At home in Moscow everything was in its winter routine; the stoves
were heated, and in the morning it was still dark when the children
were having breakfast and getting ready for school, and the nurse
would light the lamp for a short time. The frosts had begun already.
When the first snow has fallen, on the first day of sledge-driving
it is pleasant to see the white earth, the white roofs, to draw
soft, delicious breath, and the season brings back the days of one's
youth. The old limes and birches, white with hoar-frost, have a
good-natured expression; they are nearer to one's heart than cypresses
and palms, and near them one doesn't want to be thinking of the sea
and the mountains.

Gurov was Moscow born; he arrived in Moscow on a fine frosty day,
and when he put on his fur coat and warm gloves, and walked along
Petrovka, and when on Saturday evening he heard the ringing of the
bells, his recent trip and the places he had seen lost all charm
for him. Little by little he became absorbed in Moscow life, greedily
read three newspapers a day, and declared he did not read the Moscow
papers on principle! He already felt a longing to go to restaurants,
clubs, dinner-parties, anniversary celebrations, and he felt flattered
at entertaining distinguished lawyers and artists, and at playing
cards with a professor at the doctors' club. He could already eat
a whole plateful of salt fish and cabbage.

In another month, he fancied, the image of Anna Sergeyevna would
be shrouded in a mist in his memory, and only from time to time
would visit him in his dreams with a touching smile as others did.
But more than a month passed, real winter had come, and everything
was still clear in his memory as though he had parted with Anna
Sergeyevna only the day before. And his memories glowed more and