of theirs would not end soon, that there was no knowing when. Anna Sergeevna’s attachment to him grew ever stronger, she adored him, and it would have been unthinkable to tell her that it all really had to end at some point; and she would not have believed it.
He went up to her and took her by the shoulders to caress her, to make a joke, and at that moment he saw himself in the mirror.
His head was beginning to turn gray. And it seemed strange to him that he had aged so much in those last years, had lost so much of his good looks. The shoulders on which his hands lay were warm and trembled. He felt compassion for this life, still so warm and beautiful, but probably already near the point where it would begin to fade and wither, like his own life. Why did she love him so? Women had always taken him to be other than he was, and they had loved in him, not himself, but a man their imagination had created, whom they had greedily sought all their lives; and then, when they had noticed their mistake, they had still loved him. And not one of them had been happy with him. Time passed, he met women, became intimate, parted, but not once did he love; there was anything else, but not love.
And only now, when his head was gray, had he really fallen in love as one ought to—for the first time in his life.
He and Anna Sergeevna loved each other like very close, dear people, like husband and wife, like tender friends; it seemed to them that fate itself had destined them for each other, and they could not understand why he had a wife and she a husband; and it was as if they were two birds of passage, a male and a female, who had been caught and forced to live in separate cages. They had forgiven each other the things they were ashamed of in the past, they forgave everything in the present, and they felt that this love of theirs had changed them both.
Formerly, in sad moments, he had calmed himself with all sorts of arguments, whatever had come into his head, but now he did not care about any arguments, he felt deep compassion, he wanted to be sincere, tender …
“Stop, my good one,” he said, “you’ve had your cry—and enough … Let’s talk now, we’ll think up something.”
Then they had a long discussion, talked about how to rid themselves of the need for hiding, for deception, for living in different towns and not seeing each other for long periods. How could they free themselves from these unbearable bonds?
“How? How?” he asked, clutching his head. “How?”
And it seemed that, just a little more—and the solution would be found, and then a new, beautiful life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that the end was still far, far off, and that the most complicated and difficult part was just beginning.
DECEMBER 1899
AT CHRISTMASTIME
I
What’ll I write?” asked Yegor, and he dipped the pen.
Vasilisa had not seen her daughter for four years now. After the wedding, her daughter Yefimia had left for Petersburg with her husband, had sent two letters, and then seemed to have dropped from sight: not a sound, not a breath. And whether the old woman was milking the cow at dawn, or lighting the stove, or dozing at night, she kept thinking of one thing: how was Yefimia, was she alive? She would have liked to write a letter, but the old man did not know how to write, and there was nobody to ask.
But now Christmastime had come, and Vasilisa could not help herself and went to Yegor, the tavernkeeper’s brother, who, once he came home from the army, just stayed around the tavern all the time and did nothing; they said he was good at writing letters, if you paid him properly. Vasilisa spoke with the cook in the tavern, then with the tavernkeeper, then with Yegor himself. They agreed on fifteen kopecks.
And now—this was in the tavern, in the kitchen, the day after the feast—Yegor was sitting at the table and holding the pen in his hand. Vasilisa stood before him, deep in thought, with an expression of care and grief on her face. Her old man, Pyotr, very thin, tall, with a tanned bald spot, had come with her; he stood and gazed fixedly ahead of him, like