"Varvara Andreevna, when I was very young, I set before myself

the ideal of the woman I loved and should be happy to call my

wife. I have lived through a long life, and now for the first

time I have met what I sought--in you. I love you, and offer you

my hand."

Sergey Ivanovitch was saying this to himself while he was ten

paces from Varvara. Kneeling down, with her hands over the

mushrooms to guard them from Grisha, she was calling little

Masha.

"Come here, little ones! There are so many!" she was saying in

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her sweet, deep voice.

Seeing Sergey Ivanovitch approaching, she did not get up and did

not change her position, but everything told him that she felt

his presence and was glad of it.

"Well, did you find some?" she asked from under the white

kerchief, turning her handsome, gently smiling face to him.

"Not one," said Sergey Ivanovitch. "Did you?"

She did not answer, busy with the children who thronged about

her.

"That one too, near the twig," she pointed out to little Masha a

little fungus, split in half across its rosy cap by the dry grass

from under which it thrust itself. Varenka got up while Masha

picked the fungus, breaking it into two white halves. "This

brings back my childhood," she added, moving apart from the

children beside Sergey Ivanovitch.

They walked on for some steps in silence. Varenka saw that he

wanted to speak; she guessed of what, and felt faint with joy and

panic. They had walked so far away that no one could hear them

now, but still he did not begin to speak. It would have been

better for Varenka to be silent. After a silence it would have

been easier for them to say what they wanted to say than after

talking about mushrooms. But against her own will, as it were

accidentally, Varenka said: "So you found nothing? In the middle of the wood there are

always fewer, though." Sergey Ivanovitch sighed and made no

answer. He was annoyed that she had spoken about the mushrooms.

He wanted to bring her back to the first words she had uttered

about her childhood; but after a pause of some length, as though

against his own will, he made an observation in response to her

last words.

"I have heard that the white edible funguses are found

principally at the edge of the wood, though I can't tell them

apart."

Some minutes more passed, they moved still further away from the

children, and were quite alone. Varenka's heart throbbed so that

she heard it beating, and felt that she was turning red and pale

and red again.




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