"We will go
to the Ratchinsky wood. I will go there now and have a look round."
II
The panelled walls and the stove with its cracked tiles were only
faintly visible in the soft twilight which filled Ivanov's study. By
the walls stood a sofa, and a desk whose green cloth was untidily
bestrewn with the accumulated litter of years and copiously spotted
with candle grease, reminiscent of the long, dreary nights Ivanov had
spent--a prey to loneliness.
A heap of horse trappings--collars, straps, saddles, bridles--lay by
the large, square, bare windows. During the winter nights wolves
watched the gleam of yellow candlelight within them. Now outside was
the tranquil, genial atmosphere of Spring with all its multi-coloured
splendour. Against a deep-blue sky with an orange streak like a
pencil line drawn across the horizon, showed the sharp, knotted twigs
of the crotegus and the lilac beneath the windows.
Ivanov lighted a candle and commenced manufacturing cartridges to
pass away the time. Lydia Constantinovna entered the room.
"Will you have tea here or in the dining-room?" she inquired.
Ivanov declined tea with a wave of his hand.
All through the years of the Revolution Lydia Constantinovna had
lived in the Crimea, coming to Marin-Brod for a fortnight the
previous summer, afterwards leaving for Moscow. Now she had returned
for the Easter holidays, but not alone--the artist Mintz accompanied
her.
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