“Do not be angry! I did not keep you back to wound you. But don’t talk about it, don’t agitate me so that I have another attack like yesterday’s. You see that I can hardly stand. I don’t want my weakness to be seen at home. Defend me from myself. Come to me at dusk, about six, and I will tell you why I detained you.”
“Pardon me, Vera. I am not myself either,” he said, struck by her suffering. “I don’t know what lies on your heart, and I will not ask. I will come later to fetch you.”
“I will tell you if I have the strength,” she said.
They went into the shops, where Vera made purchases for herself and Marfinka, she talked eagerly to the acquaintances they met, and even visited a poor godchild, for whom she took gifts. She assented readily to Raisky’s suggestion that they should visit Koslov.
When they reached the house, Mark walked out of the door. He was plainly startled, made no answer to Raisky’s inquiry after Leonti’s health, and walked quickly away. Vera was still more disconcerted but pulled herself together, and followed Raisky into the house.
“What is the matter with him?” asked Raisky. “He did not answer a word, but simply bolted. You were frightened, too, Vera. Is it Mark who signalises his presence at the foot of the precipice by a shot? I have seen him wandering round with a gun,” he said joking.
She answered in the same tone: “Of course, Cousin,” but she did not look at him.
No, thought Raisky to himself, she could not have taken for her idol a wandering, ragged gipsy like that. Then he wondered whether the possibility could be entirely excluded, since passion wanders where he lists, and not in obedience to the convictions and dictates of man. He is invincible, and master of his own inexplicable moods. But Vera had never had any opportunity of meeting Mark, he concluded, and was merely afraid of him as every one else was.
Leonti’s condition was unchanged. He wandered about like a drunken man, silent and listening for the noise of any carriage in the street, when he would rush to the window to look if it bore his fugitive wife.
He would come to them in a few weeks, he said, after Marfinka’s wedding, as Vera suggested. Then he became aware of Vera’s presence.
“Vera Vassilievna!” he cried in surprise, staring at her as he addressed Raisky. “Do you know, Boris Pavlovich, who else has read your books and helped me to arrange them?”
