"Is that you, Dmitri Vladimirovich? Dmitri Vladimirovich, is that
you?" cried a woman's muffled voice: it sounded a great way off
through the instrument.

"Yes, but who is speaking?"

"Kseniya Ippolytovna Enisherlova is speaking", the voice answered
quietly; then added in a higher key: "Is it you, my ascetic and
seeker? This is me, me, Kseniya."

"You, Kseniya Ippolytovna?" Polunin exclaimed joyfully.

"Yes, yes ... Oh yes!... I am tired of roaming about and being always
on the brink of a precipice, so I have come to you ... across the
fields, where there is snow, snow, snow and sky ... to you, the
seeker.... Will you take me? Have you forgiven me that July?"

Polunin's face was grave and attentive as he bent over the telephone:

"Yes, I have forgiven," he replied.

* * * * * * *

One long past summer, Polunin and Kseniya Ippolytovna used to greet
the glowing dawn together. At sundown, when the birch-trees exhaled a
pungent odour and the crystal sickle of the moon was sinking in the
west, they bade adieu until the morrow on the cool, dew-sprinkled
terrace, and Polunin passionately kissed--as he believed--the pure,
innocent lips of Kseniya Ippolytovna.