The last day of the year was approaching midnight.
Garmonov was sitting once more at Sonpolyev’s. They spoke quietly, in subdued voices. It was painful. Sonpolyev asked: “You do not regret coming to my lonely party?”
The smooth-faced young man smiled, and this made his teeth seem very white. He drawled out his words very slowly, and what he said was so tedious and so empty that Sonpolyev had no desire to listen to him. Sonpolyev, without continuing the conversation, asked quite bluntly: “You remember your earlier existence?”
“Not very well,” answered Garmonov.
It was clear that he did not understand the question, and that he thought Sonpolyev had asked him about his childhood.
Sonpolyev frowned in his vexation. He began to explain what he wished to say. He felt that his speech was involved and long. And this vexed him still more.
But Garmonov had understood. He grew cheerful. He flushed slightly. His words had a more animated sound than usual: “Yes, yes, I sometimes feel that I have lived before. It is such a strange feeling. It’s as though that life was fuller, bolder and freer; and that I dared to do things that I dare not do now.
“And isn’t it true,” asked Sonpolyev in some agitation, “that you feel as though you had lost something, as though you now lack the most significant part of your being?”
“Yes,” answered Garmonov with emphasis. “That’s precisely my feeling.”
“Would you like to restore this missing part?” Sonpolyev continued to question. “To be once more as before, whole and bold; to contain in one body—which shall feel itself light and young and free—the fullness of life and the union of the antagonistic identities of our human breed. To be, indeed, more than whole; to feel as it were, in one’s breast, the beating of a doubled heart; to be this and that; to join two clashing souls within oneself, and to wrest the necessary manhood and hardihood for great deeds from the fiery struggle of intense contradictions.”