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When his dreams were at their height, as he sat huddled together and looking at the ground in a dark corner of the arbour, he heard the sound of light footsteps. Some one was coming slowly along the avenue. Soon the steps stopped and something white gleamed in the entrance.

“Is there any one here?” asked a woman’s voice.

Volodya recognised the voice, and raised his head in a fright.

“Who is here?” asked Nyuta, going into the arbour. “Ah, it is you, Volodya? What are you doing here? Thinking? And how can you go on thinking, thinking, thinking? . . . That’s the way to go out of your mind!”

Volodya got up and looked in a dazed way at Nyuta. She had only just come back from bathing. Over her shoulder there was hanging a sheet and a rough towel, and from under the white silk kerchief on her head he could see the wet hair sticking to her forehead. There was the cool damp smell of the bath-house and of almond soap still hanging about her. She was out of breath from running quickly. The top button of her blouse was undone, so that the boy saw her throat and bosom.

“Why don’t you say something?” said Nyuta, looking Volodya up and down. “It’s not polite to be silent when a lady talks to you. What a clumsy seal you are though, Volodya! You always sit, saying nothing, thinking like some philosopher. There’s not a spark of life or fire in you! You are really horrid! . . . At your age you ought to be living, skipping, and jumping, chattering, flirting, falling in love.”

Volodya looked at the sheet that was held by a plump white hand, and thought. . . .

“He’s mute,” said Nyuta, with wonder; “it is strange, really. . . . Listen! Be a man! Come, you might smile at least! Phew, the horrid philosopher!” she laughed. “But do you know, Volodya, why you are such a clumsy seal? Because you don’t devote yourself to the ladies. Why don’t you? It’s true there are no girls here, but there is nothing to prevent your flirting with the married ladies! Why don’t you flirt with me, for instance?”

Volodya listened and scratched his forehead in acute and painful irresolution.

“It’s only very proud people who are silent and love solitude,” Nyuta went on, pulling his hand away from his forehead. “You are proud, Volodya. Why do you look at me like that from under your brows? Look me straight in the face, if you please! Yes, now then, clumsy seal!”

Volodya made up his mind to speak. Wanting to smile, he twitched his lower lip, blinked, and again put his hand to his forehead.

“I . . . I love you,” he said.

Nyuta raised her eyebrows in surprise, and laughed.

“What do I hear?” she sang, as prima-donnas sing at the opera when they hear something awful. “What? What did you say? Say it again, say it again. . . .”

“I . . . I love you!” repeated Volodya.

And without his will’s having any part in his action, without reflection or understanding, he took half a step towards Nyuta and clutched her by the arm. Everything was dark before his eyes, and tears came into them. The whole world was turned into one big, rough towel which smelt of the bathhouse.

“Bravo, bravo!” he heard a merry laugh. “Why don’t you speak? I want you to speak! Well?”

Seeing that he was not prevented from holding her arm, Volodya glanced at Nyuta’s laughing face, and clumsily, awkwardly, put both arms round her waist, his hands meeting behind her back. He held her round the waist with both arms, while, putting her hands up to her head, showing the dimples in her elbows, she set her hair straight under the kerchief and said in a calm voice:

“You must be tactful, polite, charming, and you can only become that under feminine influence. But what a wicked, angry face you have! You must talk, laugh. . . . Yes, Volodya, don’t be surly; you are young and will have plenty of time for philosophising. Come, let go of me; I am going. Let go.”