Ada, or Ador: A Family Chronicle

He insisted in a fierce whisper — fully knowing, however, how useless it was to attempt to make her change her mind, particularly in amorous matters; but unaccountably and marvelously her dazed look melted into one of gentle glee, as if in sudden perception of new-found release. Thus a child may stare into space, with a dawning smile, upon realizing that the bad dream is over, or that a door has been left unlocked, and that one can paddle with impunity in thawed sky. Ada rid her shoulder of the collecting satchel and, under Violette’s benevolent gaze following them over Marina’s mirrored head, they strolled away and sought the comparative seclusion of the park alley where she had once demonstrated to him her sun-and-shade games. He held her, and kissed her, and kissed her again as if she had returned from a long and perilous journey. The sweetness of her smile was something quite unexpected and special. It was not the sly demon smile of remembered or promised ardor, but the exquisite human glow of happiness and helplessness. All their passionate pump-joy exertions, from Burning Barn to Burnberry Brook, were nothing in comparison to this zaychik, this ‘sun blick’ of the smiling spirit. Her black jumper and black Skirt with apron pockets lost its ‘in-mourning-for-a-lost flower’ meaning that Marina had fancifully attached to her dress (‘nemedlenno pereodet’sya, change immediately!’ she had yelped into the green-shimmering looking-glass); instead, it had acquired the charm of a Lyaskan, old-fashioned schoolgirl uniform. They stood brow to brow, brown to white, black to black, he supporting her elbows, she playing her limp light fingers over his collarbone, and how he ‘ladored,’ he said, the dark aroma of her hair blending with crushed lily stalks, Turkish cigarettes and the lassitude that comes from ‘lass.’ ‘No, no, don’t,’ she said, I must wash, quick-quick, Ada must wash; but for yet another immortal moment they stood embraced in the hushed avenue, enjoying, as they had never enjoyed before, the ‘happy-forever’ feeling at the end of never-ending fairy tales.

That’s a beautiful passage, Van. I shall cry all night (late interpolation).

As a last sunbeam struck Ada, her mouth and chin shone drenched with his poor futile kisses. She shook her head saying they must really part, and she kissed his hands as she did only in moments of supreme tenderness, and then quickly turned away, and they really parted.

One common orchid, a Lady’s Slipper, was all that wilted in the satchel which she had left on a garden table and now dragged upstairs. Marina and the mirror had gone. He peeled off his training togs and took one last dip in the pool over which the butler stood, looking meditatively into the false-blue water with his hands behind his back.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if I haven’t just seen a tadpole.’

The novelistic theme of written communications has now really got into its stride. When Van went up to his room he noticed, with a shock of grim premonition, a slip of paper sticking out of the heart pocket of his dinner jacket. Penciled in a large hand, with the contour of every letter deliberately whiffled and rippled, was the anonymous injunction: ‘One must not berne you.’ Only a French-speaking person would use that word for ‘dupe.’ Among the servants, fifteen at least were of French extraction — descendants of immigrants who had settled in America after England had annexed their beautiful and unfortunate country in 1815. To interview them all — torture the males, rape the females — would be, of course, absurd and degrading. With a puerile wrench he broke his best black butterfly on the wheel of his exasperation. The pain from the fang bite was now reaching his heart. He found another tie, finished dressing and went to look for Ada.