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The light grew clearer and the candles became dim and useless. The outlines of the furniture crept out of the net of shadows. Through the blue mist outside the snow, valley, forest, and fields were faintly visible. From the right of the horizon dawn's red light flushed the heavens with a cold purple. Polunin drove along by the fields, trotting smoothly behind his stallion.
Vera Lvovna was silent, as usual; and soon went to see Natasha. Polunin also was quiet, walking about the room with his hands behind his back. Kseniya Ippolytovna jested in a wilful, merry, and coquettish fashion with Arkhipov, who answered her in a polite, serious, and punctilious manner. He was unable to carry on a light, witty conversation, and was acutely conscious of his own awkwardness.
One long past summer, Polunin and Kseniya Ippolytovna used to greet the glowing dawn together. At sundown, when the birch-trees exhaled a pungent odour and the crystal sickle of the moon was sinking in the west, they bade adieu until the morrow on the cool, dew-sprinkled terrace, and Polunin passionately kissed as he believed the pure, innocent lips of Kseniya Ippolytovna.
Polunin shook his head: "No, I haven't understood." "Dear me, dear me!" she mocked, "and you used to be so quick-witted, my ascetic. Still, health and happiness do not always sharpen the wits. You are healthy and happy, aren't you?" "You are being unjust again," Polunin protested. "You know very well that I love you." Kseniya Ippolytovna gave a short laugh: "Oh, come, come! None of that!"
But she did not offer her hand to Polunin. Kseniya Ippolytovna had greatly changed since that far-off summer. Her eyes, her wilful lips, her Grecian nose, and smooth brows were as beautiful as ever, but now there was something reminiscent of late August in her. Formerly she had worn bright costumes now she wore dark; and her soft auburn hair was fastened in a simple plait.
He stabled his horses; then found Alena waiting up for him in the kitchen, her expression was composed but sad. Polunin took her in his arms and kissed her. "Do not be anxious or afraid; I love only you, no one else. I know why you are unhappy." Alena looked up at him in loving gratitude, and shyly smiled. "You do not understand that it is possible to love one only.
Arkhipov declared that Faith was unnecessary and injurious, like instinct and every other sentiment; that there was only one thing immutable Intellect. Only that was moral which was intelligent. Polunin retorted that the intellectual and the non-intellectual were no standard of life, for was life intelligent? he asked.
They sang The Goblets, and the basses thundered: "Drink to the dregs! Drink to the dregs!" Kseniya Ippolytovna offered her first glass to Polunin. She stood in front of him with a tray, curtseyed without lifting her eyes and sang. Polunin rose, colouring with embarrassment: "I never drink wine," he protested. But the basses thundered: "Drink to the dregs! Drink to the dregs!"
They entered the study and sat down on the sofa. Outside the windows lay the snow, blue like the glow within. The walls and the furniture grew dim in the twilight. Polunin grave and attentive hovered solicitously round his guest. Alena withdrew, casting a long, steadfast look at her husband. "I have come here straight from Paris", Kseniya explained.
The telegraph-post stood close beside it, and its wires hummed ceaselessly in the room somewhere in a corner of the ceiling a monotonous, barely audible sound, like a snow-storm. The two men sat in silence, Polunin broad-shouldered and bearded, Arkhipov lean, wiry, and bald. Alena entered bringing in curdled milk and cheese-cakes.
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