XXIII. After the Mazurka - Page 2

"If I were always as I am now," I thought, "I might yet be able to please people with my looks." Yet as soon as I glanced at my partner's face again, and saw there not only the expression of happiness, health, and good temper which had just pleased me in my own, but also a fresh and enchanting beauty besides, I felt dissatisfied with myself again. I understood how silly of me it was to hope to attract the attention of such a wonderful being as Sonetchka. I could not hope for reciprocity--could not even think of it, yet my heart was overflowing with happiness. I could not imagine that the feeling of love which was filling my soul so pleasantly could require any happiness still greater, or wish for more than that that happiness should never cease. I felt perfectly contented. My heart beat like that of a dove, with the blood constantly flowing back to it, and I almost wept for joy.

As we passed through the hall and peered into a little dark store-room beneath the staircase I thought: "What bliss it would be if I could pass the rest of my life with her in that dark corner, and never let anybody know that we were there!"

"It has been a delightful evening, hasn't it?" I asked her in a low, tremulous voice. Then I quickened my steps--as much out of fear of what I had said as out of fear of what I had meant to imply.

"Yes, very! " she answered, and turned her face to look at me with an expression so kind that I ceased to be afraid. I went on:

"Particularly since supper. Yet if you could only know how I regret" (I had nearly said "how miserable I am at") your going, and to think that we shall see each other no more!"

"But why shouldn't we?" she asked, looking gravely at the corner of her pocket-handkerchief, and gliding her fingers over a latticed screen which we were passing. "Every Tuesday and Friday I go with Mamma to the Iverskoi Prospect. I suppose you go for walks too sometimes?"

"Well, certainly I shall ask to go for one next Tuesday, and. if they won't take me I shall go by myself--even without my hat, if necessary. I know the way all right. "

"Do you know what I have just thought of?" she went on. "You know, I call some of the boys who come to see us thou. Shall you and I call each other thou too? Wilt thou?" she added, bending her head towards me and looking me straight in the eyes.

At this moment a more lively section of the Grosvater dance began.

"Give me your hand," I said, under the impression that the music and din would drown my exact words, but she smilingly replied,

"Thy hand, not your hand." Yet the dance was over before I had succeeded in saying thou, even though I kept conning over phrases in which the pronoun could be employed--and employed more than once. All that I wanted was the