He was met by Kapitolina Markovna. From the first glance at her, he knew that she knew about it all; the poor maiden lady’s eyes were swollen with weeping, and her flushed face, fringed with her dishevelled white locks, expressed dismay and an agony of indignation, sorrow, and boundless amazement. She was on the point of rushing up to Litvinov, but she stopped short, and, biting her quivering lip, she looked at him as though she would supplicate him, and kill him, and assure herself that it was a dream, a senseless, impossible thing, wasn’t it?
‘Here you ... you are come,’ she began.... The door from the next room opened instantaneously, and with a light tread Tatyana came in; she was of a transparent pallor, but she was quite calm.
She gently put one arm round her aunt and made her sit down beside her.
‘You sit down too, Grigory Mihalitch,’ she said to Litvinov, who was standing like one distraught at the door. ‘I am very glad to see you once more. I have informed auntie of your decision, our common decision; she fully shares it and approves of it.... Without mutual love there can be no happiness, mutual esteem alone is not enough’ (at the word ‘esteem’ Litvinov involuntarily looked down) ‘and better to separate now, than to repent later. Isn’t it, aunt?’
‘Yes, of course,’ began Kapitolina Markovna, ‘of course, Tanya darling, the man who does not know how to appreciate you ... who could bring himself——’
‘Aunt, aunt,’ Tatyana interrupted, ‘remember what you promised me. You always told me yourself: truth, Tatyana, truth before everything—and independence. Well, truth’s not always sweet, nor independence either; or else where would be the virtue of it?’
She kissed Kapitolina Markovna on her white hair, and turning to Litvinov, she went on:
‘We propose, aunt and I, leaving Baden.... I think it will be more comfortable so for all of us.’
‘When do you think of going?’ Litvinov said thickly. He remembered that Irina had said the very same words to him not long before.
Kapitolina Markovna was darting forward, but Tatyana held her back, with a caressing touch on her shoulder.