Thus he lived happily the first month under the roof of his aunts’ dwelling, paying no attention to the half-servant, half-ward, the black-eyed, nimble-footed Katiousha.

Nekhludoff, raised under the protecting wing of his mother, was at nineteen a perfectly innocent youth.  He dreamed of woman, but only as wife.  All those women who, according to his view, could not be considered as likely to become his wife, were to him not women, but people.  But it happened on Ascension Day that there was visiting his aunts a lady from the neighborhood with her two young daughters, her son and a local artist who was staying with them.

After tea had been served the entire company, as usual, repaired to the meadow, where they played blind man’s buff.  Katiousha went with them.  After some exchanges came Nekhludoff’s turn to run with Katiousha.  Nekhludoff always liked to see Katiousha, but it had never occurred to him that their relations could ever be any but the most formal.

“It will be difficult to catch them now,” said the cheerful artist, whose short and curved legs carried him very swiftly, “unless they stumble.”

“You could not catch them.”

“One, two, three!”

They clapped their hands three times.  Almost bursting into laughter, Katiousha quickly changed places with Nekhludoff, and pressing with her strong, rough little hand his large hand she ran to the left, rustling her starched skirt.

Nekhludoff was a swift runner; he wished to out-distance the artist, and ran with all his might.  As he turned around he saw the artist catching up with Katiousha, but with her supple limbs she gained on him and ran to the left.  In front of them was a patch of lilac bushes, behind which no one ran, but Katiousha, turning toward Nekhludoff, motioned him with her head to join her there.  He understood her, and ran behind the bushes.  But here was a ditch overgrown with nettles, whose presence was unknown to Nekhludoff.  He stumbled and fell, stinging and wetting his hands in the evening dew that was now falling, but, laughing, he straightened himself and ran into the open.

Katiousha, her black eyes beaming with joy, ran toward him.  They met and caught each others’ hands.

“You were stung by the nettles, I suppose,” she said, arranging with her free hand her loosened braid, breathing heavily, and looking up into his eyes.

“I did not know there was a ditch,” he said, also smiling, and still keeping her hand in his.

She advanced a little, and he, without being able to account for it, inclined his face toward hers.  She did not draw back.  He pressed her hand and kissed her on the lips.

She uttered an exclamation, and with a swift movement, releasing her hand, she ran in the direction of the crowd.

Plucking two lilac twigs from the lilac bush, fanning her flushed face with them, and glancing around toward him, she ran to the players, briskly waving her hands.