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Another member was added to the family circle at Malinovka, for Raisky brought Koslov to dinner one day, to receive the heartiest of welcomes. Tatiana Markovna had the tact not to let the poor forsaken man see that she was aware of his trouble. She greeted him with a jest. "Why have you not been near us for so long, Leonti Ivanovich?
As the days went by Malinovka assumed its wonted calm. The quiet life which had been brought to a pause by the catastrophe, flowed evenly on. The peaceful atmosphere was not undisturbed by anxiety. Autumn had laid her hand on men as well as on nature.
At midday the snowy clouds crept up, often piled one on another until the blue sky was hidden, and the cooling rain fell on woods and fields; then once more the clouds stole away before the approach of the warm, pleasant evening. Life at Malinovka passed just as peacefully. The naivete of the surroundings had not yet lost its charm for Raisky.
It was the first trouble that Marfinka had encountered in her happy life, and she fell in unconsciously with the serious, dull tone that obtained in Malinovka. Silence, reserve and melancholy were equally foreign to Vikentev's nature. He urged his mother to persuade Tatiana Markovna to allow Marfinka to go back with them to Kolchino until the wedding at the end of October.
The poor man received no reply. Gradually he resumed his teaching, though he still betrayed his melancholy now and again during the lessons, and was apt to be absentminded and unconscious of the behaviour of his scholars, who took pitiless advantage of his helplessness. Tushin had offered to look after Malinovka during Tatiana Markovna's absence.
Boris stood still for a long time, recalling his childhood. He remembered that he had sat on this spot with his mother, looking thoughtfully out at this same landscape. Then he went slowly back to the house, and climbed the precipice, with the picture of her vividly before his mind's eye. In Malinovka and the neighbourhood there were tragic memories connected with this precipice.
Raisky stayed in his rooms in the new house, but Leonti had returned to his own home for the time being, to return to Malinovka after the departure of Tatiana Markovna and Vera. He, too, had been invited by Tushin to "Smoke," but Leonti had answered with a sigh, "Later in the winter. Just now I am expecting...." and had broken off to look out on to the road from Moscow.
And even if she could hold him, what would be the consequences? Not one life, but two separate lives, two prisons, divided by a grating. "We are both brusque and strong, Vera; that is why we torture one another, why we are separating." "If I were strong, you would not leave Malinovka; you would ascend the hill with me, not clandestinely, but boldly by my side.
Raisky himself was attracted to this simple, gentle and yet strong personality, and would like to have stayed longer at "Smoke," but Tatiana Markovna wrote asking him to return without delay as his presence was necessary at Malinovka.
In his leisure hours his thoughts were turned homewards; he would have liked to absorb the eternal beauty of nature and art, to saturate himself with the history revealed in the monuments of Rome in order that he might take his spiritual and artistic gains back to Malinovka.
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