I
It was an old, large, one-storied house, with a mezzanine. It stood in
a village, eleven versts from a railway station, and about fifty versts
from the district town. The garden which surrounded the house seemed
lost in drowsiness, while beyond it stretched vistas and vistas of
inexpressibly dull, infinitely depressing fields.
Once this house had been painted lavender, but now it was faded. Its
roof, once red, had turned dark brown. But the pillars of the terrace
were still quite strong, the little arbours in the garden were intact,
and there was an Aphrodite in the shrubbery.
It seemed as if the old house were full of memories. It stood, as it
were, dreaming, recalling, lapsing finally into a mood of sorrow at the
overwhelming flood of doleful memories.
Everything in this house was as before, as in those days when the whole
family lived there together in the summer, when Borya was yet alive.
Now, in the old manor, lived only women: Borya’s grandmother, Elena
Kirillovna Vodolenskaya; Borya’s mother, Sofia Alexandrovna Ozoreva;
and Borya’s sister, Natalya Vasilyevna. The old grandmother, and the
mother, and the young girl appeared tranquil, and at times even
cheerful. It was the second year of their awaiting in the old house the
youngest of the family, Boris. Boris who was no longer among the
living.
They hardly spoke of him to one another; yet their thoughts, their
memories, and their musings of him filled their days. At times dark
threads of grief stole in among the even woof of these thoughts and
reveries; and tears fell bitterly and ceaselessly.
When the midday sun rested overhead, when the sad moon beckoned, when
the rosy dawn blew its cool breezes, when the evening sun blazed its
red laughter—these were the four points between which their spirits
fluctuated from evening joy to high midday sorrow. Swayed
involuntarily, all three of them felt the sympathy and antipathy of the
hours, each mood in turn.
The happiness of dawn, the bright, midday sadness, the joy of dusk, the
pale pining of night. The four emotions lifted them infinitely higher
than the rope upon which Borya had swung, upon which Borya had died.
[1] In collaboration with Anastasya Chebotarevskaya.