Raisky laughed as he went out into the garden. He looked sadly at the closed shutters of the old house, and stood for a long time on the edge of the precipice, looking down thoughtfully into the depths of the thicket and the trees rustling and cracking in the wind. Then he turned to look at the long avenues, here forming gloomy corridors, and then opening out into open stately spaces, at the flower gardens now fading under the approach of autumn, at the kitchen garden, and at the distant glimmer of the rising moon, and at the stars. He looked out over the Volga, gleaming like steel in the distance. The evening was fresh and cool, and the withered leaves were falling with a gentle rustle around him. He could not take his eyes from the river, now silvered by the moon, which separated him from Vera. She had gone without leaving a word for him. A word from her would have brought tenderness and would have drowned all bitterness, he thought. But she was gone without leaving a trace or any kind remembrance. With bent head and full of anxious thought he made his way along the dark avenues.
Suddenly delicate fingers seized his shoulders, and he heard a low laugh.
“Vera!” he cried, seizing her hand violently. “You here, and not away over the Volga!”
“Yes, here, not over there.” She put her arm in his and asked him, laughing, whether he thought she would let him go without saying good-bye.
“Witch!” he said, not knowing whether fear or joy was uppermost. “I was this very moment complaining that you had not left a line for me, and now I can’t understand, as everyone in the house told me you had gone away yesterday.”
“And you believed it,” she said laughing. “I told them to say so, to surprise you. They were humbugging.... To go away without two words,” she asked triumphantly, “or to stay, which is better?”
Her gay talk, her quick gestures, the mockery in her voice, all these things seemed unnatural, and he recognised beneath it all weariness, strain, an effort to conceal the collapse of her strength. When they reached the end of the avenue he tried to lead her to an open spot, where he could see her face.
“Let me look at you! How gay and merry you are, Vera!” he said timidly.
“What is there to see?” she interrupted impatiently, and tried to draw him into the shadow again. He felt that her hands were trembling, and for the moment his own passion was stilled, and he shared her suffering.