The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

She stepped away, and I would have stayed where I was, but that old Gypsy, Grusha’s father, and another Gypsy took me under the arms, and dragged me forward, and seated me in the frontmost row next to the police chief and other gentlemen.

That, I confess, I had no wish for: I didn’t want to go on, I wanted to get out of there; but they begged me and wouldn’t let me leave, and called out:

“Grusha! Grunyushka, keep our welcome guest here!”

And she came up and … deuce knows what she was able to do with her eyes: she glanced as if she were putting some venom in mine, but said:

“Don’t offend us: be our guest here a while longer.”

“Well,” I said, “as if anyone could offend you”—and sat down.

And she kissed me again, and again the sensation was the same: as if she was touching my lips with a poisoned brush and all the blood in me right down to my heart was burning with pain.

And after that the singing and dancing began again, and another Gypsy woman went around again with champagne. This one was also good-looking, but nothing next to Grusha! She didn’t have half her beauty, and for that I raked up some twenty- and twenty-five-kopeck pieces and poured them onto the tray … The gentlemen started laughing at that, but it was all the same to me, because I was only looking out for her, this Grushenka, and waiting until I heard her voice alone, without any chorus, but she didn’t sing. She was sitting with some others, singing along, but not giving a solo, and I didn’t hear her voice, but only saw her pretty little mouth with its white teeth … “Ah, well,” I think, “this is my orphan’s lot: I came in for a minute and lost a hundred roubles, and she’s the only one I won’t get to hear!” But, luckily for me, I wasn’t alone in wanting to hear her: other important gentlemen visitors all shouted out together after one of the breaks:

“Grusha! Grusha! ‘The Skiff,’ Grusha! ‘The Skiff!’ ”³⁰

The Gypsies cleared their throats, her young brother took up a guitar, and she began to sing. You know … their singing usually gets to you and touches the heart, but when I heard that voice of hers, the same that had lured me from outside the door, I melted away. I liked it terribly! She began as if a bit coarsely, manfully: “Ho-o-owls the se-e-ea, mo-o-oans the se-e-ea.” It’s as if you really hear the sea moaning, and in it a sinking little skiff struggling. And then suddenly there’s a complete change of voice, as it addresses the star: “Golden one, dear one, herald of the day, with you earthly trouble can never come my way.” And again a new turnabout, something you don’t expect. With them everything’s in these turnabouts: now she weeps, torments you, simply takes your soul out of your body, and then suddenly she strikes up something completely different, and it’s as if she puts your heart right back in place again … Now, too, she stirred up this “sea” with its “skiff,” and the others all just squealed in chorus:

Ja-lá-la. Ja-la-la.

Ja-lá-la pringalá!

Ja-la-la pringa-la.

Hey da chepuringalya!

Hey hop-high, ta gara!

Hey hop-high-ta gara!

And then Grushenka again went around with the wine and the tray, and again I pulled a swan from my breast pocket for her … Everyone started looking at me, because I had placed them all beneath me with my gifts: they were even ashamed to give after me, but I was decidedly unsparing now, because it was my own free will, to express my heart, to show my soul, and I showed it. Each time Grusha sings, I give her a swan, and I’m no longer counting how many I’ve loosed, I just give and that’s it, but when the others all ask her to sing, she doesn’t, to all their requests she says “I’m tired,” but I have only to nod to the Gypsy: Can’t we make her?—and he at once gives her a look, and she sings. And she sang a lot, one song more powerful than the other, and I had already handed over a lot of swans to her, a countless number, and in the end, I don’t know what time it was, but it was already dawn, and it seemed she really was worn out, and tired, and, looking at me as if hintingly, she began to sing: “Go away, don’t look, quit my sight.” These words seemed to be driving me out, but others were as if asking: “Or do you want to toy with my lion’s soul and feel all the joy of beauty’s burning coal?”³¹ And I gave her another swan! She unwillingly kissed me again, as if stinging me, and there seemed to be a dark flame in her eyes, and the others, in this canny hour, began to shout:

You must feel, my nearest,

How I love you, dearest!