Zinaïda expressed genuine admiration of it. 'But do you know what?' she said to him. 'If I were a poet, I would choose quite different subjects. Perhaps it's all nonsense, but strange ideas sometimes come into my head, especially when I 'm not asleep in the early morning, when the sky begins to turn rosy and grey both at once. I would, for instance . . . You won't laugh at me?'
'No, no!' we all cried, with one voice.
'I would describe,' she went on, folding her arms across her bosom and looking away, 'a whole company of young girls at night in a great boat, on a silent river. The moon is shining, and they are all in white, and wearing garlands of white flowers, and singing, you know, something in the nature of a hymn.'
'I see—I see; go on,' Meidanov commented with dreamy significance.
'All of a sudden, loud clamour, laughter, torches, tambourines on the bank. . . . It's a troop of Bacchantes dancing with songs and cries. It's your business to make a picture of it, Mr. Poet; . . . only I should like the torches to be red and to smoke a great deal, and the Bacchantes' eyes to gleam under their wreaths, and the wreaths to be dusky. Don't forget the tiger-skins, too, and goblets and gold—lots of gold.. . .'
297
