what ridiculous nonsense! you're not hurt, are you? stung by the nettles, I daresay? Don't stare at me, I tell you.. . . But he doesn't understand, he doesn't answer,' she added, as though to herself.. . . 'Go home, M'sieu' Voldemar, brush yourself, and don't dare to follow me, or I shall be angry, and never again . . .'
She did not finish her sentence, but walked rapidly away, while I sat down by the side of the road . . . my legs would not support me. The nettles had stung my hands, my back ached, and my head was giddy; but the feeling of rapture I experienced then has never come a second time in my life. It turned to a sweet ache in all my limbs and found expression at last in joyful hops and skips and shouts. Yes, I was still a child.
XIII
I was so proud and light-hearted all that day, I so vividly retained on my face the feeling of Zinaïda's kisses, with such a shudder of delight I recalled every word she had uttered, I so hugged my unexpected happiness that I felt positively afraid, positively unwilling to see her, who had given rise to these new sensations. It seemed to me that now I could ask nothing more of fate, that now I ought to 'go, and draw a deep
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