She sat down near him, holding him fast, and began to gaze at him with that smiling, and caressing, and tender look, only to be seen shining in the eyes of a loving woman.
Her face suddenly clouded over.
‘How thin you have grown, my poor Dmitri,’ she said, passing her hand over his neck; ‘what a beard you have.’
‘And you have grown thin, my poor Elena,’ he answered, catching her fingers with his lips.
She shook her curls gaily.
‘That’s nothing. You shall see how soon we’ll be strong again! The storm has blown over, just as it blew over and passed away that day when we met in the chapel. Now we are going to live.’
He answered her with a smile only.
‘Ah, what a time we have had, Dmitri, what a cruel time! How can people outlive those they love? I knew beforehand what Andrei Petrovitch would say to me every day, I did really; my life seemed to ebb and flow with yours. Welcome back, my Dmitri!’
He did not know what to say to her. He was longing to throw himself at her feet.
‘Another thing I observed,’ she went on, pushing back his hair—‘I made so many observations all this time in my leisure—when any one is very, very miserable, with what stupid attention he follows everything that’s going on about him! I really sometimes lost myself in gazing at a fly, and all the while such chill and terror in my heart! But that’s all past, all past, isn’t it? Everything’s bright in the future, isn’t it?’