XXVI
Sasha was fascinated by Liudmilla, but something prevented him from talking about her to Kokovkina. He felt somehow ashamed, and sometimes he came to be afraid of her visits. His heart would feel faint and his eyebrows contract involuntarily when he saw her rose-yellow hat pass quickly under his window. Nevertheless he awaited her with anxiety and impatience—he was sad when she did not come for a long time. Contradictory feelings were mingled in his soul, feelings dark and vague—morbid because premature, and sweet because morbid.
Liudmilla had called neither yesterday nor today. Sasha exhausted himself with waiting and had already ceased to expect her. Suddenly she came. He grew radiant and rushed forward to kiss her hand.
“Well, have you forgotten me?” he reproached her. “I haven’t seen you for two days.”
She laughed happily and a sweet, languid and piquant odour of Japanese funkia emanated from her, as if it came from her light hair. Liudmilla and Sasha went out for a walk in the town. They invited Kokovkina but she would not go.
“How could an old woman like me go out with you? I’d only get in your way. You’d better go out by yourselves.”
“But we’ll get into mischief,” laughed Liudmilla.
The warm, languid air caressed them and called to remembrance the irrevocable. The sun, as if diseased, burned dimly and lividly in the pale, tired sky. The dry leaves lay humbly on the dark earth, dead.
Liudmilla and Sasha went into a hollow. It was cool, refreshing, almost damp there—a tender autumn weariness reigned there within its shady slopes.
Liudmilla walked in front. She lifted her skirt. She showed her small shoes and flesh-coloured stockings. Sasha looked on the ground, so as not to stumble over roots, and saw the stockings. It seemed to him that she had put on shoes without stockings. He flushed. He felt giddy.
“If only I could fall suddenly before her,” he thought, “snatch off her shoes, and kiss her delicate feet!”
Liudmilla instinctively felt Sasha’s passionate glance, his impatient desire. She laughed and turned to him with a question:
“Are you looking at my stockings?”
“No, I—er—” mumbled Sasha in confusion.
“What dreadful stockings I’ve got on,” said Liudmilla laughing and not listening to him. “It almost looks as if I had put my shoes on my bare feet—they’re absolutely flesh-coloured. Don’t you think they’re dreadfully ridiculous stockings?”
She turned her face to Sasha and lifted the hem of her dress.
“Aren’t they ridiculous?” she asked.
“No, they’re beautiful,” said Sasha, red with embarrassment.
Liudmilla pretended to be surprised, raised her eyebrows and exclaimed:
“And what do you know about beauty?”
Liudmilla laughed and walked on. Sasha, burning with confusion, walked uneasily after her, stumbling frequently.
They managed to get through the hollow. They sat down on a birch trunk thrown down by the wind. Liudmilla said:
“My shoes are full of sand. I can’t go on any further.” She took off her shoes, shook out the sand and looked archly at Sasha.
“Do you think it’s a pretty foot?” she asked.
Sasha flushed even more and did not know what to say. Liudmilla pulled off her stockings.
“Don’t you think they’re very white feet?” she asked and smiled strangely and coquettishly. “Down on your knees! Kiss them!” she said severely, and a commanding severity showed on her face.
Sasha went down on his knees quickly and kissed Liudmilla’s feet.
“It’s much nicer without stockings,” said Liudmilla as she placed her stockings in her pocket and stuck her feet into her shoes. And her face again became gay and calm as if Sasha had not just been on his knees before her, kissing her naked feet.
Sasha asked:
“Won’t you catch cold, dear?”
His voice sounded tender and tremulous. Liudmilla laughed.
“What a notion! I’m used to it. I’m not so delicate as that.”
Liudmilla once came to Kokovkina’s just before dusk and called Sasha:
“Come and help me put up a new shelf.”
Sasha loved to knock nails in, and somehow he had promised to help Liudmilla in arranging her room. And now he eagerly consented, glad that there was an innocent pretext to go to Liudmilla’s house. And now the innocent, pungent odour of essence of muguet blew from Liudmilla’s greenish dress and gently soothed him.
For the work Liudmilla redressed herself behind a screen, and came out to Sasha in a short, spruce skirt, and short sleeves, perfumed with the pleasant, languid, pungent Japanese funkia.
“Oh, but how spruced up you are!” said Sasha.
“Yes, I am,” said Liudmilla laughing. “Look, my feet are bare,” she said, drawling out her words in a half-ashamed, half-provoking way.
Sasha shrugged his shoulders and said:
“You’re always spruce. Well, let’s begin to work. Have you got any nails?”
“Wait a bit,” replied Liudmilla. “Sit still a moment with me. You seem as if you had come on business and found it a bore to talk to me.”
Sasha flushed and said tenderly:
“Dear Liudmillotchka, I would like to sit with you as long as you want, until you drove me out, but I’ve got my lessons to do.”
Liudmilla sighed and said slowly:
“You’re getting handsomer, Sasha.”
Sasha reddened, laughed and protruded the end of his curled-up tongue.
“What a thing to say! You might think I was a girl from the way you talk.”
“A beautiful face, but what kind of body? You might show it, at least to the waist,” entreated Liudmilla caressingly, and put her arm round his shoulder.
“What an idea!” said Sasha, ashamed and vexed at the same time.
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Liudmilla in a different voice. “What have you got to hide?”
“Someone might come,” said Sasha.
“Who’ll come in?” said Liudmilla as gaily and carelessly as before.
“We can lock the door and then no one will come in.”
Liudmilla walked quickly up to the door and bolted it. Sasha felt that Liudmilla was serious. He flushed so deeply that little drops of perspiration came out on his forehead and he said:
“We oughtn’t to do it, Liudmillotchka.”
“Stupid! Why not?” asked Liudmilla in a persuasive voice.
She pulled Sasha to her and began to undo his blouse. Sasha resisted and caught her wrists. His face looked frightened—and an equal shame possessed him, and these emotions made him feel suddenly weak. Liudmilla contracted her eyebrows and began to undress him determinedly. She took off his belt and somehow pulled off his blouse. Sasha resisted more and more desperately. They tussled with each other about the room, stumbling against tables and chairs. A pungent scent came from Liudmilla, intoxicated Sasha and weakened him.
With a quick thrust against his chest Liudmilla pushed Sasha on to the sofa. A button flew off from the shirt she was pulling at. Liudmilla bared Sasha’s shoulder, and began to pull his arm out of the sleeve. Sasha resisted and accidently struck Liudmilla’s cheek with his hand. He did not want to strike her, but the blow fell hard on Liudmilla’s cheek. Liudmilla shook, staggered, her cheeks went a violent red, but she did not let go of Sasha.
“You wicked boy to fight!” she exclaimed in a choking voice.
Sasha felt distressed, dropped his arms and looked guiltily at the white marks of his fingers on Liudmilla’s left cheek. Liudmilla took advantage of his confusion. She quickly pulled the shirt from both shoulders to his elbows. Sasha recovered himself, tried to get away from her but only made things worse—Liudmilla pulled the sleeves off his arms and his shirt fell down to his waist. Sasha felt cold, and a new flood of shame, hard and pitiless, made his head whirl. He was now naked to the waist. Liudmilla held his arms tightly and patted his back with her trembling hand, looking at the same time into his downcast, strangely gleaming eyes under their blue-black eyebrows.
Suddenly these eyelashes trembled, his face was wrinkled by a pitiful, childish grimace, and he began to sob.
“You wicked girl!” he exclaimed in a sobbing voice. “Let me go!”
“Crybaby!” said Liudmilla angrily, and pushed him away.
Sasha turned away, drying his tears on the palms of his hands. He felt ashamed because he was crying. He tried to hold back his tears. Liudmilla looked eagerly at his naked back.
“How much beauty there is in the world!” she thought. “People hide so much beauty from themselves. Why?”
Sasha, shrinking ashamedly with his naked shoulders, tried to put on his shirt, but it only became entangled in his trembling hands and he could not get his arms into the sleeves. Sasha caught hold of his blouse—let the shirt remain as it was for the present.
“Oh, you’re afraid for your property. No, I shan’t steal it!” said Liudmilla in a loud, angry voice, ringing with tears.
She threw him the belt impetuously, and turned towards the window. Much she wanted him, wrapped up in his grey blouse, the horrid boy!
Sasha quickly put on his blouse, somehow arranged his shirt and looked at Liudmilla cautiously, indecisively and shamefacedly. He saw that she was wiping her cheeks with her fingers; he walked up to her timidly and looked into her face—and the tears which were trickling down her cheeks weakened him into pity—and he felt no longer ashamed and angry.
“Why are you crying, dear Liudmillotchka?” he asked quietly.
And suddenly he flushed—he remembered that he had struck her.
“I hit you—forgive me! I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said timidly.
“Are you afraid you’ll melt away, you silly boy, that you won’t sit with your shoulders naked?” said Liudmilla reproachfully. “Or are you afraid that you’ll get sunburnt, or your beauty and innocence be lost?”
“But why do you want me to do it, Liudmillotchka?” said Sasha with a grimace of embarrassment.
“Why?” said Liudmilla passionately, “because I love beauty. Because I am a pagan, a sinner. I ought to have been born in ancient Athens. I love flowers, perfumes, brightly coloured clothes, the naked body. They say there is a soul. I don’t know, I’ve never seen it. And what is it to me? Let me die altogether like an Undine, let me melt away like a cloud under the sun. I love the body, the strong, agile, naked body, which is capable of enjoyment.”
“Yes, but it can suffer also,” said Sasha quietly.
“And to suffer is also good,” whispered Liudmilla. “There is sweetness in pain—if only to feel the body, to see its nakedness and bodily beauty.”
“But it is shameful to be without clothes,” said Sasha timidly.
Liudmilla impetuously threw herself on her knees before him. She kissed his hands and whispered breathlessly:
“My dear, my idol, divine boy, just for a moment, only for a moment, let me see your beautiful shoulders.”
Sasha sighed, looked down, flushed and took off his blouse awkwardly. Liudmilla caught him with her warm hands and covered his shoulders, which trembled with shame, with kisses.
“Do you see how obedient I am?” said Sasha with a forced smile, trying to get rid of his embarrassment with a jest.
Liudmilla quickly kissed his arms from the shoulders to the fingers, and Sasha, immersed in passionate, grave thoughts, did not take them away. Liudmilla’s kisses were warm with adoration—and it was as if her lips were kissing not a boy but a boy-god in a mysterious worship of the blossoming Body.
Darya and Valeria were standing behind the door, looking through the keyhole in turns, jostling each other with impatience, and their hearts were sick with a passionate, burning agitation.
“It’s time to dress,” said Sasha at last.
Liudmilla sighed, and with the same reverent expression helped him on with his clothes.
“So you’re a pagan?” asked Sasha.
Liudmilla laughed.
“And you?” she asked.
“What a question?” said Sasha with assurance. “I’ve learned the whole catechism.”
Liudmilla laughed loudly. Sasha looked at her smiling and asked:
“If you’re a pagan, why do you go to church?”
Liudmilla ceased laughing and reflected.
“Well,” she said, “one has to pray. One has to pray, to weep, to burn a candle, and do something for the dead. And I love it all, the candles, the image-lamps, the incense, the vestments, the singing—if the singers are good—the icons, with their trimmings and ribbons. Yes, all that is beautiful. And I also love Him … you know … the Crucified One. …”
Liudmilla pronounced the last words very quietly, almost in a whisper, blushed like a guilty person and cast down her eyes.
“Do you know I sometimes dream of Him on the cross, and there are drops of blood on His body.”
From that time on Liudmilla more than once took Sasha to her room and began to unbutton his blouse. At first he was ashamed to tears, but he soon got used to it. And already he looked clearly and calmly when Liudmilla bared his shoulders and caressed his back. In the end he would take off his clothes himself.
And Liudmilla found it very pleasant to hold him half-naked on her knees, kissing him.
Sasha was alone at home. He thought of Liudmilla and of his naked shoulders under her passionate glances.
“And what does she want?” he thought. And suddenly he grew livid and his heart beat rapidly. A tumultuous happiness seized him. He turned several somersaults, threw himself on the floor, jumped on the furniture—a thousand absurd movements threw him from one corner to another and his gay, clear laughter resounded through the house. Kokovkina, who had returned home, heard this extraordinary din and went into Sasha’s room. She stood on the threshold in perplexity, shaking her head.
“Why are you making such a row, Sashenka?” she said. “You might have an excuse to do it with other boys, but you’re alone. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, young man—you’re not a child any longer.”
Sasha stood still and in his embarrassment seemed to lose the use of his hands—his whole body trembled with excitement.
Once Kokovkina came home and found Liudmilla there. She was giving Sasha sweets.
“You’re spoiling him,” said Kokovkina affectionately. “He loves sweets.”
“Yes, and yet he calls me a wicked girl,” complained Liudmilla.
“Oh, Sashenka, how could you!” said Kokovkina reproachfully. “Why did you say that?”
“She’s teasing me,” said Sasha falteringly.
He looked at Liudmilla with vexation and flushed. Liudmilla laughed.
“Storyteller!” Sasha whispered to her.
“Don’t be rude, Sashenka,” said Kokovkina, “it isn’t nice!”
Sasha glanced at Liudmilla with a smile and said quietly:
“Well, I won’t do it again.”
Each time that Sasha came now Liudmilla locked the door and dressed him up in various costumes. Their sweet shame was dressed up in laughter and jokes. Sometimes Liudmilla pulled Sasha into corsets and dressed him in one of her gowns. In the low-cut dress Sasha’s full, gently-rounded arms and round shoulders looked very beautiful. His skin was yellowish, but of an even, soft complexion—a rare occurrence. Liudmilla’s skirt, sleeves and stockings were all becoming to Sasha. Dressed entirely in woman’s clothes Sasha sat down obediently and waved a fan. In this costume he really resembled a girl, and he tried to behave like one. There was only one flaw—Sasha’s short hair. Liudmilla thought it would be ugly to put a wig on Sasha’s hair or to tie on a plait of hair.
Liudmilla taught Sasha to curtsy. He did this awkwardly and shyly at first. But he was graceful in spite of his boyish angularity. Blushing and laughing, he learned diligently to curtsy and he coquetted furiously.
Sometimes Liudmilla seized his bare, graceful arms and kissed them. Sasha did not resist, and looked laughingly at Liudmilla. Sometimes he held out his hands to her lips and said:
“Kiss them!”
But he liked most of all other costumes, which Liudmilla herself made, particularly the dress of a fisher-boy with bare legs, the tunic of a barefoot Athenian boy.
Liudmilla would dress him up and admire him. But she herself would go pale and look melancholy.
Sasha was sitting on Liudmilla’s bed, playing with the folds of his tunic and dangling his naked legs. Liudmilla stood in front of him and looked at him with an expression of happiness and surprise.
“How stupid you are!” said Sasha.
“There’s so much happiness in my stupidity,” said Liudmilla, pale and crying, and kissing Sasha’s hands.
“Why are you crying?” asked Sasha, smiling unconcernedly.
“My heart is stung with happiness. My breast is pierced with seven swords of happiness—how can I help crying?”
“You are a little fool, really you’re a little fool,” said Sasha with a laugh.
“And you’re wise!” replied Liudmilla in sudden vexation and sighed, wiping her tears away. “Understand, little stupid,” she said in a quiet, persuasive voice, “that happiness and wisdom are only to be found in madness.”
“Yes, yes?” said Sasha incredulously.
“You must forget and forget yourself and then you’ll understand everything,” whispered Liudmilla. “In your opinion, do wise men think?”
“And what else should they do?”
“They simply know. It’s given to them at once; they only have to look and everything’s opened to them.”
The autumn evening dragged along quietly. A barely audible rustle came now and then through the window when the wind moved the tree branches. Sasha and Liudmilla were alone. Liudmilla had dressed him up as a barelegged fisher-boy—in a costume of thin blue canvas. He was lying on a low couch and she sat on the floor by his bare feet, herself barefoot and in a chemise. She sprinkled Sasha’s clothes and body with perfume—a dense, grassy smell like the motionless odour of a strangely blossoming valley locked in hills.
Large, bright Roman pearls sparkled on Liudmilla’s neck, and golden, figured bracelets rang on her arms. Her body was scented with orris—it was an overpowering, fleshly, provoking perfume, bringing drowsiness and langour, created from the distillations of slow waters. She languished and sighed, looking at his smooth face, at his bluish-black eyelashes and at his night-dark eyes. She laid her head on his bare knees, and her bright hair caressed his smooth skin. She kissed his body, and her head whirled from the strange aroma, mingling with the scent of young flesh.
Sasha lay there and smiled a quiet, indefinite smile. A vague desire awoke in him, and sweetly tormented him. And when Liudmilla kissed his knees and feet the kisses aroused languorous, half-dreaming musings in him. He wanted to do something, something pleasant or painful, gentle or shameful—but what? To kiss her feet? Or to beat her long, hard, with long flexible twigs, so that she would laugh with joy or cry with pain? Perhaps she desired one or the other. But that was not enough. What then did she want? Here they were both half-naked, and with their freed flesh was bound desire and a restraining shame—but what then was the mystery of the flesh? And how then could he bring his blood and his body as an exquisite sacrifice to her desires, and to his shame?
And Liudmilla languished and stirred at his feet, going pale from impossible desires, now growing cold. She whispered passionately:
“Am I not beautiful? Haven’t I burning eyes? Haven’t I wonderful hair? Then caress me! Take me close to you! Tear off my bracelets, pull off my necklace!”
Sasha felt terrified, and impossible desires tormented him agonisingly.