XXV + 

When we had gone a little way Tonia slackened her pace, and Madame Sokolov went on before us. + 

“What on earth can have happened to Titus Ivanich?” said Madame Sokolov without turning round. “Deuce take it! He is just like a dog that has broken his chain. And he used to be so quiet.” + 

When Tonia fell behind, I was walking with her, and although we both were ill-at-ease, remained with her. + 

“I want to ask you,” she began gently, and then stopped. + 

“If you, too, are curious concerning Titus, I can tell you beforehand I know nothing. I have nothing to do with it. You believe me, I hope?” + 

“There is no need for you to tell me that,” said the girl simply. “I believe you incapable of it. Indeed, I⁠ ⁠… I myself have to ask your forgiveness.” + 

“There! As if you need to apologize,” Madame Sokolov broke in again, without turning round; “too much honor.” + 

“Let us alone, Katia! Go on in front, can’t you?” + 

Madame Sokolov walked on quickly; and her ugly, angular figure disappeared in the darkness. Tonia walked with her head bent down. + 

“I wanted to ask you,” she began again, as if screwing up her courage, “what you think of all this?” + 

“Of Titus’s pranks?” + 

“Why, no, no! Of what Gribkov was reading.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Ah! Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t listen carefully. It isn’t a bad pamphlet; pretty fair.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Is that all?” + 

“What don’t people write, Antonina Dimitrievna? So many different things are written.” + 

“Look here, Gavrik,” she began, walking more slowly and lowering her voice, as though she expected that, being alone with her, I should become different; “why do you always⁠ ⁠… why do you talk that way? It is not your own self; you know it is not you who speak thus.” + 

“Really, I don’t know how to answer you. So far I feel as if I were myself; but perhaps I may be mistaken.” + 

“You⁠ ⁠… you are laughing at me?⁠ ⁠… I don’t quite understand.” + 

“Not at all. A thing of this kind happened to me:⁠—I knew, or imagined I knew, a certain person; I even loved him; and then, somehow, instead of him, I saw a heap of dirt.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“No,” the girl interrupted, in a tone of distress; “I don’t understand at all. Did you read my letter?” + 

“I didn’t read any letter.” + 

“You didn’t read my letter through?” + 

“I didn’t receive any letter.” + 

She sighed with relief. + 

“I wrote you a letter from Trzaritrzyn. I asked you for your opinion. Well now, listen, Gavrik.⁠ ⁠… You see, I don’t believe people when they say all those things about you. I don’t even believe you yourself. I believe in the old Gavrik, that I⁠ ⁠… do you remember?⁠ ⁠… used to have so many long talks with⁠ ⁠… I have got into the habit of talking to you about things that I never talked about to anyone else. I trusted you as myself; even more than myself. And I trust you now; only don’t talk like that⁠ ⁠… There, then, tell me, as you used to.⁠ ⁠… Indeed, I am not asking an idle question. Very much depends upon it. Our whole lives may be different.⁠ ⁠… For heaven’s sake, cannot you speak?” + 

I felt as though my heart would break, something within me was struggling painfully to get out, yet however hard I tried to give it expression, however hard I tried to recall those happy moments of which she reminded me I could not. Something shut them out of me. + 

“I don’t remember anything,” I said, setting my teeth. “However, as you like⁠ ⁠… I’ll answer your question as well as I can. Look at that tree.” + 

By the road stood an aspen. The dead leaves that remained on it stirred and rustled softly in the darkness. + 

“Tell those leaves not to shake with the wind.” + 

The girl, looking up at the treetop, listened to me with painful attention. + 

“I don’t understand,” she said again. + 

“Men, as well as those dead leaves are ruled by the same laws.” + 

“I know that.” + 

“Oh! no; you don’t know! Otherwise, you wouldn’t dilute your knowledge with the water of idealistic impulses. Now, what is there that you can do, you, any more than that little worthless leaf?⁠ ⁠… You still believe in something.” + 

“In something? Yes, I do.” + 

I shrugged my shoulders. + 

“To what end? What can it do for you?” + 

“Wait a minute,” she returned earnestly. “I am not in the habit of arguing; above all, with you. But wait a bit. You speak of law. Law consists in this: that there are strong people and weak, full and hungry⁠ ⁠… Yes?” + 

“I hope so.” + 

“Don’t be satirical. But if⁠ ⁠… if the full go, really go to the hungry and feed them, is not that law too? It is a law; and, moreover, a higher law.” + 

“There, leave off,” I interrupted with growing annoyance. “Who makes such laws as that for you?” + 

“Who? I don’t know that, Gavrik.” + 

“And I don’t know. No one makes any laws whatever. There are neither higher nor lower laws; there is only one law; and even that is unconscious of its existence, because it is merely a soulless mathematical formula.⁠ ⁠… Do you understand?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“No. Even yet I don’t understand. Wait a minute, Gavrik⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Ah. And you needn’t understand⁠ ⁠… Heaven only knows why we should stand still in the middle of the road. There, you see; that’s what all these speculations come to. Really you know we ought to go home; it is where we sleep. And here we stand, without any reason, staring up into a tree. Well, of course, we shall stand until we are tired of it; and after all we shall end in going home to bed. Because bed, dinner, and⁠ ⁠… well, something else too⁠—all that is law; and abstract speculations and sky-gazing are simply whims and violations of law.” + 

“Oh! you don’t know how it hurts me to hear you talk in this way.” + 

On this I laughed maliciously. I wanted to say, that, perhaps, it hurt me still more; but a harsh little observation came out instead:⁠— + 

“I have nothing more agreeable to tell you.” + 

At that very moment I was longing to take her by the hand and say something quite different. I was in the same mental condition as when I insulted Titus. Through my harsh words, through my cruel thoughts, I felt her dear presence and felt it approaching me in a halo of tenderness and love. And still I went on, expounding my sardonic theories, wondering, in fearful suspense, whether my love would come fully out of the mist or⁠ ⁠… disappear forever⁠ ⁠… + 

“Listen,” I said to her, softly and tenderly, and took her hand in mine. + 

She let it rest there, and stood waiting for me to speak. + 

I thought I was going to say that she must not believe me, that I had to ask her forgiveness, that I was ill.⁠ ⁠… That she as well as others might be mistaken; that even in errors there is life, yet in me there was no life and that I was too faulty myself to correct the faults of my fellow-creatures⁠ ⁠… that I adored her for still remembering the old Gavrik whom everyone else had forgotten, and that she alone could restore him to life.⁠ ⁠… + 

My hand shook and I felt the agitated quivering of hers. + 

Suddenly, there rose before my eyes Madame Sokolov’s ugly silhouette, and the question flashed through my mind:⁠—Suppose Madame Sokolov was questioning you, instead of a girl with a fair tress, would your hand shake so and would you say to her what is now on your lips? + 

And with a trembling and sinking heart, I said, instead of what I wanted to say: + 

“Why don’t you cut off your hair?” + 

Her hand quivered violently. + 

“What⁠ ⁠… what did you say?” she asked terrified, and as if not believing her ears. + 

“Why don’t you cut off your hair, like hers there?” and I nodded contemptuously in the direction of Madame Sokolov. + 

Tonia wrenched her hand from mine, and running up to Madame Sokolov took her by the arm, as though to embrace her friend and protect her from my insults at the same time. + 

“Come here!” she commanded me suddenly, “come here, I tell you!” + 

I went up to her. For a few seconds we all three stood silent in the dark road. + 

“No, nothing!” broke from her at last with a sigh, “I have nothing more to say to you.⁠ ⁠… But⁠ ⁠… how dare you insult Katia?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“There, there!” interrupted Madame Sokolov indifferently; “as if it was worth while to speak of that! Leave off, Tonia.⁠ ⁠… As for you, sir, I tell you plainly you had better say goodbye to your queen forever.⁠ ⁠… And I am very glad of it⁠—anyhow she will do good work and not be wasting her time on you.⁠ ⁠…” + 

She would have walked on; but Tonia did not move. + 

“Don’t you dare⁠—do you hear?⁠—don’t you ever dare again,⁠ ⁠…” she began without listening to her friend; “she is better, a thousand times better than you.⁠ ⁠… And yet I trusted you so, till now⁠ ⁠… still⁠ ⁠…” + 

There were tears in her voice, but repressing her emotion with an effort she drew herself up to her full height, and added: + 

“And⁠ ⁠… and I⁠ ⁠… loved you so.⁠ ⁠…” + 

I bent my head. Again I was overwhelmed with pity for myself, as on the evening when I watched under her window, only this time the feeling was far more intense. I understood that if she now spoke of her love in my presence it was because, as regarded her, I had become as one dead, that she no longer saw in me the old Gavrik whom she had once loved.⁠ ⁠… + 

When I raised my head, the two women were both gone. I was alone on the dark road; the dry leaves were fluttering on the trees, and the wind moaned high above my head a long wail of sorrow and regret. + 

I sank down helplessly on a heap of stones. It was as if something were gone out of me and something else was again expanding within me. I had recovered the power of sorrowing; and I grieved for myself, and because I was alone in the darkness. And now at last I could grieve for Urmánov, who had been, and whom now I could deeply pity; and for Titus, whom I had repelled; and for her whom I had insulted, and who had gone her lonely way without help, without hope, without love; and I sorrowed for this too, that I could believe once more, and that the flower buried in dust, my love, had burst into full blossom in my soul. But faith was come and love had blossomed, too late; for I should perish here alone in the darkness on a heap of cold stones.⁠ ⁠… And the darkness thickened about me: the wind moaned over my head, rising higher and higher; then it died away and at last I heard it no more. + 

Titus, still continuing his discussion with some of my fellow-students as they walked home in company, found me lying insensible on the road and carried me home. I was delirious and in a state of high fever. The last saying which I remember, as through a fog, was his despairing exclamation:⁠— + 

“Oh! this philosophy! See what it comes to! May the devil take it for good and all! I have had enough.⁠ ⁠…” + 

And the first face that I saw, when I awoke long afterwards, was my dear comrade’s. + 

He was sitting with his head resting on his hands; and whispering his lecture over to himself softly, so as not to disturb me. I looked at him with the old feeling. How long it was since I had seen my Titus!⁠ ⁠… Ah! And the Titus that shouted at the students’ meetings!⁠ ⁠… Or was that a dream? + 

“Titus!” I called. And when, beaming with delight, he came to my bedside on tiptoe, I asked:⁠—“Tell me; is it true what happened to Urmánov, or did I dream it?” Titus, as he straightened my pillow, said, with ill-concealed terror:⁠— + 

“Don’t think about that; you will only fall ill again.” + 

So then it was true; but I knew that I should not fall ill again. For even as bespoke, a sense of quiet sadness flooded my soul, it was a feeling to which I had been so long a stranger!⁠ ⁠… + 

Another question arose in my mind. It made me still more sorrowful; but now I was afraid, terribly afraid that it would prove to be a dream. + 

“And⁠ ⁠… Tonia?” + 

Titus was silent. + 

“She went away? Is it true?” + 

“She left here the next morning.” + 

I sighed, with mingled sorrow and relief. Then, after all, my love and her confession were not a dream.⁠ ⁠… Neither is it a dream that I repulsed her, insulted her, and that she, too, had left me, although the last to do so. + 

“You don’t know where she is gone? You told her of my illness⁠ ⁠… and still, she⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I did not find her.⁠ ⁠… And where she is gone I don’t know; and, so far, no one knows.” + 

“I know.” + 

Titus again looked at me in terror. + 

“No; don’t be frightened, Titushka; I really know. I might have held her back that evening,⁠ ⁠… but, you see.⁠ ⁠… By the by, look in my coat; there ought to be a letter.” + 

Titus thought that I was rambling. I confess that I too was half afraid as I watched him. What if the idea of the letter were really only a continuation of my delirium? + 

But when Titus put his hand into the pocket of my coat, he found an unopened letter, to his great surprise, the same which the porter gave me as I was going in to Byelichka’s lecture. I had thought then it was from my friend in the country. + 

It was from Tonia. + 

“Open it and read it,” I said to Titus, motioning him to sit down beside me. + 

Titus sat down and began to read in a timidly hesitating voice, which seemed to make the letter still dearer to me. + 

The contents of the letter were almost childishly naive. The girl told me her impressions and her new ideas about herself, about us all, and about the people which had come into her mind. When I took the little sheet of paper in my hand and looked at it, all the tenderness and the hope of the old days breathed on me once more. The letter ended with the request that I would meet her at the station on a day which she named. She wanted to talk over everything with me before speaking to anybody else, and to ask my advice as to how she ought to shape her life. + 

“You know I am an orphan; I have no one belonging to me in the world.” Thus ended the letter; and I felt that in these half-jesting words the girl had made to me a shy half-confession.⁠ ⁠… + 

A few grammatical mistakes looked innocently at me out of the letter. And this child is putting forth her feeble hands to stop the tremendous wheel of life.⁠ ⁠… What a mistake, and yet, what truth and earnest faith.⁠ ⁠… + 

She appealed to me to help her to decide,⁠ ⁠… And I.⁠ ⁠… What have I done? Instead of showing her the mistake in the form, I tried to tear up by the roots her faith in that in which if we would live we must believe. + 

And she is gone her way⁠ ⁠… alone.⁠ ⁠… + 

I fell into deep thought and my eyes filled with tears. But they were tears of joy as well as of grief. In thought I can again wander freely over the world. Somewhere in its wide expanse my love is lost to ken among unknown dangers. But now I can go in search of her. And when I find her I shall dare to meet her eyes, to fight for her, and even to fight against her.⁠ ⁠… + 

Because now I have faith; first of all in her, next in humanity.⁠ ⁠… And beyond these glimmers the dawn of still other faiths. + 

And this is the golden cloud of a new mood; into whatever shape it may unfold my heart tells me that at least it will be life.⁠ ⁠… + 