The old princess came in, and began complaining to
the doctor of her toothache. Then Zinaida appeared.
‘Come,’ said the old princess, ’you
must scold her, doctor. She’s drinking
iced water all day long; is that good for her, pray,
with her delicate chest?’
‘Why do you do that?’ asked Lushin.
‘Why, what effect could it have?’
‘What effect? You might get a chill and
die.’
‘Truly? Do you mean it? Very well—so
much the better.’
‘A fine idea!’ muttered the doctor.
The old princess had gone out.
‘Yes, a fine idea,’ repeated Zinaida.
’Is life such a festive affair? Just look
about you.... Is it nice, eh? Or do you imagine
I don’t understand it, and don’t feel
it? It gives me pleasure—drinking iced
water; and can you seriously assure me that such a
life is worth too much to be risked for an instant’s
pleasure—happiness I won’t even talk
about.’
‘Oh, very well,’ remarked Lushin, ’caprice
and irresponsibility.... Those two words sum
you up; your whole nature’s contained in those
two words.’
Zinaida laughed nervously.
’You’re late for the post, my dear doctor.
You don’t keep a good look-out; you’re
behind the times. Put on your spectacles.
I’m in no capricious humour now. To make
fools of you, to make a fool of myself ... much fun
there is in that!—and as for irresponsibility
... M’sieu Voldemar,’ Zinaida added
suddenly, stamping, ’don’t make such a
melancholy face. I can’t endure people to
pity me.’ She went quickly out of the room.
‘It’s bad for you, very bad for you, this
atmosphere, young man,’ Lushin said to me once
more.
On the evening of the same day the usual guests were
assembled at the Zasyekins’. I was among
them.
The conversation turned on Meidanov’s poem.
Zinaida expressed genuine admiration of it. ‘But
do you know what?’ she said to him. ’If
I were a poet, I would choose quite different subjects.
Perhaps it’s all nonsense, but strange ideas
sometimes come into my head, especially when I’m
not asleep in the early morning, when the sky begins
to turn rosy and grey both at once. I would,
for instance ... You won’t laugh at me?’
‘No, no!’ we all cried, with one voice.
‘I would describe,’ she went on, folding
her arms across her bosom and looking away, ’a
whole company of young girls at night in a great boat,
on a silent river. The moon is shining, and they
are all in white, and wearing garlands of white flowers,
and singing, you know, something in the nature of
a hymn.’
‘I see—I see; go on,’ Meidanov
commented with dreamy significance.
’All of a sudden, loud clamour, laughter, torches,
tambourines on the bank.... It’s a troop
of Bacchantes dancing with songs and cries. It’s
your business to make a picture of it, Mr. Poet;...
only I should like the torches to be red and to smoke
a great deal, and the Bacchantes’ eyes to gleam
under their wreaths, and the wreaths to be dusky.
Don’t forget the tiger-skins, too, and goblets
and gold—lots of gold....’
