The Little Demon - Fyodor Sologub (reading the story of the TXT) 📗

one to whip you,” she exclaimed.

They both laughed and flushed.

Desires innocent by reason of their being aroused unavoidably, made the chief charm of their relation for Liudmilla. They stirred one, and yet they were far from the coarse, repulsive attainment.

They began to argue as to who was the strongest. Liudmilla said:

“Well, suppose you are the strongest, what then? The thing is, who’s the quickest.”

“Well, I’m also the quickest,” boasted Sasha.

“So you’re quick,” exclaimed Liudmilla teasingly.

They discussed the matter at length. At last Liudmilla suggested:

“Well, let’s wrestle.”

Sasha laughed and said:

“Well, you can’t get the best of me!”

Liudmilla began to tickle him.

“So that’s your way,” he exclaimed as he giggled, and he wriggled away from her and caught her around the waist.

Then a tussle began. Liudmilla saw at once that Sasha was the stronger. As she could not beat him by strength, she cunningly made the best of an opportune moment and tripped up Sasha’s foot⁠—he fell and pulled Liudmilla down with him. Liudmilla easily freed herself and pressed him down on the floor. Sasha cried:

“That’s not fair!”

Liudmilla put her knees on his stomach and held him on the floor with her hands. Sasha made great efforts to get free. Liudmilla began to tickle him again. Sasha’s loud laughter mingled with hers. She laughed so much that she had to let Sasha go. She fell to the floor, still laughing. Sasha jumped to his feet. He was red and rather provoked.

“Russalka (water nymph)!” he shouted.

But the Russalka was lying on the floor, laughing.

Liudmilla seated Sasha on her knees. Tired with the wrestling, they sat happily and closely, looking into each other’s eyes and smiling.

“I’m heavy for you. I shall hurt your knee. You’d better let me go.”

“Never mind, sit still,” replied Liudmilla affectionately. “You yourself said you liked to caress.”

She stroked his head. He gently put his head against her. She said:

“You’re very handsome, Sasha.”

Sasha grew red and laughed.

“What an idea!” said he.

Conversations and thoughts about beauty, when applied to himself, somehow perplexed him; he had never as yet been curious to find out whether people considered him handsome or a monster.

Liudmilla pinched Sasha’s cheek, which made him smile. A pretty red spot showed on his cheek. Liudmilla pinched the other cheek also. Sasha did not protest. He only took her hand, kissed it and said:

“You’ve done enough pinching. It hurts me, and you’ll make your fingers stiff.”

“It may be painful, but what a flatterer you’ve become.”

“I shall have to do my lessons,” said Sasha. “You must caress me a little while longer for good luck, so that I can get a five for my Greek.”

“So you’re sending me away,” said Liudmilla.

She caught hold of his hand and rolled the sleeve above the elbow.

“What are you doing?” asked Sasha in confusion, blushing guiltily.

But Liudmilla looked at his arm admiringly and turned this way and that way.

“What beautiful arms you’ve got!” she said clearly and happily, and suddenly kissed it near the elbow.

Sasha tried to drag his arm away. Liudmilla held it and kissed it several more times. Sasha became still and cast down his eyes. And a strange expression came over his clear, half-smiling lips⁠—and under the shadow of his thick eyelashes his hot cheeks began to pale.

They said goodbye to each other. Sasha escorted Liudmilla as far as the gate. He would have gone further but she forbade it. He paused at the gate and said:

“Come again oftener, my dear, bring sweeter cakes, do you hear?”

He used the familiar “thou” to her for the first time, and it sounded in her ear like a gentle caress. She embraced and kissed him impetuously, and ran away. Sasha stood like one dazed.

Sasha had promised to come. The appointed hour had passed by and Sasha had not arrived. Liudmilla waited impatiently⁠—she fidgeted about and felt distressed and looked out of the window. Whenever she heard steps in the street she put her head out of the window. Her sisters teased her. She said angrily:

“Let me alone!”

Then she threw herself stormily at them with reproaches, because they laughed at her. It was already evident that Sasha would not come. Liudmilla cried with vexation and disappointment.

Darya continued to tease her.

Liudmilla spoke quietly between her sobs, and in the midst of her distress she forgot to be angry with them:

“That detestable old hag wouldn’t let him come. She keeps him tied to apron strings to make him learn Greek.”

“Yes, and he’s a hobbledehoy, because he couldn’t get away,” said Darya with rough sympathy.

“She has tied herself up with a child,” said Valeria contemptuously. Both sisters, though they laughed, sympathised with Liudmilla. They loved each other, and they loved tenderly but not strongly: a superficial, tender love. Darya said:

“Why are you crying? Why should you weep your eyes out for a young milksop? Well, you might say that the devil has bound himself to an infant!”

“Who’s a devil?” shouted Liudmilla angrily.

“Why you,” answered Darya calmly, “are young, but⁠ ⁠…”

Darya did not end her sentence, but whistled piercingly.

“Nonsense,” said Liudmilla, and her voice sounded strangely.

A strange, severe smile shone on her face through her tears, like a bright, flaming ray at sunset through the last drops of a weary rain. Darya said in a rather annoyed way:

“What do you find interesting in him? Tell me, please.”

Liudmilla, still with the same curious smile on her face, said slowly and pensively:

“How beautiful he is! How many untouched possibilities he has!”

“That’s very cheap,” said Darya decidedly. “All small boys have them.”

“No, it isn’t cheap,” said Liudmilla. “They’re unclean boys.”

“And is he clean?” asked Valeria; she pronounced the word “clean” rather contemptuously.

“A lot you understand,” said Liudmilla, and again began to speak quietly and pensively. “He’s quite innocent.”

Darya smiled.

“Oh, is he?” said Darya ironically.

“The best age for a boy is fourteen or fifteen. He doesn’t understand anything and yet he has a kind of intuition. And he hasn’t a disgusting beard.”

“A wonderful pleasure!” said Valeria with a contemptuous grimace.

She was feeling sad. It seemed to her that she was small,