“No,” said Snipe, the man whose private secretary the man who gave good advice had been, “That’s it.  It’s an awful thing—­but he had no judgment.”

RUSSALKA

Peter, or Petrushka, which was the name he was known by, was the carpenter’s mate; his hair was like light straw, and his eyes were mild and blue.  He was good at his trade; a quiet and sober youth; thoughtful, too, for he knew how to read and had read several books when he was still a boy.  A translation of “Monte Cristo” once fell into his hands, and this story had kindled his imagination and stirred in him the desire to travel, to see new countries and strange people.  He had made up his mind to leave the village and to try his luck in one of the big towns, when, before he was eighteen, something happened to him which entirely changed the colour of his thoughts and the range of his desires.  It was an ordinary experience enough:  he fell in love.  He fell in love with Tatiana, who worked in the starch factory.  Tatiana’s eyes were grey, her complexion was white, her features small and delicate, and her hair a beautiful dark brown with gold lights and black shadows in it; her movements were quick and her glance keen; she was like a swallow.

It happened when the snows melted and the meadows were flooded; the first fine day in April.  The larks were singing over the plains, which were beginning to show themselves once more under the melting snow; the sun shone on the large patches of water, and turned the flooded meadows in the valley into a fantastic vision.  It was on a Sunday after church that this new thing happened.  He had often seen Tatiana before:  that day she was different and new to him.  It was as if a bandage had been taken from his eyes, and at the same moment he realised that Tatiana was a new Tatiana.  He also knew that the old world in which he had lived hitherto had crumbled to pieces; and that a new world, far brighter and more wonderful, had been created for him.  As for Tatiana, she loved him at once.  There was no delay, no hesitation, no misunderstandings, no doubt:  and at the first not much speech; but first love came to them straight and swift, with the first sunshine of the spring, as it does to the birds.

All the spring and summer they kept company and walked out together in the evenings.  When the snows entirely melted and the true spring came, it came with a rush; in a fortnight’s time all the trees except the ash were green, and the bees boomed round the thick clusters of pear-blossom and apple-blossom, which shone like snow against the bright azure.  During that time Petrushka and Tatiana walked in the apple orchard in the evening and they talked to each other in the divinest of all languages, the language of first love, which is no language at all but a confused medley and murmur of broken phrases, whisperings, twitterings, pauses, and silences—­a language so wonderful