Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
After five minutes, however, the door leading into the salon was opened by the page boy, who then conducted me into a neat, but not richly furnished, drawing-room, where presently I was joined by Sonetchka. She was now seventeen years old, and very small and thin, as well as of an unhealthy pallor of face.
These fancies were so vivid that I could not sleep for the sweetness of my emotion, and felt as though I must communicate my superabundant happiness to some one. "The darling!" I said, half-aloud, as I turned over; then, "Woloda, are you asleep?" "No," he replied in a sleepy voice. "What's the matter?" "I am in love, Woloda terribly in love with Sonetchka" "Well?
Sonetchka blushed, smiled, and, indeed, looked so charming that I myself blushed as I looked at her. "I hope you are going to enjoy yourself here, my love," said Grandmamma. "Pray be as merry and dance as much as ever you can. See, we have two beaux for her already," she added, turning to Madame Valakhin, and stretching out her hand to me.
Yet for this change there was no apparent reason, since her mother smiled every whit as pleasantly, and expressed in her every movement just the same benignity, as of old. Seating herself in her arm-chair, the old lady signed to me to come and sit beside her; after which she said something to her daughter in English, and Sonetchka left the room a fact which still further helped to relieve me.
"Ah, so it's YOU!" said Grandmamma as she turned round in her armchair. "Go and dance, then, my boy." Although I would fain have taken refuge behind the armchair rather than leave its shelter, I could not refuse; so I got up, said, "Rose," and looked at Sonetchka.
Seeing that the girls particularly Sonetchka were anything but displeased at the spectacle of the governess angrily departing to the maidservants' room to have her dress mended, I resolved to procure them the satisfaction a second time.
Sonetchka also laughed unceasingly, whether we were whirling round in a circle or whether we stood still to watch an old lady whose painful movements with her feet showed the difficulty she had in walking. Finally Sonetchka nearly died of merriment when I jumped half-way to the ceiling in proof of my skill.
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.
Trying to escape notice, I slipped through the door of the salon, and then thought it necessary to be seen pacing to and fro, seemingly engaged in thought, as though unconscious of the arrival of guests. Grandmamma seemed delighted to see Sonetchka, She invited her to come to her, put back a curl which had fallen over her brow, and looking earnestly at her said, "What a charming child!"
Yet again I assured myself that I was already in love with Sonetchka, and that Varenika was only an ordinary girl, the sister of my friend. Though she pleased me at that moment, I somehow felt a vague desire to show her, by word or deed, some small unfriendliness.
Word Of The Day