The wood, the wisps of mist and the dark ditches on either side of the track seemed to be hushed listening to her, but in Ognyov's hean something strange and disagreeable was taking place . . . Vera was enchantingly pretry as she declared her love, she spoke beautifully and passionately, but instead of the pleasure and joy at being alive that he would have liked to feel, he felt only sympathy for her, pain and regret that a good person should be suffering on his account. Whether he was prompted in this by abstract reason, or by that incurable habit of being objective which so often prevents people from really living, Heaven alone knows, but the fact remained that Vera's raptures and suffering seemed to him cloying, not to be taken seriously; yet at the same time feeling rebelled within him and whispered that so far as nature and personal happiness were con- cerned, everything that he was seeing and hearing now was more serious than all his statistics, books and half-truths put together . . . And he felt angry and reproached himself, though with what he did not exactly know.
To crown his embarrassment, he had absolutely no idea what to say, and to say something was essential. It was not within his power to say straight out 'I do not love you', and he could not say 'Yes', because, search as he might, he could find not the faintest glimmer . . .
He remained silent, and in the mean time she was saying that for her there was no greater happiness than to see him, to follow him, straight away if he liked, wherever he wished, to be his wife and helper, and that if he were to leave her, she would die of despair . . .
' I can't go on living here,' she said, wringing her hands. 'I'm sick of the house, this wood, the very air. I can't stand this perpetual calm, this aimless life, I can't stand the people here, they're all so colourless and insipid, you can't tell one from the other. They're all sincere and well-meaning, but that's because they're satisfied, they've nothing to suffer or struggle for ... I want to go to those great big damp houses ofyours, where people are suffering and ground down by hard work and privation .. .'
This too struck Ognyov as cloying and not really serious. When Vera had finished, he still had no idea what to say, but since he could not say nothing, he began mumbling:
'Vera Gavrilovna, I'm very grateful to you, although I feel I've done nothing to deserve this - this feeling - on your pan. Secondly, as an honest man, I am bound to say that . .. that happiness is based on reciprocity, that is, when both parties . .. love equally . . .'
But Ognyov was immediately ashamed of his mumbling and fell silent. He felt that the expression on his face as he said these things was stupid, lifeless and apologetic, that it was false and strained . . . Vera must have been able to read in his face the truth, because she suddenly became serious, turned pale and bowed her head.
'You must forgive me,' Ognyov mumbled, unable to endure the silence any longer. 'I have so much respect for you, that . . . this is painful for me!'
Vera turned on her heel and walked rapidly towards the estate. Ognyov followed her.
'No, don't bother!' said Vera, waving him away with her hand. 'There's no need, I can go by myself .. .'
'Yes, but even so ... I can't not sec you back.'
Every single word he spoke struck Ognyov as trite and nauseating. His feeling of guilt increased with each step. He fumed, clenched his fists and cursed his coldness and ineptitude with women. In an attempt to rouse his feelings, he looked at Verochka's attractive figure, her plait and the prints left by her small feet on the dusty track, he relivcd her words and tears, but all this he found no more than touching; it did not inflame his soul.
'But one can't make oneself fall in love!' he told himself, and at the same time thought: 'And when am I going to fall in love without making myself? I'm nearly thirty! I've never met anyone better than Vera and I never will . . . Oh, damned old age! To be too old at thirty!'
Ahead of him Vera was walking faster and faster, not looking round and with head bowed. She seemed to him in her grief to have become thinner, narrower in the shoulders . ..
'I can just imagine what's going on inside her now,' he thought, looking at her back. 'She must feel so ashamed and miserable she wishes she were dead. Heavens, there's enough life and poetry and meaning in all this to melt a stone, but I'm - I'm just stupid and ridiculous!'
At the gate Vera glanced back at him for a moment, pulled the shawl more tightly round her hunched shoulders, and hurried along the path.
Ivan Alekseich was left alone. He walked slowly back to the wood, pausing continually to look back at the gate, and his whole bearing seemed to express incredulity at what he had done. His eyes scanned the track for Vera's footprints, and he could not believe that a girl whom he liked so much had just declared her love to him, and he had so crudely and clumsily 'turned her down'! For the first time in his life he had learned from experience howlittlea man'sactions depend on his good will, and had found himself in the position of a decent, sincere man, who against his will has caused cruel and unwarranted suffering to his neighbour.
His conscience worried him, and when Vera had disappeared from sight he began to feel that he had lost something very close and precious that he would never recover. He felt that with Vera part of his youth had slipped away, and that the minutes which he had just lived through so fruitlessly would never be repeated.
On reaching the little bridge, he paused and reflected. He wanted to discover the reason for his strange coldness. It was clear that it did not lie outside himself, but within. He frankly admitted that it was not the rational kind of coldness that clever people often boast of having, or the coldness of the foolish egoist, but simply an impotence of the soul, an inability to respond deeply to beauty, and the prema- ture onset of old age due to his upbringing, his desperate struggle to earn a living and his bachelor existence in furnished rooms.
From the bridge he walked slowly, as if reluctantly, into the wood. Here, where the occasional sharp outlines of patches of moonlight showed through the thick black darkness, and he was conscious of nothing except his own thoughts, he felt a passionate longing to regain what he had lost.
And Ivan Alekseich remembers how he turned back. Spurring himself on with memories, forcing himself to conjure up Vera's image, he strode quickly towards the garden. The track and garden were both free of mist now, the bright, high moon looked down as if newly washed, but in the east it was still misty and overcast . . . Ognyov remembers his cautious footsteps, the dark windows and the heavy scent of heliotrope and mignonette. The familiar Caro, wagging his tail in friendlygreeting, came up and sniffed his hand . . . He was the only living creature who saw Ognyov walk twice round the house, stand for a while beneath Vera's darkened window, then give up and leave the garden with a deep sigh.
An hour later he was already in the town. Weary and dejected, he leaned his body and burning face against the gates of the inn, and banged on the knocker. Somewhere in the town a dog woke up and barked, and as if in answer to Ognyov's knock, someone struck the piece of iron hanging by the church . . .