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In the train at Budslav where the staff-officers were billeted it was known that Lieutenant Agrenev had such a single, overmastering, life-long love. A wife the woman, the maiden who loves only once to whom love is the most beautiful and only thing in life, will do heroic deeds to get past all the Army ordinances, the enemy's reconnaissance, and reach her beloved.
But even in the time of Peter the Great this name had sunk into the gutter and had left in this town a street Golovkinskaya, and in that same Golovkinskaya Street a house, by the letting of which Olya's aunt made her living. Agrenev knew that the aunt whose name he had never heard was an old maid, and that she had one joy Olya.
None could hear the rattling fire of the machine-guns and rifles. All was lost in a torrential downpour of rain. Towards evening there was a halt. All were eager to rest. No one noticed the approaching dawn. Then a Russian battery commenced to thunder. They were ordered to counter-attack. They trudged back through the rain, no one knew why Agrenev, Kremnev, the brethren three women.
The place was wild and dreary, odours of earth, moss, and pine- sap mingled together in an overpowering perfume; it was the heart of a vast primeval forest. Agrenev murmured as if to himself: "No, Nina, I do not love you.
Alone, in a grey dress, plain-featured, her cheek red where it had rested against the palm of her hand, she sat beside a little table in the bare, simple room, a book on her lap. With a pang, Agrenev noted her sunken eyes. But at sight of him they brightened instantly, and she rose from her seat, putting the book aside. "You darling? Welcome! Is it raining?" "Greeting! Nina.
In the office were many telephone calls and the rattling of counting- boards. Agrenev and Olya sat together and arranged when to meet again. She did not want to go to the Ravine because of the shepherd boys' rude remarks. Alexander Alexandrovitch did not tell her all was known at home. As she said goodby she clung to him like a reed in the wind and whispered: "I have been awake all night.
In childhood, as a small lad, Alexander Alexandrovitch Agrenev had heard from listening to his mother's conversation how lo and behold! one morning at 9 o'clock Nina Kallistratovna Zamotkina had proceeded with her daughter to Doctor Chasovnikov's flat, in order to deliver a slap in the face to his wife for having broken up the family hearth by a liaison with Paul Alexander Zamotkin, Nina Kallistratovna's husband.
On a sudden, Olya arrived, her figure darkly silhouetted an instant a tiny insignificant atom against the vastness of the hill and sky as she stood poised on the brink of the ravine; then she clambered down its precipitous side to Agrenev. Alexander Alexandrovitch Agrenev, mining engineer and married man, and Olya Andreevna Golovkina!
Alexander Alexandrovitch Agrenev made out the returns for his department; these were duly printed not to be read, but so that beneath them might appear the signature: "A. A. Agrenev, Engineer." Olya only kept a report-book and the name-rolls, placing in her reports so many marks opposite the pupil's names. Mammy rose in the morning just as usual during those interminable months.
There was sunshine there in the daytime, and Olya wore a white dress. It was there the two of them, Agrenev and Olya, usually bade each other adieu. But on that evening, Agrenev accompanied Olya to her home, and both were absorbed by the same thought the aunt! Was she sitting by the window without a lamp waiting for her niece, or had she already lighted it in order to prepare the supper?
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