Only five more days had passed, when I was so much recovered that I reached the chicken-legged hut on foot without the least fatigue. As I stepped on the threshold my heart palpitated with breathless fear. I had not seen Olyessia for almost two weeks, and I now perceived how near and dear she was to me. Holding the latch of the door, I waited some seconds, breathing with difficulty. In my irresolution I even shut my eyes for some time before I could push the door open....

It is always impossible to analyse impressions like those which followed my entrance.... Can one remember the words uttered in the first moment of meeting between a mother and son, husband and wife, or lover and lover? The simplest, most ordinary, even ridiculous words are said, if they were put down exactly upon paper. But each word is opportune and infinitely dear because it is uttered by the dearest voice in all the world.

I remember—very clearly I remember—only one thing: Olyessia’s beautiful pale face turned quickly towards me, and on that beautiful face, so new to me, were in one second reflected, in changing succession, perplexity, fear, anxiety, and a tender radiant smile of love.... The old204 woman was mumbling something, clattering round me, but I did not hear her greetings. Olyessia’s voice reached me like a sweet music:

‘What has been the matter with you? You’ve been ill? Ah, how thin you’ve grown, my poor darling!’

For a long while I could make no answer, and we stood silent face to face, clasping hands and looking straight into the depths of each other’s eyes, happily. Those few silent seconds I have always considered the happiest in my life: never, never before or since, have I tasted such pure, complete, all-absorbing ecstasy. And how much I read in Olyessia’s big dark eyes!—the excitement of the meeting, reproach for my long absence, and a passionate declaration of love. In that look I felt that Olyessia gave me her whole being joyfully without doubt or reservation.

She was the first to break the spell, pointing to Manuilikha with a slow movement of her eyelids. We sat down side by side, and Olyessia began to ask me anxiously for the details of my illness, the medicines I had taken, what the doctor had said and thought—he came twice to see me from the little town; she made me tell about the doctor time after time, and I could catch a fleeting, sarcastic smile on her lips.

‘Oh, why didn’t I know that you were ill!’ she exclaimed with impatient regret. ‘I would have set you on your feet again in a single day....205 How can they be trusted, when they don’t understand anything at all, nothing at all? Why didn’t you send for me?’

I was at a loss for an answer.

‘You see, Olyessia ... it happened so suddenly ... besides, I was afraid to trouble you. Towards the end you had become strange towards me, as though you were angry with me, or bored.... Olyessia,’ I added, lowering my voice, ‘we’ve got ever so much to say to each other, ever so much ... just we two ... you understand?’

She quietly cast down her eyes in token of consent, and then whispered quickly, looking round timidly at her grandmother:

‘Yes.... I want to, as well ... later ... wait——’

As soon as the sun began to set, Olyessia began to urge me to go home.

‘Make haste, be quick and get ready,’ she said, pulling my hand from the bench. ‘If the damp catches you now, the fever will be on you again, immediately.’

‘Where are you going, Olyessia?’ Manuilikha asked suddenly, seeing that her granddaughter had thrown a large grey shawl hurriedly over her head.

‘I’m going part of the way with him,’ answered Olyessia.

She said the words with indifference, looking not at her grandmother but at the window; but in her voice I could detect on almost imperceptible note of irritation.

206 ‘You’re really going?’ the old woman once more asked, meaningly.

Olyessia’s eyes flashed, and she stared steadily into Manuilikha’s face.

‘Yes, I am going,’ she replied proudly. ‘We talked it out and talked it out long ago.... It’s my affair, and my own responsibility.’

‘Ah, you——’ the old woman exclaimed in reproach and annoyance. She wanted to add more, but only waved her hand and dragged her trembling legs away into the corner, and began to busy herself with a basket, groaning.

I understood that the brief unpleasant conversation which I had just witnessed was a continuation of a long series of mutual quarrels and bursts of anger. As I walked to the forest at Olyessia’s side, I asked her:

‘Granny doesn’t want you to go for a walk with me, does she?’

Olyessia shrugged her shoulders in vexation.

‘Please, don’t take any notice of it.... No, she doesn’t like it.... Surely I’m free to do as I like?’

Suddenly I conceived an irresistible desire to reproach Olyessia with her former sternness.

‘But you could have done it before my illness as well.... Only then you didn’t want to be alone with me.... I thought, every evening I thought, perhaps you would come with me again. But you used to pay no attention; you were so unresponsive, and cross.... How you tormented me, Olyessia!...’

‘Don’t, darling.... Forget it, ...’207 Olyessia entreated with a tender apology in her voice.

‘No, I’m not saying it to blame you. It just slipped out. Now, I understand why it was.... But before—it’s funny to talk about it even now—I thought you were offended because of the sergeant. The thought made me terribly sad. I couldn&r............