“Well, I did it, and there’s an end of it!” she said to herself, frowning, and striving to find some sort of grim satisfaction from this hackneyed phrase. “What nonsense it all is! I wanted to do it and I did it; and I felt so happy—oh, so happy! It would have been silly not to enjoy myself when the moment came. I must not think of it; it can’t be helped, now.”
She languidly withdrew from the window and began to undress, letting her clothes slip from her on to the floor. “After all, one only lives once,” she thought, shivering at the touch of the cool night air on her bare shoulders and arms. “What should I have gained by waiting till I was lawfully married? And of what good would that have been to me? It’s all the same thing! What is there to worry about?”
All at once it seemed to her that in this hazard she had got all that was best and most interesting; and that now, free as a bird an eventful life of happiness and pleasure lay before her.
“I’ll love if I will; if I don’t, then I won’t!” sang Lida softly to herself, thinking meanwhile that her voice was a much better one than Sina Karsavina’s. “Oh! it’s all nonsense! If I like, I’ll give myself to the devil!” Thus she made sudden answer to her thoughts, holding her bare arms above her head so that her bosom shook.
“Aren’t you asleep yet, Lida?” said Sanine’s voice outside the window.
Lida started back in alarm, and then, with a smile, flung a shawl round her shoulders as she approached the window.
Sanine came nearer and leant with both elbows on the window-sill. His eyes shone, and he smiled.
“There was no need for that!” he muttered playfully.
“Without a shawl you looked much nicer,” he said in a low voice, impressively.
Lida looked at him in amazement, and instinctively drew the shawl tighter round her.
Sanine laughed. In confusion, she also leant upon the window-sill, and now she felt his breath on her cheek.
Lida glanced swiftly at him, fearful of what she thought she could read in his face. With her whole body she felt that her brother’s eyes were fixed upon her, and she turned away in horror. It was so terrible, so loathsome, that her heart seemed frozen. Every man looked at her just like that, and she liked it, but for her brother to do so was incredible, impossible. Recovering herself, she said, smiling: