The Torrents Of Spring

love with a young monk of the Don monastery. I was twelve years old. I
only saw him on Sundays. He used to wear a short velvet cassock, smelt
of lavender water, and as he made his way through the crowd with the
censer, used to say to the ladies in French, “Pardon, excusez” but never lifted
his eyes, and he had eyelashes like that!’ Maria Nikolaevna marked
off with the nail of her middle finger quite half the length of the little finger
and showed Sanin. ‘My tutor was called – Monsieur Gaston! I must
tell you he was an awfully learned and very severe person, a Swiss, –
and with such an energetic face! Whiskers black as pitch, a Greek profile,
and lips that looked like cast iron! I was afraid of him! He was the only
man I have ever been afraid of in my life. He was tutor to my brother,
who died … was drowned. A gipsy woman has foretold a violent death
for me too, but that’s all moonshine. I don’t believe in it. Only fancy Ippolit
Sidoritch with a dagger!’
‘One may die from something else than a dagger,’ observed Sanin.
‘All that’s moonshine! Are you superstitious? I’m not a bit. What is to
be, will be. Monsieur Gaston used to live in our house, in the room over
my head. Sometimes I’d wake up at night and hear his footstep – he used
to go to bed very late – and my heart would stand still with veneration,
or some other feeling. My father could hardly read and write himself,
but he gave us an excellent education. Do you know, I learnt Latin!’
‘You? learnt Latin?’
‘Yes; I did. Monsieur Gaston taught me. I read the Æneid with him. It’s
a dull thing, but there are fine passages. Do you remember when Dido
and Æneas are in the forest?… ’
‘Yes, yes, I remember,’ Sanin answered hurriedly. He had long ago forgotten
all his Latin, and had only very faint notions about the Æneid.
Maria Nikolaevna glanced at him, as her way was, a little from one
side and looking upwards. ‘Don’t imagine, though, that I am very
learned. Mercy on us! no; I’m not learned, and I’ve no talents of any sort.
I scarcely know how to write … really; I can’t read aloud; nor play the piano,
nor draw, nor sew – nothing! That’s what I am – there you have
me!’
She threw out her hands. ‘I tell you all this,’ she said, ‘first, so as not to
hear those fools (she pointed to the stage where at that instant the actor’s
place was being filled by an actress, also howling, and also with her elbows
projecting before her) and secondly, because I’m in your debt; you
told me all about yourself yesterday.’
‘It was your pleasure to question me,’ observed Sanin.
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