he looked at him, and evidently expected him to ask her to go into
the garden, but he remained silent.

"Let us have a talk," she said, going up to him. "How are you getting
on? What are you doing? How are things? I have been thinking about
you all these days," she went on nervously. "I wanted to write to
you, wanted to come myself to see you at Dyalizh. I quite made up
my mind to go, but afterwards I thought better of it. God knows
what your attitude is towards me now; I have been looking forward
to seeing you to-day with such emotion. For goodness' sake let us
go into the garden."

They went into the garden and sat down on the seat under the old
maple, just as they had done four years before. It was dark.

"How are you getting on?" asked Ekaterina Ivanovna.

"Oh, all right; I am jogging along," answered Startsev.

And he could think of nothing more. They were silent.

"I feel so excited!" said Ekaterina Ivanovna, and she hid her face
in her hands. "But don't pay attention to it. I am so happy to be
at home; I am so glad to see every one. I can't get used to it. So
many memories! I thought we should talk without stopping till
morning."

Now he saw her face near, her shining eyes, and in the darkness she
looked younger than in the room, and even her old childish expression
seemed to have come back to her. And indeed she was looking at him
with naive curiosity, as though she wanted to get a closer view and
understanding of the man who had loved her so ardently, with such
tenderness, and so unsuccessfully; her eyes thanked him for that
love. And he remembered all that had been, every minute detail; how
he had wandered about the cemetery, how he had returned home in the
morning exhausted, and he suddenly felt sad and regretted the past.
A warmth began glowing in his heart.

"Do you remember how I took you to the dance at the club?" he asked.
"It was dark and rainy then. . ."

The warmth was glowing now in his heart, and he longed to talk, to
rail at life. . . .

"Ech!" he said with a sigh. "You ask how I am living. How do we
live here? Why, not at all. We grow old, we grow stout, we grow
slack. Day after day passes; life slips by without colour, without
expressions, without thoughts. . . . In the daytime working for
gain, and in the evening the club, the company of card-players,
alcoholic, raucous-voiced gentlemen whom I can't endure. What is
there nice in it?"

"Well, you have work--a noble object in life.