with Karpenko. Sergei moved along briskly, telling Pinegin something of the history of the little hermitage as they went. And so intent on this was he that, it seemed, he was taken by surprise to find after a few turns of the path that the Cossack and Olga had fallen behind so far they were out of sight.
‘Walk on,’ he said to Pinegin. ‘I’ll go and hurry them up.’ And a few minutes later the little Cossack came up to Pinegin, looking back over his shoulder as if the others were just round the corner, and remarked: ‘Olga’s talking to her brother. They’ll catch us up. This way.’ And he led them forward.
It was a couple of hundred yards further that the track forked. ‘Sergei said it’s this one,’ the Cossack said firmly. And they had walked on more than half a mile before the track petered out and Karpenko said: ‘Devil take it! I must have made a mistake.’
They stood together, Sergei and his sister. They had moved just off the path to the river bank, where they could watch the reflection of the moon and stars on the water. How pale she looked, in her long white summer dress. For a time they were silent.
‘The poem was for me?’
‘Of course.’
She gazed at the water. ‘I … had no idea.’ She stopped, then seemed to smile. ‘Dear Seriozha. It was very beautiful.’ She paused. ‘But the words … were not for a sister.’
‘No.’
She sighed. She shook her head, gently. ‘Seriozha … your poem spoke of love of the kind …’
‘Of passion.’
She took his hand and looked up at him for a moment, then down again at the water.
‘I am your sister.’
For a moment he did not speak. Then he said simply, ‘I dare say we shall never in our lives speak of this again. But, so that I may know, when I die – could you love me as I love you?’
She paused so long he thought the moon had moved upon the water. Then she shrugged. ‘What if I could?’ And then: ‘I love you as a brother.’ She squeezed his hand gently and turned her face up to his. ‘What is it you want, Seriozha, my poet of a brother? What is it you want?’
He smiled a little sadly. ‘I scarcely know. Everything. The universe. You.’
‘You want me?’
‘The universe, you: for me it’s one and the same.’
‘You brought me here, my dearest Seriozha, to seduce me?’ She smiled almost playfully.
‘You know that.’
She blushed. ‘I do now. Impossible – even if I would do such a thing. Not with my brother.’
‘Did you know,’ he asked softly, ‘that I’m only your half-brother?’
‘Yes, I did.’
She gave a little laugh that floated across the river.
‘Does that make it only half a crime?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps. It’s stronger almost than I am. An impulse.’
We can resist our impulses.’
‘Can we?’ he asked, in genuine surprise.
She did not move, however, and soon he put his arm around her while they stood and gazed silently at the sparkling night. He did not know how long they stood, but eventually he felt her give a little shiver, and taking his cue said soflty: ‘Let me this only time in my life, kiss you, just once.’
She