In a rush of tender affection which suddenly flooded my heart, with tears in my eyes, suddenly remembering my mother and our childhood, I put my arm round her shoulders and kissed her.

“What is the matter?” I asked her.  “You are unhappy; I have seen it for a long time.  Tell me what’s wrong?”

“I am frightened,” she said, trembling.

“What is it?” I insisted.  “For God’s sake, be open!”

“I will, I will be open; I will tell you the whole truth.  To hide it from you is so hard, so agonizing.  Misail, I love . . .” she went on in a whisper, “I love him . . .  I love him. . . .  I am happy, but why am I so frightened?”

There was the sound of footsteps; between the trees appeared Dr. Blagovo in his silk shirt with his high top boots.  Evidently they had arranged to meet near the apple-tree.  Seeing him, she rushed impulsively towards him with a cry of pain as though he were being taken from her.

“Vladimir!  Vladimir!”

She clung to him and looked greedily into his face, and only then I noticed how pale and thin she had become of late.  It was particularly noticeable from her lace collar which I had known for so long, and which now hung more loosely than ever before about her thin, long neck.  The doctor was disconcerted, but at once recovered himself, and, stroking her hair, said: 

“There, there. . . .  Why so nervous?  You see, I’m here.”

We were silent, looking with embarrassment at each other, then we walked on, the three of us together, and I heard the doctor say to me: 

“Civilized life has not yet begun among us.  Old men console themselves by making out that if there is nothing now, there was something in the forties or the sixties; that’s the old:  you and I are young; our brains have not yet been touched by marasmus senilis; we cannot comfort ourselves with such illusions.  The beginning of Russia was in 862, but the beginning of civilized Russia has not come yet.”

But I did not grasp the meaning of these reflections.  It was somehow strange, I could not believe it, that my sister was in love, that she was walking and holding the arm of a stranger and looking tenderly at him.  My sister, this nervous, frightened, crushed, fettered creature, loved a man who was married and had children!  I felt sorry for something, but what exactly I don’t know; the presence of the doctor was for some reason distasteful to me now, and I could not imagine what would come of this love of theirs.

XV

Masha and I drove to Kurilovka to the dedication of the school.

“Autumn, autumn, autumn, . . .” said Masha softly, looking away.  “Summer is over.  There are no birds and nothing is green but the willows.”

Yes, summer was over.  There were fine, warm days, but it was fresh in the morning, and the shepherds went out in their sheepskins already; and in our garden the dew did not dry off the asters all day long.  There were plaintive sounds all the time, and one could not make out whether they came from the shutters creaking on their rusty hinges, or from the flying cranes—­and one’s heart felt light, and one was eager for life.