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Upstairs we set ourselves to astonish each other with gymnastic tours de force. Ilinka watched us with a faint smile of admiration, but refused an invitation to attempt a similar feat, saying that he had no strength. Seriosha was extremely captivating. His face and eyes glowed with laughter as he surprised us with tricks which we had never seen before.
I do not quite know why I called her "the traitress" in my thoughts, since she had never promised to choose me instead of Seriosha, but, for all that, I felt convinced that she was treating me in a very abominable fashion.
Apparently it never occurred to Ilinka to take refuge from the missile; he merely guarded his head with his hands. "Well, that's enough now," added Seriosha, with a forced laugh. "You DESERVE to be hurt if you can't take things in fun. Now let's go downstairs."
Though he tried to appear absolutely indifferent, I think that he understood that from that day forth he had lost both my affection and his power over me, as well as that he regretted it. "How could I have managed to be so long and so passionately devoted to Seriosha?" I asked myself as I lay in bed that night. "He never either understood, appreciated, or deserved my love. But Sonetchka!
Of course Ilinka's legs slipped down as, sinking exhausted to the floor and half-suffocated with tears, he stammered out: "Why should you bully me so?" The poor fellow's miserable figure, with its streaming tears, ruffled hair, and crumpled trousers revealing dirty boots, touched us a little, and we stood silent and trying to smile. Seriosha was the first to recover himself. "What a girl!
Ilinka, observing that the general attention was fixed upon him, blushed, and said in an almost inaudible voice that he could not do the feat. "Well, what does he mean by doing nothing at all? What a girl the fellow is! He has just GOT to stand on his head," and Seriosha, took him by the hand. "Yes, on your head at once!
After "cat and mouse", another game followed in which the gentlemen sit on one row of chairs and the ladies on another, and choose each other for partners. The youngest princess always chose the younger Iwin, Katenka either Woloda or Ilinka, and Sonetchka Seriosha nor, to my extreme astonishment, did Sonetchka seem at all embarrassed when her cavalier went and sat down beside her.
Many times, in my relations with Seriosha, this wish to resemble grown-up people put a rude check upon the love that was waiting to expand, and made me repress it. Not only was I afraid of kissing him, or of taking his hand and saying how glad I was to see him, but I even dreaded calling him "Seriosha" and always said "Sergius" as every one else did in our house.
What a gaby!" he said, giving Ilinka a slight kick. "He can't take things in fun a bit. Well, get up, then." "You are an utter beast! That's what YOU are!" said Ilinka, turning miserably away and sobbing. "Oh, oh! Would it still kick and show temper, then?" cried Seriosha, seizing a dictionary and throwing it at the unfortunate boy's head.
Consequently, whenever it came to my turn to guess who had chosen me, I had to go either to my sister or to one of the ugly elder princesses. Sonetchka seemed so absorbed in Seriosha that in her eyes I clearly existed no longer.
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