fine green moss; two discoloured deal benches stood along the sides,
some distance from the damp and darkened walls. Here, on exceptionally
hot days, in bygone times, perhaps once a year or so, they had drunk
tea. The door did not quite shut, the window-frame had long ago come
out of the window, and hung disconsolately, only attached at one
corner, like a bird's broken wing. I stole up to the summer-house, and
peeped cautiously through the chink in the window. Liza was sitting on
one of the benches, with her head drooping. Her right hand lay on her
knees, the left Bizmyonkov was holding in both his hands. He was
looking sympathetically at her.

'How do you feel to-day?' he asked her in a low voice.

'Just the same,' she answered, 'not better, nor worse.--The emptiness,
the fearful emptiness!' she added, raising her eyes dejectedly.

Bizmyonkov made her no answer.

'What do you think,' she went on: 'will he write to me once more?'

'I don't think so, Lizaveta Kirillovna!'

She was silent.

'And after all, why should he write? He told me everything in his first
letter. I could not be his wife; but I have been happy ... not for long
... I have been happy ...'

Bizmyonkov looked down.