"Kseniya, you must not grieve, you must not."

"Do you love me?"

"As a woman--no, as a fellow-creature--I do," he answered firmly.

She smiled, dropped her eyes, then moved to the sofa, sat down and arranged her dress, then smiled again.

"I want to be pure."

"And so you are!" Polunin sat down beside her, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.

They were silent.

Kseniya Ippolytovna said at last: "You have grown old, Polunin!"

"Yes, I have grown old. People do, but there is nothing terrible in that when they have found what they sought for."

"Yes, when they have found it.... But what about now? Why do you say that? Is it Alena?"

"Why ask? Although I am disillusioned, Kseniya, I go on chopping firewood, heating the stove, living just to live. I read St. Francis d'a.s.sisi, think about him, and grieve that such a life as his may not be lived again. I know he was absurd, but he had faith, And now Alena--I love her, I shall love her for ever. I wish to feel G.o.d!"

Kseniya Ippolytovna looked at him curiously:

"Do you know what the baby-mice smelt like?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"They smelt like new-born babies--like human children! You have a daughter, Natasha. That is everything."

The sun sank in an ocean of wine-coloured light, and a great red wound remained amidst the drift of cold clouds over the western horizon. The snow grew violet, and the room was filled with shadowy, purplish twilight. Alena entered and the loud humming of the telegraph wires came through the study's open door.

By nightfall battalions of fleeting clouds flecked the sky; the moon danced and quivered in their midst--a silver-horned G.o.ddess, luminous with the long-stored knowledge of the ages. The bitter snow-wind crept, wound, and whirled along in spirals, loops, and ribbons, lashing the fields, whining and wailing its age-old, dismal song over the lone desolate s.p.a.ces. The land was wretched, restless, and forlorn; the sky was overcast with sombre, gaping caverns shot through with lurid lines of fire.

At seven o'clock the Arkhipovs arrived.

Kseniya Ippolytovna had known them a long time: they had been acquaintances even before Arkhipov's marriage. As he greeted her now, he kissed her hand and began speaking about foreign countries-- princ.i.p.ally Germany, which he knew and admired. They pa.s.sed into the study, where they argued and conversed: they had nothing much to talk about really. Vera Lvovna was silent, as usual; and soon went to see Natasha. Polunin also was quiet, walking about the room with his hands behind his back.

Kseniya Ippolytovna jested in a wilful, merry, and coquettish fashion with Arkhipov, who answered her in a polite, serious, and punctilious manner. He was unable to carry on a light, witty conversation, and was acutely conscious of his own awkwardness. From a mere trifle, something Kseniya Ippolytovna said about fortune-telling at Christmas, there arose an old-standing dispute between the two men on Belief and Unbelief.

Arkhipov spoke with calmness and conviction, but Polunin grew angry, confused, and agitated. Arkhipov declared that Faith was unnecessary and injurious, like instinct and every other sentiment; that there was only one thing immutable--Intellect. Only that was moral which was intelligent.

Polunin retorted that the intellectual and the non-intellectual were no standard of life, for was life intelligent? he asked. He contended that without Faith there was only death; that the one thing immutable in life was the tragedy of Faith and the Spirit.

"But do you know what Thought is, Polunin?"

"Yes, indeed I do!"

"Don't smile! Do you not know that Thought kills everything? Reflect, think thrice over what you regard as sacred, and it will be as simple as a gla.s.s of lemonade."

"But death?"

"Death is an exit into nothing. I have always that in reserve--when I am heart-broken. For the present I am content to live and thrive."

When the dispute was over, Vera Lvovna said in a low voice, as calm as ever:

"The only tragic thing in life is that there is nothing tragical, while death is just death, when anyone dies physically. A little less metaphysics!"

Kseniya Ippolytovna had been listening, alert and restless.

"But all the same," she answered Vera Lvovna animatedly, "Isn't the absence of tragedy the true tragedy?"

"Yes, that alone."

"And love?"

"No, not love."

"But aren't you married?"

"I want my baby."

Kseniya Ippolytovna, who was lying on the sofa, rose up on her knees, and stretching out her arms cried:

"Ah, a baby! Is that not instinct?"

"That is a law!"

The women began to argue. Then the dispute died down. Arkhipov proposed a game of chance. They uncovered a green table, set lighted candles at its corners and commenced to play leisurely and silently as in winter. Arkhipov sat erect, resting his elbows at right angles on the table.

The wind whistled outside, the blizzard increased in violence, and from some far distance came the dismal, melancholy creaking and grinding of iron. Alena came in, and sat quietly beside her husband, her hands folded in her lap. They were killing time.

"The last time, I sat down to play a game of chance amidst the fjords in a little valley hotel; a dreadful storm raged the whole while,"

Kseniya Ippolytovna remarked pensively. "Yes, there are big and little tragedies in life!"

The wind shrieked mournfully; snow lashed at the windows. Kseniya stayed on until a late hour, and Alena invited her to remain overnight; but she refused and left.

Polunin accompanied her. The snow-wind blew violently, whistling and cutting at them viciously. The moon seemed to be leaping among the clouds; around them the green, snowy twilight hung like a thick curtain. The horses jogged along slowly. Darkness lay over the land.

Polunin returned alone over a tractless road-way; the gale blew in his face; the snow blinded him. He stabled his horses; then found Alena waiting up for him in the kitchen, her expression was composed but sad. Polunin took her in his arms and kissed her.

"Do not be anxious or afraid; I love only you, no one else. I know why you are unhappy."

Alena looked up at him in loving grat.i.tude, and shyly smiled.

"You do not understand that it is possible to love one only. Other men are not able to do that," Polunin told her tenderly.