Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume V).djvu/283

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SMOKE

yet; why, she loves you as no one will ever love you! Leave this hateful Baden-Baden, let us go away together, only throw off this enchantment, and, above all, have pity, have pity ——'

'Aunt!' called Tatyana, with a shade of impatience in her voice.

But Kapitolina Markovna did not hear her.

'Only say "yes," ' she repeated to Litvinov; 'and I will still make everything smooth. . . . You need only nod your head to me, just one little nod like this.'

Litvinov would gladly, he felt, have died at that instant; but the word 'yes' he did not utter, and he did not nod his head.

Tatyana reappeared with a letter in her hand. Kapitolina Markovna at once darted away from Litvinov, and, averting her face, bent low over the table, as though she were looking over the bills and papers that lay on it.

Tatyana went up to Litvinov.

'Here,' she said, 'is the letter I spoke of. . . . You will go to the post at once with it, won't you?'

Litvinov raised his eyes. . . . Before him, really, stood his judge. Tatyana struck him as taller, slenderer; her face, shining with unwonted beauty, had the stony grandeur of a statue's; her bosom did not heave, and her gown, of one colour and straight as a Greek chiton, fell in the

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