Easter Day Page #3

"Easter Day" by Aleksandr Kuprin is a poignant short story that explores themes of faith, renewal, and the complexities of human emotion. Set against the backdrop of the Orthodox Easter celebration, the narrative delves into the lives of its characters as they navigate moments of joy, despair, and introspection. Through vivid imagery and rich characterizations, Kuprin captures the essence of springtime rebirth and the profound impact of spiritual rituals on the human spirit. The story invites readers to reflect on the interplay of tradition and personal belief, making it a compelling piece within Kuprin's body of work.

• Novel

								

They quarrelled and carried on together like young puppies.

There were three years of that. Lenotchka used to go away every summer
with her people to their country house at Jemakino, and that year,
when she returned to Moscow in the autumn, Voznitsin opened both eyes
and mouth in astonishment. She was changed; you couldn't say that she
was beautiful, but there was something in her face more wonderful than
actual beauty, a rosy radiant blossoming of the feminine being in her.
It is so sometimes. God knows how the miracle takes place, but in a few
weeks, an awkward, undersized, gawky schoolgirl will develop suddenly
into a charming maiden. Lenotchka's face still kept her summer sunburn,
under which her ardent young blood flowed gaily, her shoulders had
filled out, her figure rounded itself, and her soft breasts had a firm
outline--all her body had become willowy, graceful, gracious.

And their relations towards one another had changed also. They became
different after one Saturday evening when the two of them, frolicking
together before church service in a dimly lighted room, began to
wrestle together and fight. The windows were wide open, and from the
garden came the clear freshness of autumn and a slight winey odour of
fallen leaves, and slowly one after another rang out the sounds of the
church bells.

They struggled together; their arms were round each other so that their
bodies were pressed closely together and they were breathing in each
other's faces. Suddenly Lenotchka, her face flaming crimson even in
the darkening twilight, her eyes dilated, began to whisper angrily and
confusedly:

"Let me go ... let go.... I don't want to...," adding with a malicious
gleam in her wet eyes: "Nasty, horrid boy."

The nasty, horrid boy released her and stood there, awkwardly
stretching out his trembling arms. His legs trembled also, and his
forehead was wet with a sudden perspiration. He had just now felt in
his arms the slender responsive waist of a woman, broadening out so
wonderfully to the rounded hips; he had felt on his bosom the pliant
yielding contact of her firm, high, girlish breasts and breathed the
perfume of her body--that pleasant intoxicating scent of opening poplar
buds and young shoots of black-currant bushes which one smells on a
clear damp evening of spring after a slight shower, when the sky and
the rain-pools flame with crimson and the may beetles hum in the air.

Thus began for Voznitsin that year of love languishment, of bitter
passionate dreams, of secret and solitary tears. He became wild,
unsociable, rude and awkward in consequence of his torturing shyness;
he was always knocking over chairs and catching his clothes on the
furniture, upsetting the tea-table with all the cups and saucers---- "Our
Kolinka's always getting into trouble," said Lenotchka's mother
good-naturedly.

Lenotchka laughed at him. But he knew nothing of it, he was continually
behind her watching her draw or write or embroider, and looking at the
curve of her neck with a strange mixture of happiness and torture,
watching her white skin and flowing golden hair, seeing how her brown
school-blouse moved with her breathing, becoming large and wrinkling up
into little pleats when she drew in her breath, then filling out and
becoming tight and elastic and round again. The sight of her girlish
wrists and pretty arms, and the scent of opening poplar buds about her,
remained with the boy and occupied his thoughts in class, in church, in
detention rooms.

In all his notebooks and textbooks Voznitsin drew beautifully-twined
initials E and Y, and cut them with a knife on the lid of his desk in
the middle of a pierced and flaming heart. The girl, with her woman's
instinct, no doubt guessed his silent adoration, but in her eyes he
was too everyday, too much one of the family. For him she had suddenly
been transformed into a blooming, dazzling, fragrant wonder, but in her
sight he was still the same impetuous boy as before, with a deep voice
and hard rough hands, wearing a tight uniform and wide trousers. She
coquetted innocently with her schoolboy friends and with the young son
of the priest at the church, and, like a kitten sharpening its claws,
she sometimes found it amusing to throw on Voznitsin a swift, burning,
cunning glance. But if he in a momentary forgetfulness squeezed her
hand too tightly, she would threaten him with a rosy finger and say
meaningly:

"Take care, Kolya. I shall tell mother." And Voznitsin would shiver
with unfeigned terror.

It was no wonder that Kolya had to spend two years in the sixth form;
no wonder either that in the summer he fell in love with the eldest of
the Sinyelnikof girls, with whom he had once danced at a party.... But
at Easter his full heart of love knew a moment of heavenly blessedness.

On Easter Eve he went with the Yurlofs to Borisoglebsky Church, where
Alexandra Millievna had an honoured place, with her own kneeling-mat
and soft folding chair. And somehow or other he contrived to come
home alone with Lenotchka. The mother and Oletchka stayed for the
consecration of the Easter cakes, and Lenotchka, Arkasha and Kolya
came out of church together. But Arkasha diplomatically vanished--he
disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had opened and swallowed him
up. The two young people found themselves alone.

They went arm in arm through the crowd, their young legs moving easily
and swiftly. Both were overcome by the beauty of the night, the joyous
hymns, the multitude of lights, the Easter kisses, the smiles and
greetings in the church. Outside there was a cheerful crowd of people;
the dark and tender sky was full of brightly twinkling stars; the scent
of moist young leaves was wafted from gardens, and they, too, were
unexpectedly so near to one another they seemed lost together in the
crowd, and they were out at an unusually late hour.

Pretending to himself that it was by accident, Voznitsin pressed
Lenotchka's elbow to his side, and she answered with a barely
noticeable movement in return. He repeated the secret caress, and she
again responded. Then in the darkness he felt for her finger-tips and
gently stroked them, and her hand made no objection, was not snatched
away.

And so they came to the gate of the church house. Arkasha had left the
little gate open for them. Narrow wooden planks placed over the mud led
up to the house between two rows of spreading old lime trees. When the
gate closed after them, Voznitsin caught Lenotchka's hand and began to
kiss her fingers, so warm, so soft, so full of life.

"Lenotchka, I love you; I love you...."

He put his arms around her and kissed her in the darkness, somewhere
just below her ear. His hat fell off on to the ground, but he did not
stop to pick it up. He kissed the girl's cool cheek, and whispered as
in a dream:

"Lenotchka, I love you, I love you...."

"No, no," said she in a whisper, and hearing the whisper he sought her
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