Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XI).djvu/221

Rh opportunity for you to say in your turn: Cela ne tire pas à conséquence!'

She laughed, but her laugh suddenly broke off, and she stayed motionless, as though her own words had suddenly struck her, and in her eyes, usually so gay and bold, there was a gleam of something like timidity, even like sadness.

'Snake! ah, she's a snake!' Sanin was thinking meanwhile; 'but what a lovely snake!'

'Give me my opera-glass,' Maria Nikolaevna said suddenly. 'I want to see whether this jeune première really is so ugly. Upon my word, one might fancy the government appointed her in the interests of morality, so that the young men might not lose their heads over her.'

Sanin handed her the opera-glass, and as she took it from him, swiftly, but hardly audibly, she snatched his hand in both of hers.

'Please don't be serious,' she whispered with a smile. 'Do you know what, no one can put fetters on me, but then you see I put no fetters on others. I love freedom, and I don't acknowledge duties—not only for myself. Now move to one side a little, and let us listen to the play.'

Maria Nikolaevna turned her opera-glass upon the stage, and Sanin proceeded to look