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It also seemed to him that Nyuta laughed loudly on purpose, and kept glancing in his direction to give him to understand that the memory of the night did not trouble her in the least, and that she was not aware of the presence at table of the "ugly duckling." At four o'clock Volodya drove to the station with his maman.
He felt suffocated and giddy from the smell of ether, carbolic acid, and various drugs, which he quite unnecessarily snatched up with his trembling fingers and spilled in so doing. "I believe maman has gone," he thought. "That's a good thing . . . a good thing. . . ." "Will you be quick?" said Nyuta, drawling.
Foul memories, the sleepless night, the prospect of expulsion from school, the stings of conscience all roused in him now an oppressive, gloomy anger. He looked at maman's sharp profile, at her little nose, and at the raincoat which was a present from Nyuta, and muttered: "Why do you powder? It's not becoming at your age!
He hurriedly put on his trousers, flung his coat over his shoulders, and went to the door. "Do you understand? Morphine," Nyuta explained in a whisper. "There must be a label in Latin. Wake Volodya; he will find it." Maman opened the door and Volodya caught sight of Nyuta. She was wearing the same loose wrapper in which she had gone to bathe.
"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.
Volodya heard Madame Shumihin open her window with a bang, heard Nyuta go off into a peal of laughter in reply to her coarse voice. Nyuta was wearing a Little Russian dress which did not suit her at all, and made her look clumsy; the architect was making dull and vulgar jokes. The rissoles served at lunch had too much onion in them so it seemed to Volodya.
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.
Her hair hung loose and disordered on her shoulders, her face looked sleepy and dark in the half-light. . . . "Why, Volodya is not asleep," she said. "Volodya, look in the cupboard for the morphine, there's a dear! What a nuisance Lili is! She has always something the matter." Maman muttered something, yawned, and went away. "Look for it," said Nyuta. "Why are you standing still?"
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.
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?"
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