she had suddenly begun addressing him as Mr. Nezhdanov again, if she had been more distant to him! He felt that that would be misery to him. Whether he was in love with her he could not be sure yet; but that she was precious to him, and near, and necessary—yes, above all, necessary,—that he felt to the very depths of his being.
The copse to which Marianna had sent him consisted of some hundreds of old birch-trees, mostly of the weeping variety. The wind had not dropped; the long bundles of twigs nodded and tossed like loosened tresses in the breeze; the clouds, as before, flew fast and high up in the sky, and when one of them floated across the sun, everything grew—not dark—but of one uniform tint. Then it floated past, and suddenly glaring patches of light were waving everywhere again, in tangled, medley riot, mingled with patches of shade . . . the rustle and movement were the same; but a kind of festive delight was added. With just such joyous violence, passion makes its way into a heart distraught and darkened by trouble.. . . And just such was the heart Nezhdanov carried within his breast.
He leaned against the trunk of a birch-tree, and began waiting. He did not really know what he was feeling, and indeed he did not want
19
