untenance. Then
he read the letter once more, thoughtfully tapped the table with his
fingers and spoke:

"That letter isn't bad--it is sound, without any unnecessary words.
Well? Perhaps the man has really grown hardened in the cold. The cold is
severe there. Let him come, we'll take a look at him. It's interesting.
Yes. In the psalm of David concerning the mysteries of his son it is
said: 'When Thou hast returned my enemy'--I've forgotten how it reads
further. 'My enemy's weapons have weakened in the end, and his memory
hath perished amid noise. Well, we'll talk it over with him without
noise."

The old man tried to speak calmly and with a contemptuous smile, but the
smile did not come; his wrinkles quivered irritably, and his small eyes
had a particularly clear brilliancy.

"Write to him again, Lubovka. 'Come along!' write him, 'don't be afraid
to come!'"

Lubov wrote Taras another letter, but this time it was shorter and more
reserved, and now she awaited a reply from day to day, attempting to
picture to herself what sort of man he must be, this mysterious brother
of hers. Before she used to think of him with sinking heart, with that
solemn respect with which believers think of martyrs, men of upright
life; now she feared him, for he had acquired the right to be judge
over men and life at the price of painful sufferings, at the cost of his
youth, which was ruined in exile. On coming, he would ask her:

"You are marrying of your own free will, for love, are you not?"

What should she tell him? Would he forgive her faint-heartedness? And
why does she marry? Can it really be possible that this is all she can
do in order to change her life?

Gloomy thoughts sprang up one after another in the head of the girl and
confused and tortured her, impotent as she was to set up against them
some definite, all-conquering desire. Though she was in an anxious and
compressing her lips. Smolin rose from his chair, made a step toward her
and bowed respectfully. She was rather pleased with this low and polite
bow, also with the costly frock coat, which fitted Smolin's supple
figure splendidly. He had changed but slightly--he was the same
red-headed, closely-cropped, freckled youth; only his moustache had
become long, and his eyes seemed to have grown larger.

"Now he's changed, eh?" exclaimed Mayakin to his daughter, pointing at
the bridegroom. And Smolin shook hands with her, and smiling, said in a
ringing baritone voice:

"