‘Here I am in the country where I was born and spent my childhood, at Semyonovskoye, so full of dear and wonderful memories. It is an evening in spring, and I am in the garden, in the spot my late mother was so fond of beside the pond in the birch-tree walk, and I am not alone – with me is my wife, in a white dress, her hair swept up simply on her lovely head; and this wife of mine is the woman I love – the woman I love as I have never loved anyone before, more than anything in the world, more than myself even. The moon, sailing peacefully across a sky covered with transparent clouds, is brightly reflected, together with the clouds it illumines, in the mirror-like surface of the unruffled pond, and it lights up the green banks overgrown with yellowish sedge, the light-coloured logs of the little dam, the willow branches hanging above it, the dark-green foliage of the blossoming lilacs and bird-cherries which fill the pure air with a joyful spring fragrance, the leaves of the dogroses which crowd the flowerbeds between the winding paths, the long, leafy, motionless branches of the tall birches and the delicate greenery of the lime trees standing in their straight, dark avenues. From the far side of the pond the loud song of the nightingale can be heard in the overgrown thicket of trees, and the music is reflected even more sonorously from the still surface of the water. I am holding the soft hand of the woman I love, and gazing into her wonderful wide eyes whose look has such a comforting effect on my soul, and she smiles and squeezes my hand in return – she is happy too!’
How stupid are these comforting dreams. Stupid because of their impossibility, comforting because of the poetic feeling with which they are filled. Granted, they will not, cannot indeed, come true; but why not let oneself be carried away by them if this fantasy is a source of such pure and lofty delight? It never occurred to Seriozha at that moment to ask himself the question: how could this woman become his wife when she was married already, and even if that were possible, would it be a good thing, the right thing? And if it were to be so, how then would he set about arranging his life? Beyond these few minutes of love and passion he was quite unable to picture this other life. True love experiences in itself such a range of sacred, innocent, powerful, invigorating, liberating feelings, that for true love neither crimes nor obstacles, nor the whole of the prosaic side of life, have any real existence.
Suddenly the sleigh came to a halt, and this interruption of the regular lulling motion roused him from his reverie. On his left he could see a snow-covered open space quite large for the city, with a few bare trees, and on his right the entrance porch of a low, rather crooked, drab little house with closed shutters.
‘What, are we outside the town?’ he enquired of the driver.
‘Not at all, this is Patriarch’s Ponds if you want to know, and that’s right next to Kozikhi.’
N.N. and the cheery General were already standing by the entrance. The latter was alternately kicking the cracked and shaky-looking house door with his foot, and tugging at a rusty piece of bent wire which hung from the lintel, shouting quite loudly as he did so: ‘Hey, you girls in there! Open up, girls!’ At length a rustling sound was heard – the noise of uncertain, cautious slippered footsteps, there was a glimmer of light behind the shutters, and the door opened. On the threshold appeared a bent old woman in a fox-fur coat which she had thrown on over a white nightshirt, holding a guttering tallow candle in her wrinkled hands. From a first glance at her sharp, forceful, wrinkled features, her glittering dark eyes, the jet-black hair streaked with grey sticking out from beneath her kerchief, and the swarthy brick-like hue of her skin, it could be seen beyond a doubt that she was a gypsy. She held up the candle to the faces of N.N. and the General, and at once recognized them, apparently with delight.
‘Ah, goodness gracious, good Lord! Mikhail Nikolayevich, my little father,’ she began in her harsh voice, with that particular accent which is peculiar to gypsies. ‘What a joy to see you, sun of our lives that you are! Aiee, and you too, N.N., it’s such a long time since you paid us a visit: won’t the girls be glad to see you! We humbly bid you come in, and we’ll have some dancing for you!’
‘Are your people at home, then?’
‘Yes, yes, all at home, they’ll come running, my golden one. Come in, come in.’
‘
