gnev, who had seen few women in his life, thought her a
beauty.

"I am going away," he said as he took leave of her at the gate.
"Don't remember evil against me! Thank you for everything!"

In the same singing divinity student's voice in which he had talked
to her father, with the same blinking and twitching of his shoulders,
he began thanking Vera for her hospitality, kindness, and friendliness.

"I've written about you in every letter to my mother," he said. "If
everyone were like you and your dad, what a jolly place the world
would be! You are such a splendid set of people! All such genuine,
friendly people with no nonsense about you."

"Where are you going to now?" asked Vera.

"I am going now to my mother's at Oryol; I shall be a fortnight
with her, and then back to Petersburg and work."

"And then?"

"And then? I shall work all the winter and in the spring go somewhere
into the provinces again to collect material. Well, be happy, live
a hundred years . . . don't remember evil against me. We shall not
see each other again."

Ognev stooped down and kissed Vera's hand. Then, in silent emotion,
he straightened his cape, shifted his bundle of books to a more
comfortable position, paused, and said:

"What a lot of mist!"

"Yes. Have you left anything behind?"

"No, I don't think so. . . ."

For some seconds Ognev stood in silence, then he moved clumsily
towards the gate and went out of the garden.

"Stay; I'll see you as far as our wood," said Vera, following him
out.

They walked along the road. Now the trees did not obscure the view,
and one could see the sky and the distance. As though covered with
a veil all nature was hidden in a transparent, colourless haze
through which her beauty peeped gaily; where the mist was thicker
and whiter it lay heaped unevenly about the stones, stalks, and
bushes or drifted in coils over the road, clung close to the earth
and seemed trying not to conceal the view. Through the haze they
could see all the road as far as the wood, with dark ditches at the
sides and tiny bushes which grew in the ditches and caught the
straying wisps of mist. Half a mile from the gate they saw the dark
patch of Kuznetsov's wood.

"Why has she come with me? I shall have to see her back," thought
Ognev, but looking at her profile he gave a friendly smile and said:
"One doesn't want to go away in such lovely weather. It's quite a
romantic evening, with the moon, the stillness, and all the