Alexandr responded with a cold uneasy stare. He went up to the windows and began to drum lightly on the pane with his finger, looking into the street.
From the street a mingled sound of voices and the rattle of carriages reached them. At all the windows were bright lights and flitting shadows. He fancied that where the light was brightest there was a lively party assembled ; there, most likely, there was a lively interchange of thoughts and ardent, versatile feelings, there life was noisy and merry. And over there at that dimly lighted window no doubt some noble, hardworking man was sitting busily occupied. And Alexandr began to reflect that for two years now he had been dragging on an indolent, senseless existence—two years gone from the sum-total of life—and all through love ! Here he began an onslaught on love.
" And what a love !" he thought, " a sleepy, spiritless sort of love. This woman gave way to her feelings without a struggle, without an effort, without opposition, like an unresisting victim. A weak woman, lacking character, she would have bestowed her love on the first man who came across her; if it had not been me, she would have loved Surkoff exactly the same, indeed she had already begun to love him. Yes, it's no good for her to justify herself, I saw it! If some one had appeared a little more adroit and active than I, she would have yielded to him; it's simply immorality ! Is that love ? Where is the sympathy of souls of which sentimental people are always preaching? and what an a ffinity of souj s there seemed to be in our case! it seemed as L tfiough they would be one for ever, and what has it come to ? Devil knows what it is, there's no understanding it!" he muttered with irritation.
"What are you doing there? what are you thinking about ? " asked Julia.
" Oh, nothing !" he said yawning, and sat down on the sofa rather further from her, clutching with one hand a corner of the embroidered cushion.
" Sit here, closer."
He did not move, and made no answer.
" What is the matter with you?" she said, going up to him ; "you are unbearable to-day."
" I don't know," he said drowsily; " I'm somehow—as if I "
He did not know what answer to make to her and to himself. He had not yet made thoroughly clear to himself what was happening to him.
*She sat down near him, began to talk of the future, and by degrees grew animated. She drew a happy picture of family life, jestingly for a little time, but with a very tender conclusion.
"You—my husband! look," she said, pointing round, A " so on all this will be yours. Y ou will be the mas ter here
in the house, as you are already in my heart. Now I am incIependefiV 1 "Can-do what I like, and go wherever I please, but then nothing here can stir from its place without your permission; I myself shall be in bondage to your will. What a sweet slavery ! Rivet the chains as soon as may be; when is it to be ?
" All my life I dreamed of such a man, of such a love, and now my dream has come true, and happiness is near. I can scarcely believe it. Do you know it seems like a dream to me. Is it not a recompense for all my past sufferings ? "
^was torture to Alexandr to listen to these words.
u But suppose I got tired of you ? " he asked suddenly, j trying to give a jesting accent to his voice.
r " I should box your ears," she said, pinching his ear;then she sighed and grew pensive even at the suggestion in jest. He did not speak.
" But what's the matter with you ? " she asked suddenly and insistently; " you don't speak, you scarcely hear what I say, you look away."
Then she moved up to him and, laying her hand on his shoulder, began to speak softly, almost in a whisper, on the same subject, but not so positively. She recalled the beginning of their intimacy, the beginning of their love, her first feelings and first happiness. She almost fainted from the tenderness of her emotion; and in her pale cheeks there were two spots of crimson, which by degrees grew hot, her eyes glowed, then grew languid and half-closed ; her bosom heaved. She spoke hardly audibly, and with one hand played with Alexandr's soft hair, then looked straight into his eyes. He gently disengaged his head from her hand, drew a comb out of his pocket, and carefully combed the locks she had ruffled. She got up and looked fixedly at him.
"What is the matter with you, Alexandr?" she said uneasily.
" There she is at it again ! how can I tell ? " he thought, but did not speak.
" Are you bored ? " she said, and in her voice was a tone of question and of doubt.
" Bored !" he thought, " the word is found! Yes, it's terrible deadly boredom! that's the worm which has been gnawing at my heart for months. Good God, what am I to do? and she talks of love, of marriage. How can I undeceive her!"
She sat down to the piano and began to play some of his favourite pieces. He did not listen, but kept thinking his own thoughts.
Julia let her hands fall. She sighed, wrapped herself in a shawl, and flung herself into the other corner of the sofa, and from there watched Alexandr with mournful eyes.
He took up his hat.
" Where are you going ? " she said with surprise.
" Home/'
" It is not eleven o'clock yet."
" I have to write to mamma; I haven't written to her for a long while."
" A long while! you wrote the day before yesterday." He did not speak ; there was nothing for him to say. He really had written and had incidentally mentioned it to her at the time, but had forgotten it; but love does not forget the smallest detail. In the eyes of love everything which relates to the beloved object is a fact of importance. A complex web is woven in a lover's mind from observations, subtle imaginations, recollections, and surmises about everything which surrounds the beloved, which takes place in his sphere, or has any bearing upon him. One word, a hint—no need of a hint! a glance, a scarcely perceptible movement of the lips—is enough for love to found a conjecture on, then to pass from it to imagination, and thence to a decisive conclusion, and then to suffer torture or to be blissful in his own thoughts. The logic of lovers, sometimes false, sometimes amazingly correct, quickly builds up an edifice of conjectures and suspicions, but the strength of love still more quickly levels it to the ground; often a single
smile is enough for this, a tear, two or three words, and the suspicions are gone.
This kind of supervision there is no means of lulling to sleep or deceiving. The lover at one time suddenly takes some idea into his head which no one else would have thought of in his wildest dreams, at another time he fails to see what is taking place under his nose ; at one time acute to clairvoyance, at another_shor>sighted to blindness.,
Julia leaped up from the sofa, like a cat and seized him by the hand.
"What does it mean? where are you going?" she asked.
" Nothing, nothing, I assure you; there, I simply want to go to bed; I have had too little sleep lately: that's all"
"Too little sleep! when you told me only this morning that you had had nine hours' sleep, and that you even had a headache from too much sleep ? "
Unlucky again.
"Well, my head does ache," he said, a little taken aback, " and that's why I am going."
" But after dinner you said your headache had gone."
" Good Heavens, what a memory you have ! It's unbearable ! Very well, I simply want to go home."
" Aren't you comfortable here ? What have you there, at home?"
Looking him in the eyes, she shook her head incredulously. He succeeded somehow in quieting her and went away.
" What if I don't go to Julia's to-day ? " was the question Alexandr put to himself when he waked up the next morning.
He paced three times up and down the room. " I declare I won't go !" he announced resolutely.
"Yevsay, bring me my things." And he went out to stroll about the town.
" How nice, how jolly it is to be walking alone!" he thought; " to go wherever one pleases, to stop to read the sign-boards, to look into the shop windows, to walk to and fro—it's really very pleasant! Freedom is a precious thing! Yes ! that's just it; freedom in a broad high sense means —walking alone !"