"I will, I will be open; I will tell you the whole truth. To hide
it from you is so hard, so agonizing. Misail, I love . . ." she
went on in a whisper, "I love him . . . I love him. . . . I am
happy, but why am I so frightened?"

There was the sound of footsteps; between the trees appeared Dr.
Blagovo in his silk shirt with his high top boots. Evidently they
had arranged to meet near the apple-tree. Seeing him, she rushed
impulsively towards him with a cry of pain as though he were being
taken from her.

"Vladimir! Vladimir!"

She clung to him and looked greedily into his face, and only then
I noticed how pale and thin she had become of late. It was particularly
noticeable from her lace collar which I had known for so long, and
which now hung more loosely than ever before about her thin, long
neck. The doctor was disconcerted, but at once recovered himself,
and, stroking her hair, said:

"There, there. . . . Why so nervous? You see, I'm here."

We were silent, looking with embarrassment at each other, then we
walked on, the three of us together, and I heard the doctor say to
me:

"Civilized life has not yet begun among us. Old men console themselves
by making out that if there is nothing now, there was something in
the forties or the sixties; that's the old: you and I are young;