"On the watch?"
"Yes."
"I have only just arrived home. The storm whirled madly round us in the fields, and the roads were invisible, frozen under snow … I drove on thinking, and thinking—of the snow, you, myself, Arkhipov, Paris … oh, Paris…! You are not angry with me for ringing you up, are you, my ascetic?… I was thinking of our conversation."
"What were you thinking?"
"This…. We were speaking together, you see…. Forgive me, but you could not speak like that to Alena. She would not understand … how could she?"
"One need not speak a word, yet understand everything. There is something that unites—without the aid of speech—not only Alena and me, but the world and me. That is a law of God."
"So it is," murmured Kseniya. "Forgive me … poor old Alena."
"I love her, and she has given me a daughter…."
"Yes, that is true. And we … we love, but are childless… We rise in the morning feeling dull and depressed from our revels of overnight, while you were wisely sleeping." Kseniya Ippolytovna's voice rose higher. "'We are the heisha-girls of lantern-light,' you remember Annensky? At night we sit in restaurants, drinking wine and listening to garish music. We love—but are childless…. And you? You live a sober, righteous and sensible life, seeking the truth…. Isn't that so?' Truth!" Her cry was malignant and full of derision.
"That is unjust, Kseniya," answered Polunin in a low voice, hanging his head.