– What are you gonna do to Uno?
– What am I gonna do to him?
Lucia looked at Allan Bentick with astonishment and wondered if she had a rigid feature on her lively face.
– Yeah?
Lucia raised her chin as if she had thought Allan was interfering with what she didn’t belong to. But he did not want to refrain from answering because he had no reason that Allan seemed to doubt.
– I want to make him a good man. The one he can come up with if he wants.
– And what do you give him a salary when he comes to him?
– Well, that’s where you already pay for that.
– Do you think he thinks so?
Lucia was silent and in distress. They slid alongside Lågarn’s smooth ice. The winter day was cold gray and cloudy, and it seemed as if snow was coming, but still did not flake.
Some other young people were on ice. Allan had just succeeded in
stealing Lucia Uno, who is comforting the bride between Brita Sander and Lisa
Jennings.
They were skating parallel to each other without holding hands, but suddenly Allan rolled over to Lucia and grabbing her in both hands she slid backward, pulling Lucia from her.
Lucia did not like this arrangement correctly, because she thought of Allan’s way to see her in the face. There was something in Allan that made Lucia restless. He did not like Allan, the playful and carefree Allan, nowadays always turned into something serious when he came between him.
– Will you marry Uno? he asked suddenly.
Lucia looked up, confused about this ruthlessness.
– No, he said calmly.
– Does he know that?
– He has never been so ruthless and stupid that he would have thought of something like that, Luc was still calm, but sharp.
– Why would it be so ruthless and stupid? asked Allan not to embarrass himself.
– First of all, I’m ten years older.
– And secondly? asked Allan.
“No such feeling comes between us,” Lucia replied indignantly.
Allan laughed at that little charming and airy laughter that was characteristic of her.
– You think you’re too old to feel like that?
– At one time.
– When you can raise such feelings, you know how to feel.
Lucia had been so amazed at Allan’s courage not to prevent her, but now Allan went too far, she had to prevent her from going further, and she had to do it not only temporarily, but alone. He understood that Allan was jealous of Uno for his sake, and that he meant more to him than to Lucia. The idea of Anna’s innocent trust burned her. He wanted to fight the last thing of the little exposed creature without expressing his secret. But how could he do that? The first step was to push Alla out of her, so that she realized that she was thinking not as a friend among other friends. He understood that in order to succeed, he had to talk to Allan about what he would rather have thought of.
“Let’s skate side by side rather than this,” he said. I want to talk seriously to you, and it’s too distracting to keep an eye out for you if you don’t get caught up in the groove or bang. Without letting Lucia’s hands roll around allan immediately so that they slid side by side with each other.
– Well, tell me now! said Allan.
“I’m not going to do that,” Lucia said in her voice, a gentle seriousness that was not common to her, and that is why Allan’s heart began to beat faster than expected.
– Do you remember that once in the summer I warned you about using the wrong kind of power in you?
– I remember it quite well.
– For the most part, for your own sake, I want to warn you, because I know from my own experience how to suffer and regret all your life for useless misuse after misusing that power.
He spoke with restrained passion and deep gravity. His confession had an impact on Allan, so he was rarely able to find a word in response.
Lucia paused for a few minutes to win her movement. Then he continued with a quieter voice.
– Our first acquaintance with you was a person of yours. I see that you have the same power in the heart of women as I have had – and maybe there is still some – in men. I want you to see a warning example in me, so I’ll talk to you about something I will never talk to.
Again he was silent. They skated quietly over a secluded bay. The wooded beaches were close together. There was no breath in the air. The dark spruce stood quietly against the cloudy background, waiting for the snowfall, which was already sending its foreheads with the most flattering flakes. But Allan and Lucia didn’t notice it.
– In my youth, Lucia continued, I enjoy the thoughtless and carefree that the men liked me and applied for me. I liked them in a way, but I didn’t seriously, and thought that who didn’t understand it was stupid and got hold of it. Sometimes I found myself suffering, and I was sorry about it, but I never long; for my part, I didn’t suffer. But then there was one…
Again he stopped to gain strength to continue. It was harder than he had thought to reveal his pesky wound. But he had decided to do it. It happened because of Anna and Allan herself. The pain and self-defeating, whose disclosure of his secret costed him, made his otherwise soft voice hard, almost void when he spoke again.
– He came with me as well. But I didn’t understand it, I couldn’t believe it for a long time. I was shaky and changing, sometimes with will, sometimes not. He suffered from this incurable damage, he lost all his faith in me. He sank. When I finally found out from my own heart and found myself attached to the truth, then it was too late. I was not able to lift him. I had killed his trust, I had lost my power in him. Once upon a time I could have done what I wanted, but then I didn’t care about her. Now I wanted to, but now it was late. And now came my turn to suffer. And it still takes. Now, finally, my love has become faithful. But the man I love so much is not the man who is, but the one who was and could have come – against me I would have corrupted him. Do you understand the bitter fate?
Yes, he understood. But he was so moved that he had no answer but a silent confession.
They had come to the bottom of the bay and now turned slowly to slip back in the middle of a quiet, still snowfall.
– Are you sure you can’t turn it well yet? asked
Alla respectfully with a familiar voice.
– Quite confident, Lucia hopelessly answered with a smile.
– But can’t you get it? asked Allan.
– Never.
There was no ill-grieving condition in the answer there; he just said the fact.
– Can’t get why he’s come , he added.
– Does he live? asked Alla quietly.
– Live.
– You ever meet him?
– Yes, I met him after that when it was all hopeless, but I do now for a long time, I did not after that I came here. But let’s live now and ask me more. You know, yes. Be careful of my example!
– In what ways? What do you want me to do?
– Don’t play with love! And if you see someone who loves you with his innocent soul, then … do not hold such a pearl! Stay tuned, come true and love!
He spoke delicately, emotionally, and exhortingly. Yes, Allan’s heart beat faster with these words and that voice when he heard, and he was overwhelmed by the quest for the highest and most unattainable. But that pearl that Lucia had spoken and which Allan’s sharpness of mind was smart was not the highest and unattainable.
– It’s easier said than done, that’s about, he pointed out.
Despite those subtle words, Allan Lucia did the same effect as someone who makes the distance impossible, but nevertheless intends to make that daring jump.
– Don’t do anything hurry! Remember that you must change yourselves! Otherwise you won’t be worth the pearl. Unless you are worthy to take it with real action, let it be, but do not just play with it… to lose it… to the bow.
He turned his head as he spoke the last words, and as big, embarrassed, and tearless, he looked at his snowfall without noticing the light of the snowflakes, as opposed to the glaring contrast of the reality he had referred to: a loan he had lost his bead.