“I want nothing,” said Liza, and turned her pale, thin face towards the path by which Bugrov used to come to her.

Groholsky pondered.  He knew who it was she expected, who it was she wanted.

“Let us go home, Liza,” he said, “it is damp here. . . .”

“You go; I’ll come directly.”

Groholsky pondered again.

“You are expecting him?” he asked, and made a wry face as though his heart had been gripped with red-hot pincers.

“Yes. . . .  I want to give him the socks for Misha. . . .”

“He will not come.”

“How do you know?”

“He has gone away. . . .”

Liza opened her eyes wide. . . .

“He has gone away, gone to the Tchernigov province.  I have given him my estate. . . .”

Liza turned fearfully pale, and caught at Groholsky’s shoulder to save herself from falling.

“I saw him off at the steamer at three o’clock.”

Liza suddenly clutched at her head, made a movement, and falling on the seat, began shaking all over.

“Vanya,” she wailed, “Vanya!  I will go to Vanya. . . .  Darling!”

She had a fit of hysterics. . . .

And from that evening, right up to July, two shadows could be seen in the park in which the summer visitors took their walks.  The shadows wandered about from morning till evening, and made the summer visitors feel dismal. . . .  After Liza’s shadow invariably walked the shadow of Groholsky. . . .  I call them shadows because they had both lost their natural appearance.  They had grown thin and pale and shrunken, and looked more like shadows than living people. . . .  Both were pining away like fleas in the classic anecdote of the Jew who sold insect powder.

At the beginning of July, Liza ran away from Groholsky, leaving a note in which she wrote that she was going for a time to “her son” . . .  For a time!  She ran away by night when Groholsky was asleep . . . .  After reading her letter Groholsky spent a whole week wandering round about the villa as though he were mad, and neither ate nor slept.  In August, he had an attack of recurrent fever, and in September he went abroad.  There he took to drink. . . .  He hoped in drink and dissipation to find comfort. . . .  He squandered all his fortune, but did not succeed, poor fellow, in driving out of his brain the image of the beloved woman with the kittenish face . . . .  Men do not die of happiness, nor do they die of misery.  Groholsky’s hair went grey, but he did not die:  he is alive to this day. . . .  He came back from abroad to have “just a peep” at Liza . . . .  Bugrov met him with open arms, and made him stay for an indefinite period.  He is staying with Bugrov to this day.