Dark Avenues / Темные аллеи. Книга для чтения на английском языке

He had already adopted an unceremonious way with female admirers, an easy and rapid transition from the first minutes of acquaintance with them to a freedom of manner, ostensibly artistic, and that affected simplicity of questioning: who are you? where from? married or not? He had asked questions like that the day before too – he had gazed into the dusk of the evening at the multicoloured lights on the buoys forming long reflections in the darkening water around the steamboat, at the campfires burning red on the rafts, he had sensed the smell of the smoke from them, thinking: “This needs to be remembered – straight away there seems to be the smell of fish soup in that smoke,” and had asked:

“May I learn your name?”

She had quickly told him her first name and patronymic.

“Are you returning home from somewhere?”

“I’ve been in Sviyazhsk at my sister’s. Her husband died suddenly, and she was left in a terrible situation, you see.

At first she had been so confused that she had kept on looking somewhere into the distance. Then she had started answering more boldly.

“And are you married too?”

She had begun grinning strangely:

“I am. And, alas, not for the first year…”

“Why �alas’?”

“In my stupidity I hurried into it too early. You don’t have time to look around before your life’s gone by!”

“Oh, there’s still a long way to go until then.

“Alas, not long! And I’ve still experienced nothing in life, nothing!”

“It’s still not too late to experience things.”

And at that point, with a grin, she had suddenly shaken her head:

“And I will!”

“And what is your husband? A civil servant[113 - civil servant – чиновник]?”

She had waved her hand:

“Oh, a very good and kind but unfortunately completely uninteresting man… The secretary of our District Land Board[114 - District Land Board – земская уездная управа (орган местного самоуправления)]…”

“What a sweet, unfortunate woman,” he had thought, and had taken out his cigarette case:

“Would you like a cigarette?”

“Very much!”

And she had clumsily, but courageously lit up, inhaling quickly, in a woman’s way.