Читать книгу Kobiety (Women). A Novel of Polish Life онлайн

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“Are you offended then?” he asked, looking up at me.

I knitted my brows slightly, but could not keep the corners of my mouth still.

“Yes, I am.”

“But you are smiling. Why do you smile so strangely?”

And his eyes gaze at me from under his thick brows—gaze slyly and sweetly, while the hot blood burns in my cheeks. Never, in the days of Roslawski and our long-learned conversations about literature, did I feel such a sensation as this.

An evening party at the Sedniewski’s, Topolow: somebody’s name-day. All four of us go, Martha and I, the grandfather, and Janusz. Rather a large gathering: girls like flowers, fresh and bright-hued. Some of the young men have been brought for the occasion from as far as Lodz.

I go in, with my cheeks fresh and ruddy from our drive along the windy road: my dress is of a beautiful sea-green hue. The party is quaintly and prettily framed in a large low-ceilinged drawing-room, lighted from above by an antique chandelier, with tiers of branches that shed sparkling many-coloured light around. Along the walls stand many fine old pieces of furniture, and on the veranda outside an orchestra is softly tuning up.