“But excuse me, who are you?” repeated
Kuzma Vassilyevitch.
“Sister ... sister of Emilie.”
“You are her sister? And you live here?”
“Yes ... yes.”
Kuzma Vassilyevitch wanted to touch “the image.”
She drew back.
“How is it she has never spoken of you?”
“Could not ... could not.”
“You are in concealment then ... in hiding?”
“Yes.”
“Are there reasons?”
“Reasons ... reasons.”
“Hm!” Again Kuzma Vassilyevitch would
have touched the figure, again she stepped back.
“So that’s why I never saw you. I
must own I never suspected your existence. And
the old lady, Madame Fritsche, is your aunt, too?”
“Yes ... aunt.”
“Hm! You don’t seem to understand
Russian very well. What’s your name, allow
me to ask?”
“Colibri.”
“What?”
“Colibri.”
“Colibri! That’s an out-of-the-way
name! There are insects like that in Africa,
if I remember right?”
Colibri gave a short, queer laugh ... like a clink
of glass in her throat. She shook her head, looked
round, laid her guitar on the table and going quickly
to the door, abruptly shut it. She moved briskly
and nimbly with a rapid, hardly audible sound like
a lizard; at the back her hair fell below her knees.
“Why have you shut the door?” asked Kuzma
Vassilyevitch.
Colibri put her fingers to her lips.
“Emilie ... not want ... not want her.”
Kuzma Vassilyevitch grinned.
“I say, you are not jealous, are you?”
Colibri raised her eyebrows.
“What?”
“Jealous ... angry,” Kuzma Vassilyevitch
explained.
“Oh, yes!”
“Really! Much obliged.... I say, how
old are you?”
“Seventen.”
“Seventeen, you mean?”
“Yes.”
Kuzma Vassilyevitch scrutinised his fantastic companion
closely.
“What a beautiful creature you are!” he
said, emphatically. “Marvellous! Really
marvellous! What hair! What eyes! And
your eyebrows ... ough!”
Colibri laughed again and again looked round with
her magnificent eyes.
“Yes, I am a beauty! Sit down, and I’ll
sit down ... beside.”
“By all means! But say what you like, you
are a strange sister for Emilie! You are not
in the least like her.”
“Yes, I am sister ... cousin. Here ...
take ... a flower. A nice flower. It smells.”
She took out of her girdle a sprig of white lilac,
sniffed it, bit off a petal and gave him the whole
sprig. “Will you have jam? Nice jam
... from Constantinople ... sorbet?” Colibri
took from the small chest of drawers a gilt jar wrapped
in a piece of crimson silk with steel spangles on
it, a silver spoon, a cut glass decanter and a tumbler
like it. “Eat some sorbet, sir; it is fine.
I will sing to you.... Will you?” She took
up the guitar.
