Olyessia pondered. Suddenly the shadow of a smile flickered over her lips. ‘I’ll tell you a little story for that. Once upon a time a wolf was running through the forest when he saw a little hare and said to him: “Hi, you hare! I’ll eat you!” The hare began to implore him: “Have mercy on me. I want to live. I have little children at home.” The wolf did not agree, so the hare said: “Well, let me live another three days in the world; then you can eat me, but still I shall feel it easier to die.” The wolf gave him his three days. He didn’t eat him, but only kept a watch on him. One day passed, then the second, and at last the third was coming to an end. “Well, get ready now,” said the wolf, “I’m going to eat you at once.” Then my hare began to weep with bitter tears. “Oh, why did you give me those three days, wolf? It would have been far better if you had eaten the first moment that you saw me. The whole of these three days it hasn’t been life for me, but torment.”
‘Darling, that little hare spoke the truth. Don’t you think so?’
I was silent, distraught by an anxious foreboding of the loneliness that threatened me. Olyessia suddenly raised herself and sat up in bed. Her face grew serious at once. ‘Listen, Vanya....’ she said slowly. ‘Tell me, were you happy while you were with me? Did you feel that it was good?’
‘Olyessia! Can you still ask?’
‘Wait.... Did you regret having met me? Were you thinking of another woman while you were with me?’
‘Never for one single second! Not only when I was with you, but when I was alone, I never had a thought for any one but you.’
‘Were you jealous of me? Were you ever angry with me? Were you ever wretched when you were with me?’
‘Never, Olyessia, never!’
She put both her hands upon my shoulders, and looked into my eyes with love indescribable.
‘Then I tell you, my darling, that you will never think evilly or sadly of me when you remember me,’ she said with conviction, as though she were reading the future in my eyes. ‘When we part you will be miserable, terribly miserable.... You will cry, you will not find a place to rest anywhere. And then everything will pass and fade away, and you will think of me without sorrow, easily and happily.’