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lating, and refreshed his face and neck that still tingled from the cold
water. The scent of brilliantine on his whiskers struck him as particu-
larly pleasant in the fresh air. Everything he saw from the carriage
window, everything in that cold pure air, in the pale light of the sunset,
was as fresh, and gay, and strong as he was himself: the roofs of the
houses shining in the rays of the setting sun, the sharp outlines of
fences and angles of buildings, the figures of passers-by, the carriages
that met him now and then, the motionless green of the trees and
grass, the fields with evenly drawn furrows of potatoes, and the slant-
ing shadows that fell from the houses, and trees, and bushes, and even
from the rows of potatoes—everything was bright like a pretty land-
scape just finished and freshly varnished.
“Get on, get on!” he said to the driver, putting his head out of the
window, and pulling a three-rouble note out of his pocket he handed it
to the man as he looked round. The driver’s hand fumbled with some-
thing at the lamp, the whip cracked, and the carriage rolled rapidly
along the smooth highroad.
“I want nothing, nothing but this happiness,” he thought, staring at
the bone button of the bell in the space between the windows, and
picturing to himself Anna just as he had seen her last time. “And as I
go on, I love her more and more. Here’s the garden of the Vrede Villa.
Whereabouts will she be? Where? How? Why did she fix on this
place to meet me, and why does she write in Betsy’s letter?” he thought,
wondering now for the first time at it. But there was now no time for
wonder. He called to the driver to stop before reaching the avenue,
and opening the door, jumped out of the carriage as it was moving, and
went into the avenue that led up to the house. There was no one in the
avenue; but looking round to the right he caught sight of her. Her face
was hidden by a veil, but he drank in with glad eyes the special move-
ment in walking, peculiar to her alone, the slope of the shoulders, and
the setting of the head, and at once a sort of electric shock ran all over
him. With fresh force, he felt conscious of himself from the springy
motions of his legs to the movements of his lungs as he breathed, and
something set his lips twitching.
Joining him, she pressed his hand tightly.
“You’re not angry that I sent for you? I absolutely had to see you,”
she said; and the serious and set line of her lips, which he saw under
the veil, transformed his mood at once.
“I angry! But how have you come, where from?”
“Never mind,” she said, laying her hand on his, “come along, I must
talk to you.”
He saw that something had happened, and that the interview
would not be a joyous one. In her presence he had no will of his own:
without knowing the grounds of her distress, he already felt the same
distress unconsciously passing over him.
“What is it? what?” he asked her, squeezing her hand with his
elbow, and trying to read her thoughts in her face.
She walked on a few steps in silence, gathering up her courage;
then suddenly she stopped.
“I did not tell you yesterday,” she began, breathing quickly and
painfully, “that coming home with Alexey Alexandrovitch I told him
everything...told him I could not be his wife, that...and told him every-
thing.”
He heard her, unconsciously bending his whole figure down to her
as though hoping in this way to soften the hardness of her position for
her. But directly she had said this he suddenly drew himself up, and a
proud and hard expression came over his face.
“Yes, yes, that’s better, a thousand times better! I know how pain-