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Updated: June 23, 2025
"I was packing up for Nice, where a lover expected me, when suddenly I felt an overwhelming desire for a babe, a dear, sweet, little babe of my own, and I remembered you .... Then I travelled here, to Russia so as to bear it in reverence.... I am able to do so now!..." Polunin rose and stood close to Kseniya Ippolytovna: his expression was serious and alarmed. "Don't beat me," she murmured.
"No, certainly not I should answer in a different way," Arkhipov replied quietly. "And you, Vera Lvovna, a wife ... do you hear? I speak in front of you?" Vera Lvovna nodded, laid her hand gently on Kseniya's forehead, and answered softly and tenderly: "I understand you perfectly." Again Kseniya wept. The dawn trod gently down the lanes of darkness.
Polunin arrived early. Kseniya Ippolytovna greeted him in the drawing-room. A bright fire burnt on the hearth; beside it were two deep armchairs. No lamps were alight, but the fire-flames cast warm, orange reflections; the round-topped windows seemed silvery in the hoar-frost. Kseniya Ippolytovna wore a dark evening dress and had plaited her hair; she shook hands with Polunin.
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!"
His face darkened, he raised a silencing arm, and firmly repeated: "I never drink wine, and I do not intend to." Kseniya gazed into the depths of his eyes and said softly: "I want you to, I beg you.... Do you hear?" "I will not," Polunin whispered back. Then she cried out: "He doesn't want to! We mustn't make him against his will!"
From a mere trifle, something Kseniya Ippolytovna said about fortune-telling at Christmas, there arose an old-standing dispute between the two men on Belief and Unbelief. Arkhipov spoke with calmness and conviction, but Polunin grew angry, confused, and agitated.
Although I am disillusioned, Kseniya, I go on chopping firewood, heating the stove, living just to live. I read St. Francis d'Assisi, think about him, and grieve that such a life as his may not be lived again. I know he was absurd, but he had faith, And now Alena I love her, I shall love her for ever. I wish to feel God!"
He went out and returned with a tray on which were two glasses of tea, a decanter of rum, some pastries, figs, and honey, and laid them on the little table beside the armchairs. "Will you have the lamps lighted, Barina?" he inquired, respectfully. "No. You may go. Close the door." The old butler looked at them knowingly; then withdrew. Kseniya turned at once to Polunin.
Kseniya Ippolytovna had been listening, alert and restless. "But all the same," she answered Vera Lvovna animatedly, "Isn't the absence of tragedy the true tragedy?" "Yes, that alone." "And love?" "No, not love." "But aren't you married?" "I want my baby." Kseniya Ippolytovna, who was lying on the sofa, rose up on her knees, and stretching out her arms cried: "Ah, a baby! Is that not instinct?"
Sergius drew up the sleighs, and they took their seats three abreast Kseniya, Elena and himself, and whirled along over the crackling snow, down to the ice-covered Volga. The sleighs flew wildly down the slope, and in this impetuous flight, in the sprinkling and crackling snow, and bitter, numbing frost, Kseniya dreamed of a wondrous bliss: she felt a desire to embrace the world!
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