“What truth?” I asked.
“That we must go to St. Petersburg. This is no longer the place for us.”
“As you wish.”
He took me in his arms and kissed me.
“You forgive me?” he said, “I have been to blame concerning you....”
In the evening I was at the piano a long time playing for him, while he walked up and down the room, repeating something in a low tone to himself. This was a habit with him, and I often asked him what he was murmuring thus, and he, still thoughtful, would repeat it again to me; generally it was poetry, sometimes some really absurd thing, but even the very absurdity would show me what frame of mind he was in.
“What are you murmuring there, now?” I asked after a time.
He stood still, thought a little, then, smiling, repeated the two lines from Lermontoff:
“And he, the madman, invoked the tempest,
As if, in the tempest, peace might reign!”
“Yes, he is more than a man; he sees everything!” thought I; “how can I help loving him!”