He was in the mood to have talked on a good deal longer, but luckily we heard the coachman’s voice.  Our horses had arrived.  We got into the carriage, and Forty Martyrs, taking off his cap, helped us both into the carriage with an expression that suggested that he had long been waiting for an opportunity to come in contact with our precious persons.

“Dmitri Petrovitch, let me come to you,” he said, blinking furiously and tilting his head on one side.  “Show divine mercy!  I am dying of hunger!”

“Very well,” said Silin.  “Come, you shall stay three days, and then we shall see.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Forty Martyrs, overjoyed.  “I’ll come today, sir.”

It was a five miles’ drive home.  Dmitri Petrovitch, glad that he had at last opened his heart to his friend, kept his arm round my waist all the way; and speaking now, not with bitterness and not with apprehension, but quite cheerfully, told me that if everything had been satisfactory in his home life, he should have returned to Petersburg and taken up scientific work there.  The movement which had driven so many gifted young men into the country was, he said, a deplorable movement.  We had plenty of rye and wheat in Russia, but absolutely no cultured people.  The strong and gifted among the young ought to take up science, art, and politics; to act otherwise meant being wasteful.  He generalized with pleasure and expressed regret that he would be parting from me early next morning, as he had to go to a sale of timber.

And I felt awkward and depressed, and it seemed to me that I was deceiving the man.  And at the same time it was pleasant to me.  I gazed at the immense crimson moon which was rising, and pictured the tall, graceful, fair woman, with her pale face, always well-dressed and fragrant with some special scent, rather like musk, and for some reason it pleased me to think she did not love her husband.

On reaching home, we sat down to supper.  Marya Sergeyevna, laughing, regaled us with our purchases, and I thought that she certainly had wonderful hair and that her smile was unlike any other woman’s.  I watched her, and I wanted to detect in every look and movement that she did not love her husband, and I fancied that I did see it.

Dmitri Petrovitch was soon struggling with sleep.  After supper he sat with us for ten minutes and said: 

“Do as you please, my friends, but I have to be up at three o’clock tomorrow morning.  Excuse my leaving you.”

He kissed his wife tenderly, pressed my hand with warmth and gratitude, and made me promise that I would certainly come the following week.  That he might not oversleep next morning, he went to spend the night in the lodge.

Marya Sergeyevna always sat up late, in the Petersburg fashion, and for some reason on this occasion I was glad of it.

“And now,” I began when we were left alone, “and now you’ll be kind and play me something.”