Chapter XIII

"Does she love me?" I asked myself the next morning on awakening. I feared to question myself more. I felt that her image--the image of the young girl with the "_rire forcé_"--was engraved on my mind, and that I could not easily efface it. I returned to L., and remained there the entire day, but I only caught a glimpse of Annouchka. She was indisposed; she had a headache. She only came down for a few moments, a handkerchief wrapped about her forehead. Pale and unsteady, with her eyes half closed, she smiled a little, and said,--

"It will pass away; it is nothing. Everything passes away, doesn't it?" and she went out.

I felt wearied, moved by a sensation of emptiness and sadness, and yet I could not decide to go away. Later on I went home without having seen her again.

I passed all the next morning in a kind of moral somnolence. I tried to lose myself by working; impossible, I could do nothing. I tried to force myself to think of nothing; that succeeded no better. I wandered about the town; I re-entered the house, then came out again.

"Are you not Monsieur N----?" said suddenly behind me the voice of a little boy.

I turned about,--a child had accosted me.

"From Mademoiselle Anna."

And he handed me a letter.

I opened it and recognized her handwriting, hasty and indistinct:--

"I must see you. Meet me to-day at four o'clock in the stone chapel, on the road that leads to the ruins.--I have been very imprudent. Come, for heaven's sake! You shall know everything. Say to the bearer, Yes."

"Is there any answer?" asked the little boy.

"Say to the young lady, _Yes_," I replied. And he ran away.