le dog ran up, sniffed at his legs and began
to wag its tail. He flourished his arms angrily at it. He was most
annoyed of all by a small boy from a factory in a bed-ticking jacket,
who seated himself on the bench and first whistled, then scratched his
head, dangling his legs, encased in huge, broken boots, the while, and
staring at him from time to time. "His employer is certainly expecting
him," thought Aratoff, "and here he is, the lazy dog, wasting his time
idling about...."

But at that same moment it seemed to him as though some one had
approached and taken up a stand close behind him ... a warm current
emanated thence....

He glanced round.... It was she!

He recognised her immediately, although a thick, dark-blue veil
concealed her features. He instantly sprang from the bench, and remained
standing there, unable to utter a word. She also maintained silence. He
felt greatly agitated ... but her agitation was as great as his: Aratoff
could not help seeing even through the veil how deadly pale she grew.
But she was the first to speak.

"Thank you," she began in a broken voice, "thank you for coming. I did
not hope...." She turned away slightly and walked along the boulevard.
Aratoff followed her.

"Perhaps you condemn me," she went on, without turning her head.--"As a
matter of fact, my action is very strange.... But I have heard a great
deal about you ... but no! I ... that was not the cause.... If you only
knew.... I wanted to say so much to you, my God!... But how am I to do
it?... How am I to do it!"

Aratoff walked by her side, but a little in the rear. He did not see her
face; he saw only her hat and a part of her veil ... and her long,
threadbare cloak. All his vexation against her and against himself
suddenly returned to him; all the absurdity, all the awkwardness of this
tryst, of these explanations between utter strangers, on a public
boulevard, suddenly presented itself to him.

"I have come hither at your behest," he began in his turn, "I have come,
my dear madame" (her shoulders quivered softly, she turned into a side
path, and he followed her), "merely for the sake of having an
explanation, of learning in consequence of what strange misunderstanding
you were pleased to appeal to me, a stranger to you, who ... who only
_guessed_, as you expressed it in your letter, that it was precisely you
who had written to him ... because he guessed that you had tried, in the
course of that literary morning