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She looked very beautiful and modest as she stood there, wiping the corner of her mouth with her handkerchief. Kseniya Ippolytovna arrived late when dusk was already falling and blue shadows crept over the snow. The sky had darkened, becoming shrouded in a murky blue; bullfinches chirruped in the snow under the windows.
Suddenly with unexpected sadness and, therefore, unusually well the general began to speak: "When I a lieutenant-bridegroom met our Aunt Kseniya for the first time, she was wearing that bustle that you sold just now. Ah, will things ever be the same again? If I were told the Bolshevik tyranny would endure for another year, I should shoot myself! For, good Lord, what I suffer!
By the way, you used to dream of faith; have you found it?" "Yes, I have found it." "Faith in what?" "In life." "But if there is nothing to believe in?" "Impossible!" "I don't know. I don't know." Kseniya Ippolytovna raised her hands to her head.
But that is expiation.... You are the only one who has loved me devotedly. Thank you, but I have no faith now." The dawn was grey, lingering, cold; the East grew red. Kseniya Ippolytovna's ancestral home had reared its columns for fully a century.
She broke into tears, sobbing loudly and plaintively, covering her face with her hands; then leant against the wall, still sobbing. The Arkhipovs ran to her; Polunin stood at the table dumbfounded, then left the room. "I didn't ask him for passion or caresses. ... I have no husband!" Kseniya cried, sobbing and shrieking like a hysterical girl.
In olden days, when it was the residence of the princely Rastorovs' balls were held there, but decay had set in during the last twenty years, and Kseniya Davydovna the mistress old, ill, a spinster, was drawing to the end of her days. She died in October, 1917, and now the tumbling, plundered house was occupied by the heirs.
The old mansion greeted her the last descendant of the ancient name with gloomy indifference; with cold, sombre apartments that were terrible by night, and thickly covered with the accumulated dust of many years. An ancient butler remained who recalled the former times and masters, the former baronial pomp and splendour. The housemaid, who spoke no Russian, was brought by Kseniya.
"What are you saying, Kseniya?" he asked in a low, grave, pained tone. "I have told you what I want. Give me a child and then go anywhere back to your Alena! I have not forgotten that June and July." "I cannot," Polunin replied firmly; "I love Alena." "I do not want love," she persisted; "I have no need of it. Indeed I have not, for I do not even love you!"
One solitary, flickering candle illumined the room. There was a call on the telephone at daybreak. Polunin was already up. The day slowly broke in shades of blue; there was a murky, bluish light inside the rooms and outside the windows, the panes of which were coated with snow. The storm had subsided. "Have I aroused you? Were you still in bed?" called Kseniya. "No, I was already up."
Polunin went to her quickly, took her hands, then dropped them; his eyes were very observant, his voice quiet and serious. "Kseniya, you must not grieve, you must not." "Do you love me?" "As a woman no, as a fellow-creature I do," he answered firmly. She smiled, dropped her eyes, then moved to the sofa, sat down and arranged her dress, then smiled again. "I want to be pure." "And so you are!"
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