Stepan Arkadyevitch, with the same somewhat solemn expression

with which he used to take his presidential chair at his board,

walked into Alexey Alexandrovitch's room. Alexey Alexandrovitch

was walking about his room with his hands behind his back,

thinking of just what Stepan Arkadyevitch had been discussing

with his wife.

"I'm not interrupting you?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, on the

sight of his brother-in-law becoming suddenly aware of a sense of

embarrassment unusual with him. To conceal this embarrassment he

took out a cigarette case he had just bought that opened in a new

way, and sniffing the leather, took a cigarette out of it.

"No. Do you want anything?" Alexey Alexandrovitch asked without

eagerness.

"Yes, I wished...I wanted...yes, I wanted to talk to you," said

Stepan Arkadyevitch, with surprise aware of an unaccustomed

timidity.

This feeling was so unexpected and so strange that he did not

believe it was the voice of conscience telling him that what he

was meaning to do was wrong.

Stepan Arkadyevitch made an effort and struggled with the

timidity that had come over him.

"I hope you believe in my love for my sister and my sincere

affection and respect for you," he said, reddening.

Alexey Alexandrovitch stood still and said nothing, but his face

struck Stepan Arkadyevitch by its expression of an unresisting

sacrifice.

"I intended...I wanted to have a little talk with you about my

sister and your mutual position," he said, still struggling with

an unaccustomed constraint.

Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled mournfully, looked at his

brother-in-law, and without answering went up to the table, took

from it an unfinished letter, and handed it to his

brother-in-law.

"I think unceasingly of the same thing. And here is what I had

begun writing, thinking I could say it better by letter, and

that my presence irritates her," he said, as he gave him the

letter.

Stepan Arkadyevitch took the letter, looked with incredulous

surprise at the lusterless eyes fixed so immovably on him, and

began to read.

"I see that my presence is irksome to you. Painful as it is to

me to believe it, I see that it is so, and cannot be otherwise.

I don't blame you, and God is my witness that on seeing you at

the time of your illness I resolved with my whole heart to forget

all that had passed between us and to begin a new life. I do not

regret, and shall never regret, what I have done; but I have

desired one thing--your good, the good of your soul--and now I

see I have not attained that. Tell me yourself what will give

you true happiness and peace to your soul. I put myself entirely

in your hands, and trust to your feeling of what's right."




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