"My heart, be reasonable," says he, and draws her to him. A fearful groan comes from her lips; she presses her mouth against his shoulder so as not to scream aloud; her form shook.
He held her to him so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. For one moment he is all hers--it is the last in her life! She knows it! The happiness of her love rallies once more in a feeling of awful, delirious happiness, and dies in a kiss!
Now he has gone! She accompanied him to the house-door. There she now stands and gazes along the street, through the twilight, where he has disappeared between the trees. It did not seem to her that she had parted from a dear man who was about to make a journey. No; as if they had carried a corpse out of the house. It is all over--all! Whatever further comes is only more dry bitterness and inconsolable torment of the heart. She sees his footprints in the half darkness. Why had she not accompanied him to the railway? she asks herself, why--why? From stupid anxiety, from pride of giving the few loafers at the station the sight of her despair had she renounced the pleasure of enjoying his presence until the last moment? She steps outdoors, hurries her steps, wishes to hurry after him, to see him once more, only one moment--then the loud voice of the railroad bell breaks the universal silence--a shrill whistle--it is over! She falls down, buries her face in the cool autumn grass at the edge of the garden path, and sobs as one sobs over a fresh grave.
* * * * * *
About three hours later, Lensky, with his colleagues and Morinsky, sat penned up in a coupé of the first class. The train was over-full, there were eight of them in the small compartment.
In one corner slept Morinsky, his fur collar drawn up over his ears, his head covered with a fez, whose blue tassel waved to and fro over his left ear, which lent his sharp yellow face a diabolical expression.
Opposite him sat an old woman with a copper colored skin, and held a basket of lunch on her knees. At first she had uninterruptedly chewed and smacked her lips, now she snored. She was the mother of a famous staccato singer, who, large and blond, with her head and shoulders prudently wrapped in a red fascinator, embroidered with gold, and painted, and smelling of cosmetics, coquetted with the 'cellist, a very effeminate young man who looked like an actor. They had spread a shawl over their knees, and the diva laid the cards for him, which gave occasion for the most entertaining allusions.
The accompanist of the troupe, a pedantic young pianist, afflicted with a chronic hoarseness, which alone prevented him from becoming a tenor of the first rank, formed the public to the beautiful duet, while he laughed loudly at every particularly poor witticism.
The 'cellist and the diva were very familiar with each other, and both constantly made use of expressions of the commonest kind.
The laughter of the diva became ever shriller, while that of the 'cellist sounded ever deeper from his boots.