“How they have grown!” he thought.  “And what changes in these three years. . . .  But one may have to live another thirteen years, another thirty years. . . .  What is there in store for us in the future?  If we live, we shall see.”

He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: 

“Grandpapa sends his love. . . .  Uncle Fyodor is dying.  Uncle Kostya has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in it.  He’s bored at the exhibition and will soon be back.  And Uncle Alyosha is hungry.”

Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along the avenue towards the house.  She was deep in thought; there was a mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright with tears.  She was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman.  And Laptev saw the enthusiasm with which Yartsev looked at her when he met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too.  One would have thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life.  And while they were at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful neck.  Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before him. . . .  And what would he have to live through in that time?  What is in store for us in the future?

And he thought: 

“Let us live, and we shall see.”