The Garnet Bracelet and other Stories / Гранатовый браслет и другие повести. Книга для чтения на английском языке

” The guests were three students, who kept on sticking out their chests and striking dramatic attitudes, with one foot forward and one hand in the back pocket of their frock-coats; Miller, a technician distinguished by his good looks, stupidity, and wonderful baritone; and lastly a taciturn gentleman in grey, of whom nobody took any notice.

The game was not going well. The men performed their forfeits with a condescending, bored air, and the young ladies refused to perform theirs at all, whispering among themselves and laughing unnaturally.

Dusk was falling. A huge red moon floated up from behind the house-tops of the nearby village.

“Come inside, children!” Anna Afanasyevna shouted from the dining-room. “Ask Miller to sing for us.”

A moment later the young ladies’ voices rang through the rooms.

“We had a very good time,” they chirped round their mother. “We laughed so much!”

Nina and Bobrov remained on the veranda. She sat on the handrail, hugging a post with her left arm and nestling against it in an unconsciously graceful posture.

Bobrov placed himself at her feet, on a low garden bench; as he looked up into her face he saw the delicate outlines of her throat and chin.

“Come on, tell me something interesting, Andrei Ilyich,” she commanded impatiently.

“I really don’t know what to tell you,” he replied. “It’s awfully hard to speak to order. So I’m wondering if there’s some collection of dialogues on various topics.

”

“Fie! What a bo-ore you are,” she drawled. “Tell me, are you ever in good spirits?”

“And you tell me why you’re so afraid of silence. You feel uneasy the moment talk runs low. Is it so bad to talk silently?”

“ �Let’s be silent tonight,’ “ Nina sang, teasingly.

“Yes, let’s. Look: the sky is clear, the moon is red and big, and it’s so quiet out here. What else do we need?”

“ �And this barren and silly moon in these barren and silly heavens,’ “ Nina recited.

“A propos, have you heard that Zina Makova is engaged to Protopopov? Going to marry him, after all! I can’t make out that Protopopov.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Zina refused him three times, but still he wouldn’t give up, and proposed for the fourth time. Well, he’ll have only himself to blame. She may come to respect him, but she’ll certainly never love him!”

These words were enough to make Bobrov’s gorge rise.