He was amazed at her boldness and independence, at the freedom of her speech. He saw before him, as he imagined, the little girl who had nervously concealed herself from him for fear that her egoism might suffer through the inequality of her brains, her ideas and her education. This was a new figure, a new Vera.
“What if all this exists only in your imagination?” he said undecidedly.
“Don’t lie to me,” she interrupted. “If you are successful in observing my every footstep, my every moment, at least permit me to be conscious of the discomfort of such observation. I tell you plainly that it oppresses me; it is slavery; I feel like a prisoner.”
“Freedom--I am your chevalier--therefore....”
“Therefore you will not leave a poor girl room to breathe. Tell me, what reason have I given you to regard me differently from any other girl?”
“Beauty adores admiration; it is her right.”
“Beauty has also a right to esteem and freedom. Is it an apple hanging on the other side of the hedge, that every passer-by can snatch at?”
“Don’t agitate yourself, Vera!” he begged, taking her hands. “I confess my guilt. I am an artist, have a susceptible temperament, and perhaps abandoned myself too much to my impressions. Then I am no stranger. Let us be reconciled, Vera. Tell me your wishes, and they shall be sacredly fulfilled. I will do what pleases you, will avoid what offends you, in order to deserve your friendship.”
“I told you from the beginning, you remember, how you could show me your sympathy, by not observing me, by letting me go my way and taking no notice of me. Then I will come of myself, and we will fix the hours that we will spend together, reading or walking.”
“You ask me, Vera, to be utterly indifferent to you?”
“Not to notice how lovely you are? To look at you as if you were Grandmother. But even if I adore your beauty in silence from a distance, you would know it, and can you forbid me that? Passion may melt the surface and there may steal into your heart an affection for me. Don’t let me leave you without any hope. Can you not give me any?”
“How can you tell? There may come a time.”
Unmanned by terror, he collected his strength to say breathlessly:
She knit her brow and looked down on the Volga.