It struck warm in the stables, and there was a smell of horses'

sweat. A lantern burned dimly on the wall; from the horses' nostrils issued grey, steamy cloudlets; Podubny, the stallion, rolled a great wondering eye round on his master, as though inquiring what he was doing. Polunin locked the stable; then stood outside in the snow for a while, examining the bolts.

In the study Alena had made herself up a bed on the sofa, sat down next it in an armchair and began tending her baby, bending over it humming a wordless lullaby. Polunin sat down by her when he came in and discussed domestic affairs; then took the child from Alena and rocked her. Pale green beams of moonlight flooded through the windows.

Polunin thought of St. Francis d'a.s.sisi, of the Arkhipovs who had lost faith and yet were seeking the law, of Alena and their household. The house was wrapped in utter silence, and he soon fell into that sound, healthy sleep to which he was now accustomed, in contrast to his former nights of insomnia.

The faint moon drifted over the silent fields, and the pines shone tipped with silver. A new-born wind sighed, stirred, then rose gently from the enchanted caverns of the night and soared up into the sky with the swift flutter of many-plumed wings. a.s.suredly Kseniya Ippolytovna Enisherlova was not asleep on such a night.

II

The day dawned cold, white, pellucid--breathing forth thin, misty vapour, while a h.o.a.r-frost clothed the houses, trees, and hedges. The smoke from the village chimneypots rose straight and blue. Outside the windows was an overgrown garden, a snow-covered tree lay p.r.o.ne on the earth; further off were snow-clad fields, the valley and the forest. Sky and air were pale and transparent, and the sun was hidden behind a drift of fleecy white clouds.

Alena came in, made some remark about the house, then went out to singe the pig for Christmas.

The library-clock struck eleven; a clock in the hall answered. Then there came a sudden ring on the telephone; it sounded strange and piercing in the empty stillness.

"Is that you, Dmitri Vladimirovich? Dmitri Vladimirovich, is that you?" cried a woman's m.u.f.fled voice: it sounded a great way off through the instrument.

"Yes, but who is speaking?"

"Kseniya Ippolytovna Enisherlova is speaking", the voice answered quietly; then added in a higher key: "Is it you, my ascetic and seeker? This is me, me, Kseniya."

"You, Kseniya Ippolytovna?" Polunin exclaimed joyfully.

"Yes, yes ... Oh yes!... I am tired of roaming about and being always on the brink of a precipice, so I have come to you ... across the fields, where there is snow, snow, snow and sky ... to you, the seeker.... Will you take me? Have you forgiven me that July?"

Polunin's face was grave and attentive as he bent over the telephone:

"Yes, I have forgiven," he replied.

One long past summer, Polunin and Kseniya Ippolytovna used to greet the glowing dawn together. At sundown, when the birch-trees exhaled a pungent odour and the crystal sickle of the moon was sinking in the west, they bade adieu until the morrow on the cool, dew-sprinkled terrace, and Polunin pa.s.sionately kissed--as he believed--the pure, innocent lips of Kseniya Ippolytovna.

But she laughed at his ardour, and her avid lips callously drank in his consuming, protesting pa.s.sion, only to desert him afterwards, abandoning him for Paris, and leaving behind her the shreds of his pure and pa.s.sionate love.

That June and July had brought joy and sorrow, good and ill. Polunin was already disillusioned when he met Alena, and was living alone with his books. He met her in the spring, and quickly and simply became intimate with her, begetting a child, for he found that the instinct of fatherhood had replaced that of pa.s.sion within him.

Alena entered his house at evening, without any wedding-ceremony, placed her trunk on a bench in the kitchen, and pa.s.sing quickly through into the study, said quietly:

"Here I am, I have come." She looked very beautiful and modest as she stood there, wiping the corner of her mouth with her handkerchief.

Kseniya Ippolytovna arrived late when dusk was already falling and blue shadows crept over the snow. The sky had darkened, becoming shrouded in a murky blue; bullfinches chirruped in the snow under the windows. Kseniya Ippolytovna mounted the steps and rang, although Polunin had already opened the door for her.

The hall was large, bright, and cold. As she entered, the sunrays fell a moment on the windows and the light grew warm and waxy, lending to her face--as Polunin thought--a greenish-yellow tint, like the skin of a peach, and infinitely beautiful. But the rays died away immediately, leaving a blue crepuscular gloom, in which Kseniya Ippolytovna's figure grew dim, forlorn, and decrepit.

Alena curtseyed: Kseniya Ippolytovna hesitated a moment, wondering if she should give her hand; then she went up to Alena and kissed her.

"Good evening", she cried gaily, "you know I am an old friend of your husband's."

But she did not offer her hand to Polunin.

Kseniya Ippolytovna had greatly changed since that far-off summer.

Her eyes, her wilful lips, her Grecian nose, and smooth brows were as beautiful as ever, but now there was something reminiscent of late August in her. Formerly she had worn bright costumes--now she wore dark; and her soft auburn hair was fastened in a simple plait.

They entered the study and sat down on the sofa. Outside the windows lay the snow, blue like the glow within. The walls and the furniture grew dim in the twilight. Polunin--grave and attentive--hovered solicitously round his guest. Alena withdrew, casting a long, steadfast look at her husband.

"I have come here straight from Paris", Kseniya explained. "It is rather queer--I was preparing to leave for Nice in the spring, and was getting my things together, when I found a nest of mice in my wardrobe. The mother-mouse ran off, leaving three little babes behind her; they were raw-skinned and could only just crawl. I spent my whole time with them, but on the third day the first died, and then the same night the other two.... I packed up for Russia the next morning, to come here, to you, where there is snow, snow.... Of course there is no snow in Paris--and it will soon be Christmas, the Russian Christmas."

She became silent, folded her hands and laid them against her cheek; for a moment she had a sorrowful, forlorn expression.

"Continue, Kseniya Ippolytovna", Polunin urged.

"I was driving by our fields and thinking how life here is as simple and monotonous as the fields themselves, and that it is possible to live here a serious life without trivialities. You know what it is to live for trivialities. I am called--and I go. I am loved--and I let myself be loved! Something in a showcase catches my eye and I buy it.

I should always remain stationary were it not for those that have the will to move me....

"I was driving by our fields and thinking of the impossibility of such a life: I was thinking too that I would come to you and tell you of the mice.... Paris, Nice, Monaco, costumes, English perfumes, wine, Leonardo da Vinci, neo-cla.s.sicism, lovers, what are they? With you everything is just as of old."

She rose and crossed to the window.

"The snow is blue-white here, as it is in Norway--I jilted Valpyanov there. The Norwegian people are like trolls. There is no better place than Russia! With you nothing changes. Have you forgiven me that July?"

Polunin approached and stood beside her.

"Yes, I have forgiven", he said earnestly.

"But I have not forgiven you that June!" she flashed at him; then she resumed: "The library, too, is the same as ever. Do you remember how we used to read Maupa.s.sant together in there?"

Kseniya Ippolytovna approached the library-door, opened it, and went in. Inside were book-cases behind whose gla.s.s frames stood even rows of gilded volumes; there was also a sofa, and close to it a large, round, polished table. The last yellow rays of the sun came in through the windows. Unlike that in the study, the light in here was not cold, but warm and waxy, so that again Kseniya Ippolytovna's face seemed strangely green to Polunin, her hair a yellow-red; her large, dark, deep-sunken eyes bore a stubborn look.

"G.o.d has endowed you with wonderful beauty, Kseniya, Ippolytovna,"

Polunin said gravely.

She gave him a keen glance; then smiled. "G.o.d has made me wonderfully tempting! By the way, you used to dream of faith; have you found it?"

"Yes, I have found it."

"Faith in what?"

"In life."

"But if there is nothing to believe in?"

"Impossible!"

"I don't know. I don't know." Kseniya Ippolytovna raised her hands to her head. "The j.a.panese, Naburu Kotokami, is still looking for me in Paris and Nice... I wonder if he knows about Russia.... I have not had a smoke for a whole week, not since the last little mouse died; I smoked Egyptians before .... Yes, you are right, it is impossible not to have faith."

Polunin went to her quickly, took her hands, then dropped them; his eyes were very observant, his voice quiet and serious.