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

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We travel long by a road full of deep holes; we climb the heights, we go down into the valleys. All the country round is enchantingly beautiful.

Up comes the sun, casting upon the road distinct mobile shadows, lengthened out monstrously, of our two equipages and of our own figures.

I feel stupefied after this sleepless night; my face is hot, my lips are burning. Yet, and in spite of my plaid and the rugs, I shiver with cold, I close my eyes and lean my head against the back of the carriage, listening to the screaking wheels, to the trot of the snorting horses, and to the timid chirruping of the birds, just roused by daylight. Though awake, I am dreaming.

Janusz bends over me, and touches my lips with his in a gentle kiss, as if he meant not to wake me.

I do not move at all, and pretend to sleep on, though well aware that Janusz knows I am awake.

And now my golden morning—here it is!

On one of the last warm summer days, Martha and I go and bathe together outside the park. When undressed, she is very pleasant to look upon. She pretends to object, but puts on her bathing-dress so deliberately that I can gaze quite at my ease. After having bathed in the clear cool water, we return and lie down on the lush grass in the park. We are surrounded by tall trunks, bare to a great height; far above us their branches form a canopy of bright green verdure under the blue sky.