The day of departure drew near. November was already over; the latest date for starting had come. Insarov had long ago made his preparations, and was burning with anxiety to get out of Moscow as soon as possible. And the doctor was urging him on. ‘You need a warm climate,’ he told him; ‘you will not get well here.’ Elena, too, was fretting with impatience; she was worried by Insarov’s pallor, and his emaciation. She often looked with involuntary terror at his changed face. Her position in her parents’ house had become insupportable. Her mother mourned over her, as over the dead, while her father treated her with contemptuous coldness; the approaching separation secretly pained him too, but he regarded it as his duty — the duty of an offended father — to disguise his feelings, his weakness. Anna Vassilyevna at last expressed a wish to see Insarov. He was taken up to her secretly by the back stairs. After he had entered her room, for a long time she could not speak to him, she could not even bring herself to look at him; he sat down near her chair, and waited, with quiet respectfulness, for her first word. Elena sat down close, and held her mother’s hand in hers. At last Anna Vassilyevna raised her eyes, saying: ‘God is your judge, Dmitri Nikanorovitch’— she stopped short: the reproaches died away on her lips. ‘Why, you are ill,’ she cried: ‘Elena, your husband’s ill!’

‘I have been unwell, Anna Vassilyevna,’ answered Insarov; ‘and even now I am not quite strong yet: but I hope my native air will make me perfectly well again.’

‘Ah — Bulgaria!’ murmured Anna Vassilyevna, and she thought: ‘Good God, a Bulgarian, and dying; a voice as hollow as a drum; and eyes like saucers, a perfect skeleton; his coat hanging loose on his shoulders, his face as yellow as a guinea, and she’s his wife — she loves him — it must be a bad dream. But ——’ she checked herself at once: ‘Dmitri Nikanorovitch,’ she said, ‘are you absolutely, absolutely bound to go away?’

‘Absolutely, Anna Vassilyevna.’

Anna Vassilyevna looked at him.

‘Ah, Dmitri Nikanorovitch, God grant you never have to go through what I am going through now. But you will promise me to take care of her — to love her. You will not have to face poverty while I an, living!’

Tears choked her voice. She opened her arms, and Elena and Insarov flung themselves into her embrace.

The fatal day had come at last. It had been arranged that Elena should say good-bye to her parents at home, and should start on the journey from Insarov’s lodgings. The departure was fixed for twelve o’clock. About a quarter of an hour before the appointed time Bersenyev arrived. He had expected to find Insarov’s compatriots at his lodgings, anxious to see him off; but they had already gone before; and with them the two mysterious persons known to the reader (they had been witnesses at Insarov’s wedding). The tailor met the ‘kind gentlemen’ with a bow; he, presumably, to drown his grief, but possibly to celebrate his delight at getting the furniture, had been drinking heavily; his wife soon led him away. In the room everything was by this time ready; a trunk, tied up with cord, stood on the floor. Bersenyev sank into thought: many memories came rushing upon him.

Twelve o’clock had long ago struck; and the driver had already brought round the horses, but the ‘young people’ still did not appear. At last hurrying steps were heard on the stairs, and Elena came out escorted by Insarov and Shubin. Elena’s eyes were red; she had left her mother lying unconscious; the parting had been terrible. Elena had not seen Bersenyev for more than a week: he had been seldom of late at the Stahovs’. She had not expected to meet him; and crying, ‘You! thank you!’ she threw herself on his neck; Insarov, too, embraced him. A painful silence followed. What could these three say to one another? what were they feeli............