Through Russia [49]
less white than his hands. And when I felt one of those hands, I found that it had stiffened."
On Felitzata's face, as she recounted this, there was manifest a nervous expression. Likewise, her features were a trifle flushed. Yet gleaming also through the tears in her languorous eyes there was a sense of relief--one might almost have said a sense of joy.
"Next," continued she, "I looked closer still, and then fell on my knees before the body, sobbing: '0h my darling, whither art thou fled? 0h God, wherefore hast Thou taken him from me?' "
Here Felitzata inclined her head upon her left shoulder contracted her brows over her mischievous eyes, clasped her hands to her breast, and fell into the lament:
Oh, gone is my dove, my radiant moon! 0 star of mine eyes, thou hast set too soon! In darksome depths thy light lies drown'd, And time must yet complete its round, And the trump of the Second Advent sound, Ere ever my--
"Here, you! Hold your tongue!" grunted Vologonov irritably.
For myself, I had, that day, been walking in the forest, until, as I returned, I was brought up short before the windows of Felitzata's cot by the fact that some of the erstwhile turbulent denizens of the suburb were whispering softly together as, with an absence of all noise, they took turns to raise themselves on tiptoe, and, craning their necks, to peer into one of the black window-spaces. Yes, like bees on the step of a hive did they look, and on the great majority of faces, and in the great majority of eyes, there was quivering an air of tense, nervous expectancy.
Only Vologonov was nudging Felitzata, and saying to her in a loud, authoritative tone:
"Very ready are you to weep, but I should like first to hear the exact circumstances of the lad's death."
Thus invited, the woman wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her bodice, licked her lips, heaved a prolonged sigh, and fell to regarding Antipa's red, hardbitten face with the cheerful, unabashed glance of a person who is under the influence of liquor. From under her white head-band there had fallen over her temples and her right cheek a few wisps of golden hair; and indeed, as she drew herself up, and tossed her head and bosom, and smoothed out and stretched the creases in her bodice, she looked less than her years. Everyone now fell to eyeing her in an attentive silence, though not, it would seem, without a touch of envy.
Abruptly, sternly, the old man inquired:
"Did the lad ever complain of ill-health?"
"No, never," Felitzata replied. "Never once did he speak of it--never once."
"And he had not been beaten?"
"Oh, how can you ask me such a thing, and especially seeing that, that--?"
"I did not say beaten by YOU."
"Well, I cannot answer for anyone else, but at least had he no mark on his body, seeing that when I lifted the smock I could find nothing save for scratches on legs and back."
Her tone now had in it a new ring, a ring of increased assurance, and when she had finished she closed her bright eyes languidly before heaving a soft, as it were, voluptuous, and, withal, very audible sigh.
Someone here murmured:
"She DID use to beat him."
"What?"
"At all events she used to lose her temper with him."
This led to the putting of a further dozen or so of leading questions; whereafter Antipa, for a while, preserved a suggestive silence, and the crowd too remained silent, as though it had suddenly been lulled to slumber. Only at long last, and with a clearing of his throat, did Antipa say:
"Friends, we must suppose that God, of His infinite Mercy, has vouchsafed to us here a special visitation, in that, as all of us have perceived, a lad bereft of wit, the same radiant lad whom all of us have known, has here abided in the closest of communion with the Blessed Dispenser of life on earth."
Then I moved away, for upon my heart there was pressing a burden of unendurable sorrow, and I was yearning, oh, so terribly, to see Nilushka once more.
The back portion of Felitzata's cot stood a little sunken into the ground, so that the front portion
On Felitzata's face, as she recounted this, there was manifest a nervous expression. Likewise, her features were a trifle flushed. Yet gleaming also through the tears in her languorous eyes there was a sense of relief--one might almost have said a sense of joy.
"Next," continued she, "I looked closer still, and then fell on my knees before the body, sobbing: '0h my darling, whither art thou fled? 0h God, wherefore hast Thou taken him from me?' "
Here Felitzata inclined her head upon her left shoulder contracted her brows over her mischievous eyes, clasped her hands to her breast, and fell into the lament:
Oh, gone is my dove, my radiant moon! 0 star of mine eyes, thou hast set too soon! In darksome depths thy light lies drown'd, And time must yet complete its round, And the trump of the Second Advent sound, Ere ever my--
"Here, you! Hold your tongue!" grunted Vologonov irritably.
For myself, I had, that day, been walking in the forest, until, as I returned, I was brought up short before the windows of Felitzata's cot by the fact that some of the erstwhile turbulent denizens of the suburb were whispering softly together as, with an absence of all noise, they took turns to raise themselves on tiptoe, and, craning their necks, to peer into one of the black window-spaces. Yes, like bees on the step of a hive did they look, and on the great majority of faces, and in the great majority of eyes, there was quivering an air of tense, nervous expectancy.
Only Vologonov was nudging Felitzata, and saying to her in a loud, authoritative tone:
"Very ready are you to weep, but I should like first to hear the exact circumstances of the lad's death."
Thus invited, the woman wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her bodice, licked her lips, heaved a prolonged sigh, and fell to regarding Antipa's red, hardbitten face with the cheerful, unabashed glance of a person who is under the influence of liquor. From under her white head-band there had fallen over her temples and her right cheek a few wisps of golden hair; and indeed, as she drew herself up, and tossed her head and bosom, and smoothed out and stretched the creases in her bodice, she looked less than her years. Everyone now fell to eyeing her in an attentive silence, though not, it would seem, without a touch of envy.
Abruptly, sternly, the old man inquired:
"Did the lad ever complain of ill-health?"
"No, never," Felitzata replied. "Never once did he speak of it--never once."
"And he had not been beaten?"
"Oh, how can you ask me such a thing, and especially seeing that, that--?"
"I did not say beaten by YOU."
"Well, I cannot answer for anyone else, but at least had he no mark on his body, seeing that when I lifted the smock I could find nothing save for scratches on legs and back."
Her tone now had in it a new ring, a ring of increased assurance, and when she had finished she closed her bright eyes languidly before heaving a soft, as it were, voluptuous, and, withal, very audible sigh.
Someone here murmured:
"She DID use to beat him."
"What?"
"At all events she used to lose her temper with him."
This led to the putting of a further dozen or so of leading questions; whereafter Antipa, for a while, preserved a suggestive silence, and the crowd too remained silent, as though it had suddenly been lulled to slumber. Only at long last, and with a clearing of his throat, did Antipa say:
"Friends, we must suppose that God, of His infinite Mercy, has vouchsafed to us here a special visitation, in that, as all of us have perceived, a lad bereft of wit, the same radiant lad whom all of us have known, has here abided in the closest of communion with the Blessed Dispenser of life on earth."
Then I moved away, for upon my heart there was pressing a burden of unendurable sorrow, and I was yearning, oh, so terribly, to see Nilushka once more.
The back portion of Felitzata's cot stood a little sunken into the ground, so that the front portion