“Come, find it!” cried Nyuta. “What are you standing there for?”
Volodia went to the closet, knelt down, and began searching among the bottles of medicine and pill-boxes there. His hands were trembling and cold chills were running down his chest and back. He aimlessly seized bottles of ether, carbolic acid, and various boxes of herbs in his shaking hands, spilling and scattering the contents. The smell overpowered him and made his head swim.
“Mother has gone—” he thought. “That’s good—good.”
“Hurry!” cried Nyuta.
“Just a moment—there, this must be it!” said Volodia having deciphered the letters “morph—” on one of the labels. “Here it is!”
Nyuta was standing in the doorway with one foot in the hall and one in Volodia’s room. She was twisting up her hair—which was no easy matter, for it was long and thick—and was looking vacantly at Volodia. In the dim radiance shed by the white, early morning sky, with her full blouse and her flowing hair, she looked to him superb and entrancing. Fascinated, trembling from head to foot, and remembering with delight how he had embraced her in the summer-house, he handed her the bottle and said:
“You are——”
“What?” she asked smiling.
He said nothing; he looked at her, and then, as he had done in the summer-house, he seized her hand.
“I love you—” he whispered.