"No, no! Tell her to go to sleep. I will undress myself and go to bed unattended."
"Good-night!"
Stepping quietly along the carpet Irene passed out. Malvina followed the young lady to the door with her eyes, and the moment she was alone she threw her arm over her head, turned her face upward, and repeated a number of times, audibly: "God! God!" Then she rested her elbows on the arms of the chair, covered her face with both palms, the broad sleeves of her dress fell from her arms like broken wings. Thus, altogether motionless, she dropped into an abyss of regrets, reminiscences, and fears. The night flowed on. The clock among the flowers in that study struck the first hour after midnight, then the second hour, and each time in the darkness of the drawing-rooms another clock answered in tones which were deeper and more resonant. The syringa and hyacinths gave out a still stronger odor, though the cold increased in that chamber. The frosty winter night was creeping in, even to dwellings which were carefully heated, and was filling them with darkness penetrated with cold; along Malvina's shoulders, which were bent over the arm of the chair, shivers began to pass.
In the darkness and cold a slight rustle was heard, and on the background of this darkness, in the doorway, appeared Irene. She wore a short, embroidered dress of cambric, and her fiery tresses were on her shoulders. She stood in the doorway with neck extended toward her mother, then walking in soft slippers silently she passed through the room like a shadow, and vanished beyond the opposite door. There was something ghostlike in those two women; one passed, without the slightest rustle, by the other, who was sleeping in a low chair, without making the least movement. Outside that mansion the streets of the city were entering into a deeper and longer silence.
The clock in the study struck three, in the darkness three strokes, remote and deep, answered. In the air the volatile and languid odor of syringas was overcome by the narcotic and stronger odor of hyacinths. The increasing cold flowed around them with painful contrast. In the door, beyond which she had vanished, Irene appeared again, just as silently as before. She passed through the room and placed a shawl upon her mother's shoulders. Malvina, feeling the soft stuff, woke as if from a dream.
"What is this?" exclaimed she, raising her face, the cheeks of which were gleaming in the light of the lamp; but when she saw her daughter she smiled with relief immediately.
"That is you, Ira? Why are you not asleep?"
"I cannot sleep, and I came for the book which we began to read together. It is growing cold, so I brought a shawl. Good-night."
She went aside but did not leave the room. She had no book in her hand; perhaps she was looking for it in the beautifully carved ease filled with books, for she opened the case and stood before it with arms raised toward the upper shelves, her hair lying motionless on the white cambric covering her shoulders.
Malvina was looking at her daughter, in her eyes was impatience; she was waiting for her to go.