One solitary, flickering
candle illumined the room.
There was a call on the telephone at daybreak. Polunin was already
up. The day slowly broke in shades of blue; there was a murky, bluish
light inside the rooms and outside the windows, the panes of which
were coated with snow. The storm had subsided.
"Have I aroused you? Were you still in bed?" called Kseniya.
"No, I was already up."
"On the watch?"
"Yes."
"I have only just arrived home. The storm whirled madly round us in
the fields, and the roads were invisible, frozen under snow ... I
drove on thinking, and thinking--of the snow, you, myself, Arkhipov,
Paris ... oh, Paris...! You are not angry with me for ringing you up,
are you, my ascetic?... I was thinking of our conversation."
"What were you thinking?"
"This.... We were speaking together, you see.... Forgive me, but you
could not speak like that to Alena. She would not understand ... how
could she?"
"One need not speak a word, yet understand everything. There is
something that unites--without the aid of speech--not only Alena and
me, but the world and me. That is a law of God."
"So it is," murmured Kseniya. "Forgive me ... poor old Alena."
"I love her, and she has given me a daughter...."
"Yes, that is true. And we ... we love, but are childless... We rise
in the morning feeling dull and depressed from our revels of
overnight, while you were wisely sleeping.
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