ilent. Talta was hardly visible through the morning
mist. The tops of the hills were shrouded in motionless white clouds.
The leaves of the trees never stirred, the cicadas trilled, and the
monotonous dull sound of the sea, coming up from below, spoke of the
rest, the eternal sleep awaiting us. So the sea roared when there was
neither Talta nor Oreanda, and so it roars and will roar, dully,
indifferently when we shall be no more. And in this continual
indifference to the life and death of each of us, lives pent up, the
pledge of our eternal salvation, of the uninterrupted movement of life
on earth and its unceasing perfection. Sitting side by side with a young
woman, who in the dawn seemed so beautiful, Gomov, appeased and
enchanted by the sight of the fairy scene, the sea, the mountains, the
clouds, the wide sky, thought how at bottom, if it were thoroughly
explored, everything on earth was beautiful, everything, except what we
ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and
our own human dignity.

A man came up--a coast-guard--gave a look at them, then went away. He,
too, seemed mysterious and enchanted. A steamer came over from
Feodossia, by the light of the morning star, its own lights already put
out.

"There is dew on the grass," said Anna Sergueyevna after a silence.

"Yes. It is time to go home."

They returned to the town.

Then every afternoon they met on the quay, and lunched together, dined,
walked, enjoyed the sea. She complained that she slept badly, that her
heart beat alarmingly. She would ask the same question over and over
again, and was troubled now by jealousy, now by fear that he did not
sufficiently respect her. And often in the square or the gardens, when
there was no one near, he would draw her close and kiss her
passionately. Their complete idleness, these kisses in the full
daylight, given timidly and fearfully lest any one should see, the heat,
the smell of the sea and the continual brilliant parade of leisured,
well-dressed, well-fed people almost regenerated him. He would tell Anna
Sergueyevna how delightful she was, how tempting. He was impatiently
passionate, never left her side, and she would often brood, and even
asked him to confess that he did not respect her, did not love her at
all, and only saw in her a loose woman. Almost every evening, rather
late, they would drive out of the town, to Oreanda, or to the waterfall;
and these drives were always delightful