k, it was beginning
to get light. A watchman was tapping somewhere far away. She was
not sleepy, and her bed felt very soft and uncomfortable. Nadya sat
up in her bed and fell to thinking as she had done every night in
May. Her thoughts were the same as they had been the night before,
useless, persistent thoughts, always alike, of how Andrey Andreitch
had begun courting her and had made her an offer, how she had
accepted him and then little by little had come to appreciate the
kindly, intelligent man. But for some reason now when there was
hardly a month left before the wedding, she began to feel dread and
uneasiness as though something vague and oppressive were before
her.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock . . ." the watchman tapped lazily. ". . .
Tick-tock."

Through the big old-fashioned window she could see the garden and
at a little distance bushes of lilac in full flower, drowsy and
lifeless from the cold; and the thick white mist was floating softly
up to the lilac, trying to cover it. Drowsy rooks were cawing in
the far-away trees.

"My God, why is my heart so heavy?"

Perhaps every girl felt the same before her wedding. There was no
knowing! Or was it Sasha's influence? But for several years past
Sasha had been repeating the same thing, like a copybook, and when
he talked he seemed naive and queer. But why was it she could not
get Sasha out of her head? Why was it?

The watchman left off tapping for a long while. The birds were
twittering under the windows and the mist had disappeared from the
garden. Everything was lighted up by the spring sunshine as by a
smile. Soon the whole garden, warm and caressed by the sun, returned
to life, and dewdrops like diamonds glittered on the leaves and the
old neglected garden on that morning looked young and gaily decked.

Granny was already awake. Sasha's husky cough began. Nadya could
hear them below, setting the samovar and moving the chairs. The
hours passed slowly, Nadya had been up and walking about the garden
for a long while and still the morning dragged on.

At last Nina Ivanovna appeared with a tear-stained face, carrying
a glass of mineral water. She was interested in spiritualism and
homeopathy, read a great deal, was fond of talking of the doubts
to which she was subject, and to Nadya it seemed as though there
were a deep mysterious significance in all that.

Now Nadya kissed her mother and walked beside her.

"What have you been crying about, mother?" she ask