white in maiden pomp with every petal open to its
full, as though they knew their safety out of reach.
I longed to pick one of them, and behold, I found myself
at once on the river’s surface.... The
damp air struck me an angry blow in the face, just
as I broke the thick stalk of a great flower.
We began to fly across from bank to bank, like the
water-fowl we were continually waking up and chasing
before us. More than once we chanced to swoop
down on a family of wild ducks, settled in a circle
on an open spot among the reeds, but they did not
stir; at most one of them would thrust out its neck
from under its wing, stare at us, and anxiously poke
its beak away again in its fluffy feathers, and another
faintly quacked, while its body twitched a little all
over. We startled one heron; it flew up out of
a willow bush, brandishing its legs and fluttering
its wings with clumsy eagerness: it struck me
as remarkably like a German. There was not the
splash of a fish to be heard, they too were asleep.
I began to get used to the sensation of flying, and
even to find a pleasure in it; any one will understand
me, who has experienced flying in dreams. I proceeded
to scrutinise with close attention the strange being,
by whose good offices such unlikely adventures had
befallen me.
VII
She was a woman with a small un-Russian face.
Greyish-white, half-transparent, with scarcely marked
shades, she reminded one of the alabaster figures
on a vase lighted up within, and again her face seemed
familiar to me.
‘Can I speak with you?’ I asked.
‘Speak.’
’I see a ring on your finger; you have lived
then on the earth, you have been married?’
I waited ... There was no answer.
‘What is your name, or, at least, what was it?’
‘Call me Alice.’
’Alice! That’s an English name!
Are you an Englishwoman? Did you know me in former
days?’
‘No.’
‘Why is it then you have come to me?’
‘I love you.’
‘And are you content?’
‘Yes; we float, we whirl together in the fresh
air.’
‘Alice!’ I said all at once, ‘you
are perhaps a sinful, condemned soul?’
My companion’s head bent towards me. ‘I
don’t understand you,’ she murmured.
‘I adjure you in God’s name....’
I was beginning.
‘What are you saying?’ she put in in perplexity.
‘I don’t understand.’
I fancied that the arm that lay like a chilly girdle
about my waist softly trembled....
‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Alice, ‘don’t
be afraid, my dear one!’ Her face turned and
moved towards my face.... I felt on my lips a
strange sensation, like the faintest prick of a soft
and delicate sting.... Leeches might prick so
in mild and drowsy mood.
