Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

the bait clumsily, with a shaking hand, and threw my own line as well. As I felt very stupid I avoided looking my companion in the face, but neither did I watch my float properly. I could, however, see the end of her line reflected in the water, and the circles made by her float. The float quivered, disappeared, appeared again, then suddenly began to swim off towards the opposite bank.

Will this stupid business soon be over, I thought.

“Well, will it soon be over?” said Urmánov’s voice from the waterside, in a tone of suppressed anger.

“No, not yet,” she answered, without turning her head. “Pull in, pull in, you have a bite!”

To my annoyance and surprise, I had really hooked a large fish. I grew nervous, bent down awkwardly, and nearly slipped from the bench. Something heavy dragged at the end of the line, flashed through the air in a silvery bow, and dropped into the water with a thud. It was a large tench. Waving its tail once more on the surface, it disappeared, leaving me standing with lifted rod and stupidly open mouth.

“Oh, what a pity!” she said, in a slightly drawling tone, and in her natural manner. “Such a big one!⁠—There now, I’ve got one!”

She jerked the line skilfully and easily. A small carp described an arc through the air, and fell on the grass near Urmánov.

“Take it off!” she said, with a quick, searching glance at her husband.

I, too, looked at him curiously. Would he take it off or roughly refuse?

“Shall you soon have done?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders.

She raised her line, took off the carp, and threw it back into the water.

“You are not polite,” she remarked, throwing the line again.

It grew dark; so much so that we could scarcely see our floats. Among the reflections of the trees on the opposite bank, a faint glimmer showed in in the blackening depths of the water. The moon was rising. Then came another gentle plash again her line whirled, and a second carp fell on the bank.

“Will you take it off?” she asked again.

I could no longer see Urmánov’s face. He made two steps forward, and stooping, looked down on the grass.

“There then, I’ve taken it off. Shall you soon have done?”

“I think we have had enough.”

“One can’t even see the floats,” said I, and I suppose there must have been a comically aggrieved tone in my voice, for she broke into a laugh.

“Poor fellow! You are getting bored? Why didn’t you say so before? Come along? Give me your arm.”

“And the lines?” I asked.

“Put them on the grass. How helpless you are! There, give me your arm. No, no, that way” (correcting my clumsy fashion of giving my arm). “Now come!”

We walked on by the lake, over which a faint mist was hanging. Its reflection in the water seemed fainter still. Looking at the water, I wondered how, a minute ago, we managed to see our floats. Now the water was quite black; a bird hopped after us along the grassy bank, accompanying our steps with little interrogative chirps.

Urmánov walked beside us, gloomy and taciturn.

X

It was almost the first time in my life that I had walked arm-in-arm with a woman. At first, I felt uncomfortable, and could not keep in step; but she helped me, and by the time we were halfway down the main avenue, I was more at my ease. Our steps resounded clearly under the overhanging branches. She leaned so close against me that I could feel the warmth and pressure of her hand, the touch of her shoulder, and hear her breath. We were silent, and I thought we were going too fast; I wished the avenue had been endless. I forgot everything that had happened⁠—forgot even whose arm was in mine. I was overpowered by the sort of general impersonal enchantment of a woman’s presence⁠—the sense of an incipient love and a coming tragedy in which I could not foresee whether I should be an actor or spectator. There were moments when it seemed as if another woman were walking with me⁠—the girl from the Volga. Oh, if for any cause whatever she needed a fictitious marriage, how joyfully would I stand with her before the altar!⁠ ⁠…

In imagination I walked arm-in-arm with her, after a stormy scene on the lake shore. There I had given way and told her all I felt. But now I conquer myself, as befits a man and a future worker in the “Great Cause.” I tell her that she will never hear such words from me again⁠—never see one offensive look. I will force my heart to be silent, though it should burst with grief. Then she leaning towards me, chastely and confidingly answers that she appreciates my generosity. Her voice quivers, and I guess suddenly her secret, and my heart is filled with rapture.

At this juncture we stopped, and I ceased dreaming. We had passed the Academy, gone some way down the road, and reached the villas. The little houses were lighted up; through the evening stillness we heard voices, laughter, and here and there the sound of soft whisperings; it all seemed to come from no one knew where, to fade away, and then be lost, awakening the evening into unseen life.

The American drew her hand from my arm.

“Thank you!” she said. “I took you by storm⁠—you didn’t want to come. Now, I hope, we shall see more of you.”

She spoke the last words rapidly, and turned to her husband.

“I think papa is gone to bed. You needn’t come in. I will stop here tonight; he is not very well.”

She went quickly in at the gate, then returned to us.

“You live at Vyselki, Mr. Gavrilov, don’t you? So you will be going in the same direction as Nikolai. Good night!”

I did not live at Vyselki at all. Nevertheless, we both turned round and walked on together, as though in obedience to her command.

I still felt the warmth of