Sanine

Having carried the things indoors, Yourii, for want of something else

to do, went down the steps leading to the garden. It was dark as the

grave, and the sky with it vast company of gleaming stars enhanced the

weird effect. There, on one of the steps, sat Lialia; her little grey

form was scarcely perceptible in the gloom.

"Is that you, Yourii?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," he replied, as he sat down beside her. Dreamily she leant

her head on his shoulder, and the fragrance of her fresh, sweet

girlhood touched his senses.

"Did you have good sport?" said Lialia. Then after a pause, she added

softly, "and where is Anatole Pavlovitch? I heard you drive up."

"Your Anatole Pavlovitch is a dirty beast!" is what Yourii, feeling

suddenly incensed, would have liked to say. However, he answered

carelessly: "I really don't know. He had to see a patient."

"A patient," repeated Lialia mechanically. She said no more, but gazed

at the stars.

She was not vexed that Riasantzeff had not come. On the contrary, she

wished to be alone, so that, undisturbed by his presence, she might

give herself up to delicious meditation. To her, the sentiment that

filled her youthful being was strange and sweet and tender. It was the

consciousness of a climax, desired, inevitable, and yet disturbing,

which should close the page of her past life and commence that of her

new one. So new, indeed, that Lialia was to become an entirely

different being.

To Yourii it was strange that his merry, laughing sister should have

become so quiet and pensive. Depressed and irritable himself,

everything, Lialia, the dark garden the distant starlit sky seemed to

him sad and cold. He did not perceive that this dreamy mood concealed

not sorrow, but the very essence and fulness of life. In the wide

heaven surged forces immeasurable and unknown; the dim garden drew

forth vital sap from the earth; and in Lialia's heart there was a joy

so full, so complete, that she feared lest any movement, any impression

should break the spell. Radiant as the starry heaven, mysterious as the

dark garden, harmonies of love and yearning vibrated within her soul.

"Tell me, Lialia, do you love Anatole Pavlovitch very much?" asked

Yourii, gently, as if he feared to rouse her.

"How can you ask?" she thought, but, recollecting herself, she nestled

closer to her brother, grateful to him for not speaking of anything

else but of her life's one interest--the man she adored.