“Something is wrong, Borushka. She looks so melancholy and is so silent, and often seems to have tears in her eyes. I have spoken to the doctor, but he only talks the old nonsense about nerves,” she said, relapsing into a gloomy silence.
Raisky looked anxiously for Vera’s appearance next morning. She came at last, accompanied by the maid, who carried a warm coat and her hat and shoes. She said good morning to her aunt, asked for coffee, ate her roll with appetite, and reminded Raisky that he had promised to go shopping with her in the town and to take a walk in the park. It amazed him that she should be once more transformed, but there was a certain audacity in her gestures and a haste in her speech which seemed forced and alien from her usual manner and reminded him of her behaviour the day before.
She was plainly making a great effort to conceal her real mood. She chatted volubly with Paulina Karpovna, who had turned up unexpectedly and was displaying the pattern of a dress intended for Marfinka’s trousseau. That lady’s visit was really directed towards Raisky, of whose return she had heard. She sought in vain an occasion to speak with him alone, but seized a moment to sit down beside him, when she made eyes at him and said in a low voice: “Je comprends; dites tout, du courage.”
Raisky wished her anywhere, and moved away. Vera meanwhile put on her coat and asked him to come with her. Paulina Karpovna wished to accompany them, but Vera declined on the ground that they were walking and had far to go, that the ground was damp, and that Paulina’s elegant dress with a long train was unsuited for the expedition.
“I want to have you this whole day for myself,” she said to Raisky as they went out together, “indeed every day until you go.”
“But, Vera, how can I help you when I don’t know what is making you suffer. I only see that you have your own drama, that the catastrophe is approaching, or is in process. What is it?” he asked anxiously, as she shivered.
“I don’t feel well, and am far from gay. Autumn is beginning. Nature grows dark and sinister, the birds are already deserting us, and my mood, too, is autumnal. Do you see the black line high above the Volga? Those are the cranes in flight. My thoughts, too, fly away into the distance.”
She realised halfway that this strange explanation was unconvincing, and only pursued it because she did not wish to tell the truth.
“I wanted to ask you, Vera, about the letters you wrote to me.”
“I am ill and weak; you saw what an attack I had yesterday. I cannot remember just now all that I wrote.”