I looked at her with more attention.
"You too are anxious?"
She admitted after a moment of hesitation that she was.
"It is really such a long time since we heard...."
And before I could offer the usual banal suggestions she confided in me.
"Oh! But it is much worse than that. I wrote to a family we know in
Petersburg. They had not seen him for more than a month. They thought
he was already with us. They were even offended a little that he should
have left Petersburg without calling on them. The husband of the lady
went at once to his lodgings. Victor had left there and they did not
know his address."
I remember her catching her breath rather pitifully. Her brother had not
been seen at lectures for a very long time either. He only turned up now
and then at the University gate to ask the porter for his letters. And
the gentleman friend was told that the student Haldin did not come to
claim the last two letters for him. But the police came to inquire if
the student Haldin ever received any correspondence at the University
and took them away.
"My two last letters," she said.
We faced each other. A few snow-flakes fluttered under the naked boughs.
The sky was dark.
"What do you think could have happened?" I asked.
Her shoulders moved slightly.
"One can never tell--in Russia.
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