He could not sleep that night. He stood at the window and looked out into the far-stretching streets, at first dark, then lighter at dawn; he smiled and pressed the sprig of lilac between his fingers. When it grew light he noticed that the floor of the room was strewn with white petals of lilac. This seemed both curious and of happy omen to Saksaoolov. He felt the cool of the breeze on his heated face. He took a bath and he felt refreshed. Then he went to Tamar.
They told him that she was ill, that she had caught a cold somewhere. And Saksaoolov never saw her again; she died within two weeks. He did not go to her funeral. Her death left him quite calm, and he no longer knew whether he had loved her or whether it was a short, passing fascination.
He mused about her sometimes in the evening; but he gradually learned to forget her; and Saksaoolov had no portrait of her. But after a few years—more precisely, only a year ago—in the spring, upon seeing a sprig of lilac sadly out of place among rich eatables in a restaurant window, he remembered Tamar. And from that time on he loved to think of Tamar again during the evenings.
Sometimes, as he fell into a light sleep, he dreamt that Tamar came to him, sat opposite him, and looked at him with unaverted, fond eyes; and that she had something to tell him. And it was painful to feel Tamar’s expectant glance upon him, and not know what she wanted of him.
Now, leaving the Gorodischevs, he thought timidly: “She will come to give me the kiss of Easter.”
A feeling of fear and loneliness took hold of him with such intensity that the idea came to him: “Perhaps it would be well to marry so as not to be alone on holy, mysterious nights.”
He thought of Valeria Mikhailovna, the Gorodischev girl. She was by no means a beauty, but she was always dressed becomingly to set off her looks. She apparently liked him, and was not likely to reject him if he asked her.
The throng and din in the street distracted him and his usual somewhat ironic mood swayed his thoughts of the Gorodischev girl. Could he prove false to Tamar’s memory for any one else? Everything in the world seemed so paltry to him that he wished no one but Tamar to give him the kiss of Easter.
“But,” thought he, “she will again look at me with expectancy. White, gentle Tamar, what does she want? Will her gentle lips kiss me?”