Page:The Career of a Nihilist.djvu/38

clayey and soft. How delightful it would be to fling himself like a stone, bounding from one prominence to another, and then by one strong effort to stop short at the bottom! There was a dare-devil spirit within him that urged him to the feat. He took a few steps to the edge, and prepared himself for the first leap, which would have to be small. But a sudden thought made him abandon this rather dangerous freak. Suppose he should dislocate his ankle? How then about his journey? No, it would not do for him to be careless now. He stepped back, and ran carefully down the pathway.

Crossing the Arve, he passed a few blocks of houses in a suburb, and emerged upon a spacious drill-ground, used for exercising recruits and for popular amusements at holiday-time. The real town began on the farther side. Sounds of the opening day were already heard here and there. In the middle of the street a big sorrel horse in harness, but without any cart, was walking by itself, as they often do in Switzerland; no driver was visible anywhere. The animal’s step was so steady, and it looked so amusingly self-confident and knowing, that Andrey clapped it on the neck, and asked with a smile the best way to his home.

The horse passed on without deviating an inch, with its air of a self-satisfied portly gentleman going to business.

“Oh, well!” thought Andrey, resuming his way; “you can’t expect a French horse to understand Russian. I ought to have addressed it in its native language.” He felt sprightly and gay, as one does after a shower-bath, and was ready to amuse himself with any trifle.

In twenty minutes he was at the opposite end of the town, ascending his own staircase. On approaching his door, he was surprised to see a line of light under it, and to find it unlocked. He thought he remembered having put out the lamp and locked up the room. The explanation of the mystery was not far to seek. Upon entering he saw, by the uncertain light of the flickering lamp, the body of a man lying on his bed. The lamp stood by him. Andrey raised it above the dark form.

“Ah, Vaska!” he exclaimed, recognising first the rosy trousers of his friend,—a perfectly unique sample of the article which Vaska, otherwise Vasily Verbitzky, had picked up by mistake in some dark shop,—then his old overcoat, and finally his good-natured swarthy face, half concealed by the abundant auburn hair.