Even as I asked the question I felt the answer, felt that my wish was no longer possible to realize. He smiled; it seemed to me an old man’s smile, gentle and full of peace.
“How young you still are, and how old I am already!” he said. “Why delude ourselves?” he added, still with the same smile.
I remained near him, silent, and feeling my soul grow more and more tranquil.
“Do not let us try to repeat life,” he went on, “nor to lie to ourselves. But it is something, to have no longer, God willing, either disquiet or distress. We have nothing to seek for. We have already found, already shared, happiness enough. All we have to do now is to open the way,—you see to whom....” he said, pointing out little Vania, in his nurse’s arms, at the terrace door. “That is necessary, dear love,” he concluded, bending over me and dropping a kiss on my hair.
It was no longer a lover, it was an old friend who gave the caress.
The perfumed freshness of night was rising, sweeter and stronger, from the garden; the few sounds audible were solemn and far off, and soon gave way to deep tranquillity; one by one the stars shone out. I looked at him, and all at once I became conscious of infinite relief in my soul; it was as if a moral nerve, whose sensitiveness had caused me keen suffering had suddenly been removed. Quietly and clearly I comprehended that the dominant sentiment of this phase of my existence was irrevocably gone, as was the phase itself, and that not only was its return impossible, but that it would be to me full of unendurable pain. There had been enough of this time; and had it indeed been so good,—this time, which to me had seemed to enclose such joys? And already it had lasted so long, so long!
“But tea is waiting,” he said, gently; and we went together to the drawing-room.
At the door I met Macha, and the nurse with Vania. I took the child in my arms, wrapped up the little bare feet, and, holding it close to my heart, barely touched its lips with a light kiss. Almost asleep as it was, it moved its little arms, stretched out the crumpled fingers, and opened its bewildered eyes, as if trying to find or remember something; all at once its eyes fell on me, a look of intelligence sparkled in them, and the pink pursed-up lips lengthened in a baby smile. “You are mine, mine!” thought I, with a delicious thrill running through me, and as I strained it to my heart I was half afraid of hurting it with my eager embrace. Over and over I kissed its cold little feet, its breast, its arms, and head with the scant covering of down. My husband came up to us, quickly drew the wrapping over the baby’s face, then, drawing it away again:
“Ivan Sergevitch!” he said with finger under the little chin.
But I, in my turn, covered up Ivan Sergevitch. No one should look at him so long, except myself. I glanced at my husband, his eyes laughed as they rested on mine, and it was long since I had met his with such happy joy.