I have always that in reserve--when I
am heart-broken. For the present I am content to live and thrive."
When the dispute was over, Vera Lvovna said in a low voice, as calm
as ever:
"The only tragic thing in life is that there is nothing tragical,
while death is just death, when anyone dies physically. A little less
metaphysics!"
Kseniya Ippolytovna had been listening, alert and restless.
"But all the same," she answered Vera Lvovna animatedly, "Isn't the
absence of tragedy the true tragedy?"
"Yes, that alone."
"And love?"
"No, not love."
"But aren't you married?"
"I want my baby."
Kseniya Ippolytovna, who was lying on the sofa, rose up on her knees,
and stretching out her arms cried:
"Ah, a baby! Is that not instinct?"
"That is a law!"
The women began to argue. Then the dispute died down. Arkhipov
proposed a game of chance. They uncovered a green table, set lighted
candles at its corners and commenced to play leisurely and silently
as in winter. Arkhipov sat erect, resting his elbows at right angles
on the table.
The wind whistled outside, the blizzard increased in violence, and
from some far distance came the dismal, melancholy creaking and
grinding of iron. Alena came in, and sat quietly beside her husband,
her hands folded in her lap. They were killing time.
"The last time, I sat down to play a game of chance amidst the fjords
in a little valley hotel; a dreadful storm raged the whole while,"
Kseniya Ippolytovna remarked pensively.
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