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"You musn't wait on me like this, Nina," Agrenev protested;"... Sit down and let us talk." Their hands touched caressingly, and she sat down beside him. "What is it, my dear?" She stroked his hand and its touch warmed her! "What is it?" At times indignation overcame her at the thought of life; she wrung her hands, spoke with hatred, and her eyes darkened in anger.
Then Agrenev dismissed her from his mind; and, as he bicycled from Golovkinskaya Street through the whole length of the town, past the factory to the engineers' quarters there was no need to hide now it was dark he thought only of Olya's aunt: of how she was an old maid with nothing else in her life but her niece, and that Olya was hiding her tragedy from her; of how she spent the entire evenings sitting alone by the window in the dark assuredly not on Olya's account, but because she was dying; all her life she had been dying, as the town was dying where Kozlov was read; as he, Agrenev, was dying; as the maidenhood of Olya had died.
A wolf came and devoured it. Alexander Alexandrovitch Agrenev, engineer, spent all day in the quarry, laying and exploding dynamite. In the village below was a factory, its chimneys belching smoke; and creaking wagonettes sped backwards and forwards from the parapet. Above on the cliff stood huge sappy pines.
But all the same she did a willow-reed blown in the wind. Agrenev arranged to meet her the next day in the factory office, so that he might hear whether the aunt had created a scene or not, although he did not admit that reason, even to himself. In the ravine when Olya after yielding all wept and clung to his knees, Agrenev's heart had been pierced with pangs of remorse.
Olya could not think of the pain or the joy or the suffering she was only thinking how she could pass her aunt unnoticed; Agrenev felt cold and sickened at the thought of a possible scandal. They discovered there was a light at the aunt's window, and Olya began to tremble like a reed, whispering hoarsely almost crying: "I won't go in! I won't go in!"
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