ute in alarm, as though I
were expecting someone to shout that it was time for me to go away!
I did not grieve for Dubetchnya. I grieved for my love which, too,
was threatened with its autumn. What an immense happiness it is to
love and be loved, and how awful to feel that one is slipping down
from that high pinnacle!

Masha returned from the town towards the evening of the next day.
She was displeased with something, but she concealed it, and only
said, why was it all the window frames had been put in for the
winter it was enough to suffocate one. I took out two frames. We
were not hungry, but we sat down to supper.

"Go and wash your hands," said my wife; "you smell of putty."

She had brought some new illustrated papers from the town, and we
looked at them together after supper. There were supplements with
fashion plates and patterns. Masha looked through them casually,
and was putting them aside to examine them properly later on; but
one dress, with a flat skirt as full as a bell and large sleeves,
interested her, and she looked at it for a minute gravely and
attentively.

"That's not bad," she said.

"Yes, that dress would suit you beautifully," I said, "beautifully."

And looking with emotion at the dress, admiring that patch of grey
simply because she liked it, I went on tenderly:

"A charming, exquisite dress! Splendid, glorious, Masha! My precious
Masha!"

And tears dropped on the fashion plate.

"Splendid Masha . . ." I muttered; "sweet, precious Masha. . . ."

She went to bed, while I sat another hour looking at the illustrations.

"It's a pity you took out the window frames," she said from the
bedroom, "I am afraid it may be cold. Oh, dear, what a draught there
is!"

I read something out of the column of odds and ends, a receipt for
making cheap ink, and an account of the biggest diamond in the
world. I came again upon the fashion plate of the dress she liked,
and I imagined her at a ball, with a fan, bare shoulders, brilliant,
splendid, with a full understanding of painting, music, literature,
and how small and how brief my part seemed!

Our meeting, our marriage, had been only one of the episodes of
which there would be many more in the life of this vital, richly
gifted woman. All the best in the world, as I have said already,
was at her service, and she received it absolutely for nothing, and
even ideas and the intellectual movement in vogue served simply for
her recreation, giving varie