“A happy thought, to play the old sonata!” he said.
I made no answer.
“Have not you had tea?”
I shook my head, without turning towards him, for I did not want him to see the traces of agitation on my face.
“They will be here presently; the horses were a little unruly, and they are coming home on foot, by the road,” he continued.
“We will wait for them,” I said, going out on the terrace, in the hope that he would follow, but he inquired for the children, and went up to see them. Once more, his presence, the sound of his voice, so kind, so honest, dissuaded me from believing that all was lost for me. “What more is there to desire?” I thought: “he is good and true, he is an excellent husband, an excellent father, and I do not myself know what is missing,—what I want.”
I went out on the balcony, and sat down under the awning of the terrace, on the same bench where I was sitting upon the day of our decisive explanation long ago. The sun was nearly down, dusk was gathering; a shade of spring softened the pure sky, where one tiny spark was already gleaming. The light wind had died away, not a leaf or blade of grass stirred; the perfume of the lilacs and cherry-trees, so powerful that one might have thought all the air itself was in bloom, came in puffs over garden and terrace, now faint and now full, making one feel an impulse to close the eyes, to shut out all sight and sound, to banish every sensation save that of inhaling this exquisite fragrance. The dahlias and rose-bushes, yet leafless, stood in still lines in the newly-dug black mould of their beds, lifting their heads above their white props. From afar came the intermittent notes of the nightingales, or the rush of their restless flight from place to place.
It was in vain that I strove to calm myself, I seemed to be waiting and wishing for something.
Sergius came from up-stairs, and sat down beside me.
“I believe it is going to rain,” he said, “they will get wet.”