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.

"The summer is over," said Masha. "Now you and I c