Page:Oblomov (1915 English translation).djvu/179

Rh True enough, he was gazing into her kindly, grey-blue eyes—he was doing so simply because he could not help it—and thinking to himself that never in all the world had he seen a maiden so beautiful.

"Something seems to pass from her into myself," he reflected. "And that something is making my heart beat and boil. My God, what a joy to the eye she is!"

"The important question," she went on, "is how to preserve you from feeling ennuyé."

"You can do that by singing to me again."

"Ah, I was expecting that compliment!" The words came from her in a sudden burst as of pleasure. "Do you know, had you not uttered that gasp after I had finished singing the other evening, I should never have slept all night—I should have cried my very eyes out."

"Why?" he asked.

"I do not know. I merely know that that time I sang as I had never done before. Do not ask me to sing now, however—I could not do it."

Nevertheless she did sing to him again; and, ah! what did that song not voice? It seemed to be charged with her very soul.

As she finished, his face was shining with