CHAPTER ONE: EVENING AT MY FRIENDS H ... X That summer, for the first time I met Claire again at the Evening at my friends H ... x on Montparnas Boulevard. Seeing her, I was most amazed at how little she had changed in appearance, as if I had said goodbye to her only yesterday, while we had not seen each other for several years now. She gave me a hand without any sign of surprise and said simply: “Good evening” in such a tone as if you parted the day before. I replied: “Good evening, Claire,” I suppose, in the same or almost the same way.

Then I greeted the other guests, shook hands with them. For the most part these were people whom I met here and there every week, more or less all of the writers and admirers of art. I had common interests with many of them, and together we did some things that we talked about for a long time with little knuckles as the people entered and went.

There were thirty people, the society spread in three “an-suites” halls, with windows facing the bell. It was June or sooner the end of May. When I saw Claire again, she was standing alone on the balcony before the dissolved French door, leaning her back against the balustrade. She looked in the hall, but not in my direction. I looked back to find out what she considered so attentively: it was a girl of three people standing not far from the doors, two men of thirty, whom I did not know, and a very young woman, or a girl, was also not familiar to me.

I looked again in the direction of the balcony and this time met my eyes with Claire, calmly looking at me. She smiled at me with one of those smile, which is called mysterious; or perhaps that impression had arisen me just because of the half-mum around her face.

She stood, straightened on the sides of the pyki and firmly holding the upper edge of the balustrade, to which she pressed her back. She was very beautiful. Everyone said that "she is very beautiful." And that evening, I once again thought that it was true. I approached the door, but completely went to the balcony on the steel. Clare did not move. Over her shoulders in the warm night, I saw people passing by bully, sometimes fading in front of the brightly lighted shop windows. I have made a few meaningless remarks on this occasion. Claire answered uncertainly arrogantly.

I contemplated her face and saw that she again took a look at the same place as before, only now it was behind me. I did not dare to look back and be convinced that these are all the same people, however, I decided that it was so, because her face showed the same expression as in the first time when I paid attention to her, or did not express nothing.

I took a few steps along a long balcony that encircled the whole house. So I reached the second French door, which turned out to be locked, and involuntarily took a look at the living room through the glass in the very place where the tulle laces formed a gap. Just like the hostess stood. She told me something that I did not understand, because I could not hear her voices, as I could not understand what was said on the movement of the lips. Madam H ... I turned back pychky and put the door, going to repeat the proposal. Although tulle guards prevented the doors from opening to the end, I nevertheless slipped into being forced to talk with the hostess. She wondered if she wasn’t hiding.

Not having time to think of any more suitable topic for conversation, I began to ask her about a young girl in a white dress, at which he gave her a look. However, Madame H ... I did not really know anything about her or did not want to say anything. She only replied that this, they say, Claire's friend, that they came together and that, by the way, you couldn’t get the words out of her.

Indeed, the girl did not respond to two young people who approached her. Moreover, she avoided looking into their eyes and for the majority of the time she stood there poypivshis. She was sweet and, as far as she could be, well-built. Beautiful face.In fact, she was delightful, although she seemed too young, her whole society was more attractive than a purely physical character, a more direct thought to the word “woman” than to the two-digit “girl”. And yet in her modest, white dress, she produced the impression of a child.

Madam H ... I, who thought of the duties of the hostess of the evening, had already moved further. Looking at the young girl from afar, who was standing up in a hurry, I grabbed Clare, who was looking at her. From the place where I was, Claire was not visible, but I immediately realized that she was still standing on the balcony, stretched out along the sides of the chair and was holding on to an iron grille balustrade, to which she inclined her back. I paid attention to the fact that expressing her persistently, however, was deprived of any content, as if she was following the development of the scene, which she, too, was sharply-minded and could not cause the slightest surprise in her.

As I have already said, Claire was very beautiful, no doubt, much more beautiful than her young friends in a white dress. However, unlike the latter, she never really made an impression on me. At first, it made me somewhat confused, but in the end I came to the conclusion that it was this too bright beauty that prevented me from looking at it as a possible victim. In my case, it was necessary for me to feel this or that weak point in order to experience the intoxication from the forthcoming victory. I approached the open door in the same way as before, but this time with the calculation; I turned my face to the balcony. Claire was not there.

I took a few more steps in the same direction, looking at the sides: the entire length of the balcony was pist. Fearing that someone would notice my intention, I pretended to want to breathe. I leaned on the balustrade and began, without much interest, to observe the people who walked by that warm night at night, sometimes stopping in front of the light-flooded shop windows.

Later, when I was sitting near a large couch in the center of a bunny, expressing my opinion on the last literary falsification, I had the opportunity to more closely consider a young person in a white dress.

The longer I contemplated her, her face, her whole appearance, the younger she seemed to me, the substance of a short and modest man, with habits of a dancer. Some awkwardness made her just more captivating. She just once served with a tray with some gentlemen's refreshing drinks, which obviously more wanted to look around from head to foot than to chill. The skirt of her dress was very wide, but it was very attractive. The upper part was in the fold, and the deep cleavage completely opened her round, seductive shoulders, slightly golden.

- Hy and you, Jean de Berg, you do not want to share your opinion?

It was H herself ... me, returning me in such a way to speaking. Unfolding myself to face her, I immediately found Claire, stopping my calm look on me. She stood alone on the edge of the hall, leaning against the wall near the empty armchair, and kypila. In passing, she sent me the same mysterious smile as in the first time.

Later that evening, when I was already gathering to be with the masters, I saw Claire, of her own accord, turned to me.

“I'm good,” she said. - If you want, we could drink something in a cafe and explore.

She seemed to permit me what I had asked her long ago. I answered no doubt, since I didn’t know how to ask me whether our young company would be our company or not. However, she immediately added:

“You will meet Ann at the same time.” You see, she is very cute.

She singled out the word “sweet” so much that it seemed strange to me. I looked into her eyes and raised my finger in a pulling way:

- Ann?

- Yes, that child over there. - She pointedly pointed out in the direction of the girl, who was sitting alone a few steps away from us in a chair and was examining her hands folded on her lap. I asked a trivial question:

- Who ...