Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XI).djvu/330

Rh seemed to me so much above all of us, there was such bright intelligence, and such power about her unruffled brows, that I thought: 'You are that queen!'

'They all throng about her,' Zinaïda went on, 'and all lavish the most flattering speeches upon her.'

'And she likes flattery?' Lushin queried.

'What an intolerable person! he keeps interrupting who doesn't like flattery?'

'One more last question,' observed Malevsky, 'has the queen a husband?'

'I hadn't thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?'

'To be sure,' assented Malevsky, 'why should she have a husband?'

Silence! cried Meidanov in French, which he spoke very badly.

Merci! Zinaïda said to him. 'And so the queen hears their speeches, and hears the music, but does not look at one of the guests. Six windows are open from top to bottom, from floor to ceiling, and beyond them is a dark sky with big stars, a dark garden with big trees. The queen gazes out into the garden. Out there among the trees is a fountain; it is white in the darkness, and rises up tall, tall as an apparition. The queen hears, through the talk and the music, the soft splash of its waters.