all that was insufficient, she waited: soon happiness would burst on
her in a torrent--and has not one drop moistened the parched lips? Oh,
my golden strings, you that once so delicately, so sweetly quivered,--I
have never, it seems, heard your music ... you had but just
sounded--when you broke. Or, perhaps, happiness, the true happiness of
all my life, passed close by me, smiled a resplendent smile upon
me--and I failed to recognise its divine countenance. Or did it really
visit me, sit at my bedside, and is forgotten by me, like a dream? Like
a dream, I repeated disconsolately. Elusive images flitted over my
soul, awakening in it something between pity and bewilderment ... you
too, I thought, dear, familiar, lost faces, you, thronging about me in
this deadly solitude, why are you so profoundly and mournfully silent?
From what abyss have you arisen? How am I to interpret your enigmatic
glances? Are you greeting me, or bidding me farewell? Oh, can it be
there is no hope, no turning back? Why are these heavy, belated drops
trickling from my eyes? O heart, why, to what end, grieve more? try to
forget if you would have peace, harden yourself to the meek acceptance
of the last parting, to the bitter words 'good-bye' and 'for ever.' Do
not look back, do not remember, do not strive to reach where it is
light, where youth laughs, where hope is wreathed with the flowers of
spring, where dovelike delight soars on azure wings, where love, like
dew in the sunrise, flashes with tears of ecstasy; look not where is
bliss, and faith and power--that is not our place!

'Here is water for you,' I heard Yegor's musical voice behind me:
'drink, with God's blessing.'

I could not help starting; this living speech shook me, sent a
delightful tremor all through me. It was as though I had fallen into
unknown, dark depths, where all was hushed about me, and nothing could