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By Root 1275 0

the joyful awareness of his body, but never had he so loved himself, his own body, as now. He enjoyed feeling that slight pain in his strong leg, enjoyed feeling the movement of his chest muscles as he breathed. That same clear and cold August day which had had such a hopeless effect on Anna, to him seemed stirringly invigorating and refreshed his face and neck that tingled from the dousing. The smell of brilliantine on his moustache seemed especially enjoyable to him in that fresh air. Everything he saw through the coach window, everything in that cold, clean air, in that pale light of sunset, was as fresh, cheerful and strong as himself: the rooftops glistening in the rays of the sinking sun, the sharp outlines of fences and the corners of buildings, the figures of the rare passers-by and the carriages they met, the motionless green of the trees and grass, the fields with regularly incised rows of potatoes, the slanting shadows cast by the houses, trees, and bushes and the rows of potatoes themselves. Everything was as beautiful as a pretty landscape just finished and coated with varnish.

‘Faster, faster!’ he said to the cabby. Leaning out the window, he took a three-rouble bill from his pocket and handed it to the driver as he turned. The cabby’s hand felt for something by the lantern, the whip whistled, and the carriage rolled quickly along the smooth road.

‘I need nothing, nothing but this happiness,’ he thought, gazing at the ivory knob of the bell between the windows and imagining Anna as he had seen her the last time. ‘And the further it goes, the more I love her. Here’s the garden of Vrede’s government country house. Where is she? Where? How? Why did she arrange the meeting here and write it in Betsy’s letter?’ he wondered only now; but there was no more time for thinking. He stopped the coach before it reached the avenue, opened the door, jumped out while the carriage was still moving and walked into the avenue leading to the house. There was no one in the avenue; but looking to the right, he saw her. Her face was covered with a veil, but with joyful eyes he took in the special motion of her gait, peculiar to her alone, the curve of her shoulders, and the poise of her head, and immediately it was as if an electric current ran through his body. He felt his own self with new force, from the resilient movements of his legs to the movements of his lungs as he breathed, and something tickled his lips.

Coming up to him, she pressed his hand firmly.

‘You’re not angry that I sent for you? It was necessary for me to see you,’ she said; and the serious and stern set of her lips, which he could see behind the veil, immediately changed his state of mind.

‘I, angry! But how did you come, why here?’

‘Never mind,’ she said, putting her hand on his. ‘Come, we must talk.’

He understood that something had happened, that this meeting would not be joyful. In her presence he had no will of his own: not knowing the reason for her anxiety, he already felt that this same anxiety had involuntarily communicated itself to him.

‘What is it? What?’ he asked, pressing her arm with his elbow and trying to read her thoughts in her face.

She walked a few steps in silence, gathering her courage, and suddenly stopped.

‘I didn’t tell you yesterday,’ she began, breathing rapidly and heavily, ‘that on the way home with Alexei Alexandrovich I told him everything ... I said that I could not be his wife, that ... I told him everything.’

He listened to her, involuntarily leaning his whole body towards her, as if wishing in this way to soften the difficulty of her situation. But as soon as she had said it, he suddenly straightened up and his face acquired a proud and stern expression.

‘Yes, yes, it’s better, a thousand times better! I understand how difficult it was,’ he said.

But she was not listening to his words, she was reading his thoughts in the expression of his face. She could not have known that his expression reflected the first thought that occurred to him - that a duel was now inevitable. The thought of a duel had never entered