"I am like poor mother in a way. I too seem unable
to give up our beloved dead, who, don't forget, was all in all to us. I
don't want to abuse your sympathy, but you must understand that it is in
you that we can find all that is left of his generous soul."
I was looking at him; not a muscle of his face moved in the least. And
yet, even at the time, I did not suspect him of insensibility. It was a
sort of rapt thoughtfulness. Then he stirred slightly.
"You are going, Kirylo Sidorovitch?" she asked.
"I! Going? Where? Oh yes, but I must tell you first...." His voice
was muffled and he forced himself to produce it with visible repugnance,
as if speech were something disgusting or deadly. "That story, you
know--the story I heard this afternoon...."
"I know the story already," she said sadly.
"You know it! Have you correspondents in St. Petersburg too?"
"No. It's Sophia Antonovna. I have seen her just now. She sends you her
greetings. She is going away to-morrow."
He had lowered at last his fascinated glance; she too was looking down,
and standing thus before each other in the glaring light, between the
four bare walls, they seemed brought out from the confused immensity
of the Eastern borders to be exposed cruelly to the observation of my
Western eyes. And I observed them.
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