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Updated: June 16, 2025
Zinaida's tears had completely overwhelmed me; I positively did not know what to think, and was ready to cry myself; I was a child after all, in spite of my sixteen years. I had now given up thinking about Malevsky, though Byelovzorov looked more and more threatening every day, and glared at the wily count like a wolf at a sheep; but I thought of nothing and of no one.
She amused herself with my passion, made a fool of me, petted and tormented me. There is a sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another, and I was like wax in Zinaida's hands; though, indeed, I was not the only one in love with her.
Zinaida's face floated slowly before me in the darkness floated, and did not float away; her lips still wore the same enigmatic smile, her eyes watched me, a little from one side, with a questioning, dreamy, tender look ... as at the instant of parting from her.
Zinaida stood in front of me, her head a little on one side as though to get a better look at me; she held out her hand to me with dignity. A mist passed before my eyes; I meant to drop on one knee, sank on both, and pressed my lips to Zinaida's fingers so awkwardly that I scratched myself a little with the tip of her nail. 'Well done! cried Lushin, and helped me to get up.
My father sat beside her during dinner, and entertained his neighbour with the finished and serene courtesy peculiar to him. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced at him, but so strangely, almost with hostility. Their conversation was carried on in French; I was surprised, I remember, at the purity of Zinaida's accent.
I had Zinaida's ribbon round my neck for a cravat, and I shouted with delight whenever I succeeded in catching her round the waist. She did just as she liked with me. I should be in a great difficulty, if I were forced to describe exactly what passed within me in the course of the week after my unsuccessful midnight expedition.
But in the evening how he wept, this Othello, in Zinaida's arms, when, seeking him out in a corner of the garden, she asked him why he was so depressed. My tears flowed with such violence that she was frightened. 'What is wrong with you? What is it, Volodya? she repeated; and seeing I made no answer, and did not cease weeping, she was about to kiss my wet cheek.
'Isn't it he? or isn't it he? I asked myself, passing in inward agitation from one of her admirers to another. Count Malevsky secretly struck me as more to be feared than the others, though, for Zinaida's sake, I was ashamed to confess it to myself. My watchfulness did not see beyond the end of my nose, and its secrecy probably deceived no one; any way, Doctor Lushin soon saw through me.
I remember, a few days after I heard of Zinaida's death, I was present, through a peculiar, irresistible impulse, at the death of a poor old woman who lived in the same house as we. Covered with rags, lying on hard boards, with a sack under her head, she died hardly and painfully.
'I should kill myself.... Zinaida laughed. 'I see yours is not a long story. The next forfeit was Zinaida's. She looked at the ceiling and considered. 'Well, listen, she began at last, 'what I have thought of.... Picture to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer night, and a marvellous ball. This ball is given by a young queen.
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