Chapter 21 Part V 26-31

Twenty-six By the end of the summer, my position in the institution had improved: I was a "non-staff" person, but now I was a member of the establishment, and I got a new job that was most suitable for me: as a member of the Senate library. "Custody"—the various Zemstvo literature is piled up in the basement of the Council.This errand was suggested by Su Lima for me. The responsibility is to sort these books and periodicals, put them into storage (in a long vaulted room in the semi-basement, equipped with a sufficient number of bookshelves and bookcases), and then manage them. , Borrowing, for temporary use by agencies, sometimes to meet the needs of a certain department in a certain situation.I sorted them into categories, put them into the library, and started to manage them, waiting for others to borrow them.But I haven't borrowed a single copy, because people only come to borrow it before the autumn Zemstvo meeting, so I have only one administrative job left, which is to sit in this semi-basement.I like this room, it has unusually thick walls and vaults like a fortress, and it is so quiet that no sound can come in. You can see the roots of all the wild shrubs and weeds in the open space behind the office building.Since then, my life has become more free.I sit alone in this crypt all day long, reading and writing. If I want to, even if I don’t come to see each other for a week, I lock the low oak door and go away. I can go wherever I want.

I did not know why I went to Nikolaev, but I often visited only a village on the outskirts of the city, where two brothers, both followers of Tolstoy, moved here to live a religious life .There was a time when I went to a large Ukrainian village every Sunday night, near the first train station in the suburbs, and I didn’t take the train home until late at night... Why am I running around like this?She felt that, among other reasons, there was a secret purpose for which I was running about.My talk about the female doctor in Shishaki stimulated her much deeper than I had imagined.Since then her jealousy has grown stronger, and she tries to hide it, but not all the time.About two weeks after this conversation, contrary to her gentle and generous nature and girlish temperament, she suddenly, like the most common "housewife", found an excuse and heartily dismissed the Cossack maid who served us.

"I know very well," she said sullenly, "that you are unhappy, of course, and it would be nice for the 'filly' to have her hooves in the house as you say 'treading'. It Such pretty ankles, such bright slanted eyes! But you forgot, this little mare is so wild and capricious, my patience has a limit..." I said very frankly: "How can you be suspicious of me? I looked at your unparalleled hand and thought: For this hand I don't want all the beauties in the world! But I am a poet, an artist, and any art, according to What Goethe said was sentimental."

Twenty-seven One evening in August, I went to the village where the two Tolstoy disciples lived.It was still hot at this time, and it was a Saturday, so there were no people on the streets in the city.I passed a row of Jewish shops and stalls, all closed.Evening bells were ringing slowly, and the long shadows of gardens and houses were already reflected on the street, but the heat was still there.Late summer in southern cities is often the case.The sun was so hot every day that all the flowers and plants in the garden and the front garden were shriveled and scorched.The long summer has made everything in the urban area, grasslands, and melon gardens lifeless.

In the square, a tall little Russian girl, wearing a pair of spiked leather boots with bare feet, stood beside a well in the city, with the air of a goddess; she had dark brown eyes, and a small The typical open and chiseled forehead of Russian and Polish women.A street stretches from the square to the foot of the mountain, between the valleys.From a distance, the southern horizon and the faint grassland hills before sunset can be seen.I walked down this street, turned into a secluded alley in a middle-class residential area on the outskirts of the city, walked out of the alley to the head of the village, and climbed the mountain from there, and the grassland was on the other side of the mountain.Among the light blue or white mud houses at the head of the village and on the threshing floor, there are flails flickering in the air. These are the young men who are threshing. Rough yet catchy.Standing on the mountain and looking around, the entire grassland is a piece of golden dense wheat stubble, and the fine soil on the road is so thick, walking on it is like wearing a pair of plush boots. Everything around - the entire grassland, the entire space is surrounded by the West The sinking sun was shining brightly.On the left side of the road, on the cliff overlooking the valley, there is a hut with plaster peeling off the walls. This is the Zhuangzi where two Tolstoy disciples lived.I left the main road and walked along the stubble field to the Zhuangzi, but the Zhuangzi was empty, and there was no one inside or outside the house.I looked in through the wide open window and saw flies buzzing blackly on the walls and ceiling and around the kettle on the shelf.I looked again into the barn with the open gate, and saw a patch of dried dung reddened by the light of the setting sun.When I came to the melon field, I saw the younger brother's wife sitting on the ground.I walked up to her, but she didn't notice me or pretended not to notice, she sat slanted and motionless, looking petite and lonely; her bare feet were stretched out to one side, one hand rested on the ground, the other Hold a straw and put it in your mouth.

"Good evening," I said, walking up to her. "Why do you look unhappy?" "Hi, sit down, please," she replied, throwing away the stalks, smiling, and holding out a tanned hand to me. I sat down and took a look, she was a little girl looking at the melon garden!Her hair was sun-faded, she wore a countryman's shirt with a large collar, and her well-developed buttocks like a woman's were hidden in an old black cloth skirt.The two little bare feet were covered with dust, they were also tanned, and their skin was dry.So I thought, how can she step on the dung and all kinds of thorn grass with bare feet!Because she is from our class, people of our class never wear bare feet, so I am always embarrassed to see her feet, but I always want to see them.Sensing my gaze, she drew her foot back.

"Where has everyone in your family gone?" She smiled again. "Each way. Two holy brothers, one went to the village to help a poor widow thresh, and the other went to the city to deliver a letter to the Master. As usual, once a week, we reported all the sins we committed, the temptations we suffered, and the restraint of the flesh. .Besides, the usual 'tests' were reported: in Kharkov, Pavlovsky's 'brother' was arrested, of course for distributing leaflets against military service." "You must be in a bad mood." "It's annoying," she said, shaking her head and leaning back. "I can't take it any longer," she added in a low voice.

"Can't bear anything?" "Can't stand anything. Give me a cigarette." "cigarette?" "Yes, yes, smoke!" I handed her one and struck a match.She smoked it immediately, but not tactfully, taking intermittent puffs, exhaling the smoke from her mouth like a woman smokes, silently looking at the far valley.The sun was still setting on our shoulders and the long and heavy watermelons.The melon was right next to us, buried on one side in the dry soil, and the wilted vines wrapped around them like snakes...Suddenly, she threw the cigarette away, put her head on my lap and began to cry heartily.I comforted her, kissed her hair that smelled of sunshine; I hugged her shoulders tightly, looked at her bare feet, and then I suddenly understood why I came to the home of these two Tolstoy believers. .

And what about Nikolaev?Why go to Nikolayev?On the way, I wrote down a note like this: "We've just left Kremenzug, and it's already time to light the lights. At Kremenzug station, the platforms and commissary are full of people, everywhere is the sultriness of the south, the congestion of the south. The same is true in the carriages. Mostly The women of Little Russia, all young, tanned, lively, exhilarated by travel and the heat—they were going 'down there' to work. Their bodies and their rustic attire radiated a It was a strong smell, very touching; and they chattered like that, eating and drinking, showing off their sharp teeth and walnut eyes...

"There is a long bridge over the Dnieper River. The dazzling red sun shines through the window from the right. Under the bridge and in the distance is muddy yellow water. There are many women on the beach, bathing naked there, and they look like Very leisurely. One ran over after taking off his shirt, puffed out his chest and threw himself into the water clumsily, kicking hard with both feet... "It's been a long way across the Dnieper. The hills are bare of weeds and crops, covered with the shadows of evening. I don't know why I thought of the poor Vyatopolk, and it was on such an evening." , he rode up this valley with a small party—where was he going? and what was he thinking? It was thousands of years ago, and the land was still as beautiful. No, This is not Svyatopolk, but a rude peasant riding a sweaty horse in the shadows of the mountains. Behind him sits a woman with her hands tied behind her back, her hair disheveled, and knee, she gritted her teeth, and looked at the back of the farmer's head; the farmer was watching warily ahead...

————— ① From about 980 to 1019, the Grand Duke of Guros killed his brother in Neijiang, where he was fighting for power, so he got the nickname "abominable". "A wet moonlit night. Outside the window is a broad plain, dirty and muddy roads. The passengers in the carriages are all asleep, the lights are dim, and there is still a thick candle stub left in a dusty lamp. Fields Moisture blew in through the gaps in the lowered windows and mixed with the foul-smelling air in the cabin. There were a few little Russian women lying on their backs in sleep with their mouths wide open and their breasts under their shirts, stretched out. Stirring, fat hips in skirts... One just woke up and looked straight at me for a long time. Everyone fell asleep,—I almost felt as if she was going to call me in a mysterious whisper... ..." Not far from the railway station, there is a village in a wide flat valley, and I go there every Sunday.Once, I came to this station aimlessly, got off the train and walked towards the village. In the twilight, a small white house appeared in the garden ahead, and a black broken windmill appeared on the nearby pasture.A group of people gathered under the windmill. Behind the crowd, a violin played a fast-paced and exciting tune, and the dancers stomped their feet... Later, I stood in this group for several Sunday nights, listening to them sometimes Playing the piano, stomping feet, and sometimes singing in a chorus until late at night.I stopped next to a girl with yellow hair, high breasts, thick lips, and yellow eyes shining extremely brightly.While everyone was pushing and shoving, we immediately and secretly held hands with each other.We stood together, as if nothing had happened, trying not to look at each other.We knew in our hearts that if the lads found out that this was the purpose of a town boy's frequent presence under a windmill, I would be in for a lot of trouble.The first time we stood together by chance, then, as soon as I approached, she turned in the blink of an eye; whenever she felt me ​​near her, she took my fingers and Leave it on all night.The darker it got, the tighter she held her hand.And the shoulders leaned closer to me.It was late at night, when people started to disperse, she slipped behind the windmill unknowingly, and hid quickly; while I walked slowly along the main road to the station, and when there was no one left under the windmill, I Just run back with your back bent.We did this tacitly, silent when we stood under the windmill, and silent while we tortured each other happily.She accompanied me once.Half an hour away from the train station, the station was pitch black, and there was no sound, except for the comforting murmur of crickets; in the distance, the rising moon over the dark garden of the village was blood red.On the spur was a van with its doors open.Involuntarily I pulled her into the carriage, and I felt terrible doing so.I climbed in, and she jumped in after me, wrapping her arms around my neck tightly.But when we struck a match to see what was inside, I took a step back in horror: the match illuminated a thin coffin lying in the middle of the carriage.She jumped out like a goat, and I followed her... Under the carriage she lay on the ground one after another, gasping for breath with laughter, kissing me frantically, as for me, don't expect to be able to leave open.I never went to this village again after that. Twenty-eight In autumn we passed that festive period: at the end of each year there is a congress of Zemstvo councilors from all provinces in town.Winter has passed like a festival for us: the Little Russian Theater headed by Zenkovitskaya and Saksavsky came to tour, and there were famous actors in the capital Chernov, Yakovlev Concerts with Muravina, and quite a few dance evenings with and without makeup, as well as family evenings.After the Zemstvo meeting, I visited Tolstoy in Moscow.After I came back, I especially forgot about the sinful temptations of the world.These temptations, outwardly, change our lives dramatically: we don't seem to spend a single evening at home.Our relationship also imperceptibly deteriorated. "You're another person again," she said one day. "Totally a man, with a French beard for some reason." "You don't like it?" "No, why don't you like it? I just want to say that everything is going to change!" "Yes, you have become like a young woman, you have become thinner and more beautiful." "You're jealous of me again. I'm afraid to be honest with you." "what?" "I want to wear an outfit to the next masquerade ball. Anything cheap and plain. A black mask and something black and light and long..." "What are you going to disguise yourself as?" "night." "So the Orel period stuff is starting again? Night! That's pretty vulgar." "I don't see anything from the Orel period here, nothing vulgar," she replied dryly and self-contained.In this indifference and independence of spirit, I really felt something of the past with horror. "You're just jealous of me again." "Why am I jealous again?" "I have no idea." "No, you know, because you're alienating me again and trying to please men and win them over." She smiled maliciously and said: "You are not qualified to say that. It is you who have not been away from Cherkasova all winter." My face flushed. "I haven't left! But she followed me wherever I was with you. Is it my fault? What hurts me most is that you are always a little uncomfortable with me, as if you have something on your mind to keep from me. You Let's be straightforward, what's on your mind? What's in your heart?" "What am I hiding?" she replied. "Sad, I am sad that our old love is gone. But why say..." She was silent for a while and added: "Since you're not happy, I'm going to refuse to go to the masquerade. It's just that you are too harsh on me, and you call my every wish vulgar. You deprive me of all freedom, and you do everything yourself. ..." In spring and summer, I went out to roam many times.I met Cherkasova again in early autumn (there was really nothing between me and her before that) and learned that she was moving to Kyiv. "My dear friend, I want to say goodbye to you forever," she said, looking at me with eagle eyes. "My husband is getting impatient. Will you take me to Kremenchug? Of course, in complete secrecy." .I'm going to spend the night there, waiting for the boat..." Twenty-nine This happened in November.I have still seen and felt the dead, gloomy life of that remote little Russian city, with its deserted streets, its narrow boardwalks, its black gardens surrounded by hedges, its avenues of tall bare poplars, its empty city halls. The park, with a summer restaurant with its windows smashed, the humid air of the season, the smell of rotting leaves in a cemetery, I wander expressionlessly and aimlessly along these streets, gardens, my same thoughts and memories ...Memories are painful.Something so frightening that it even requires a special prayer to get rid of it. In a moment of great misfortune, her hidden pain, which she occasionally confides in, drove her mad.Brother Georgi came back from get off work a little late that day, and I came back even later (she knew that our organization was preparing for the annual meeting of the Zemstvo and would come back later).She was alone at home, not going out for several days (as she always did a few days a month), and, as usual, at such times she always looked strange.She must have been curled up according to her own habits, half lying on the sofa in our bedroom for a long time, smoking a lot of cigarettes (she started smoking at some time, and I have repeatedly asked and even asked her to get rid of this extremely offensive Appropriate hobby, but she never listens), perhaps, she was still staring blankly at something in front of her, then suddenly stood up, and wrote me a few lines on a small piece of paper without changing a word (this is My brother found it on the dresser in this empty bedroom when he came back), and then hurriedly packed some of his things, and threw the rest away.I didn't have the courage to pick up these things that were thrown around for a long time, and I kept them somewhere.She had already gone away at night, on the way back to her father's house... Why didn't I chase her at that time?Maybe it's out of guilt, maybe it's because it's clear to me now that she can be stubborn at times.I sent many telegrams and wrote many letters, but in the end I only received two replies: "My daughter is gone, and you must not tell anyone where she is." God knows what would have happened to me if my brother hadn't been with me at the time (although he himself was helpless and dazed).My brother didn't give me the short Utiao that stated the reason for her departure, but he wanted me to prepare myself in advance - he was very clumsy in doing so.Finally he made up his mind and handed the note to me with tears in his eyes.On the little piece of paper she wrote with firm strokes. "I can't watch you go further and further away from me, I can't bear your endless insults to my love, I can't let it die in my heart, and I can't understand: the humiliation I have suffered At the limit, all my foolish hopes and dreams are shattered. May God give you the strength to endure our parting, forget me, and find happiness in your new life of complete freedom..." I breathed After reading Ujo, I felt that the ground under my feet was sinking, my face and scalp were getting cold and tightening, but I suddenly said a rather shameless sentence: "What's the matter? It should have been expected a long time ago, this kind of 'disruption' is very common!" After that, I actually had the courage to go into the bedroom and lie on the sofa bed with a cold and unfeeling demeanor.At dusk, my brother tiptoed into me, and I pretended to be asleep.He was very much like our father in that he was terrified and unable to bear any misfortune.In his haste, he quickly believed that I was really asleep, and while he still had to attend the Senate meeting that night, he quietly put on his clothes and left... Now that I think about it, the only reason I didn't shoot myself that night was because I have made up my mind that I will kill myself either today or tomorrow.The milky moonlight from the garden outside the window was illuminating my room, and I went into the dining room, lit the lamp, drank a glass of vodka by the cupboard, then another... I went out into the street.The street was silent, warm and damp, and everything around—the empty parks and the avenues among the poplars was filled with a thick white mist, which mingled with the moonlight, and the scene was terrible... But going home was even more difficult. Terrible: To light a candle in the bedroom and see in the dim light these socks, shoes, summer fashion and that flowered pajamas that are still thrown everywhere and she is wrapped in this pajamas that I used to put my arms around before going to bed , Kiss her eyelids that are stretched out to me, and feel her warm breath.Only being with her, crying in front of her, could free me from this fear, but she was gone. The next night, the deathly silence of the bedroom was still lit with a faint candle.Outside the dark window is the vast night, and the drizzle of late autumn is gradually falling.I lay in bed and stared at the corner in front of me, where hung an old icon to which she always prayed before going to sleep.The icon was old, as if it were a cast-slab, with a cinnabar-faced front, and a statue of the Madonna clad in gold on a brightly painted red ground.The Virgin Mary is serious and sad, and her big, black eyes protrude from the black sockets, which is creepy!The Madonna and her, this icon and all the women's things she left behind in her frantic flight, jumbled together in my mind in a way that was blasphemous even if it seemed horrible. Then a week, two weeks, a month passed.I have long since resigned from my post and do not appear in crowds.I suppressed memory after memory, and survived day after day, night after night.I don't know why I always feel that this is like some Slavic peasants who used to "slender" a big ship full of heavy cargo somewhere, on a potholed boulevard. thirty Whether at home or in the city, she seemed to be everywhere, and I was tortured by this hallucination for about a month.At last I felt that I could no longer bear this pain, and I resolved to go to Baturino to live for a while, and to ignore the future for the time being. After a hasty hug for the last time with my brother, I walked into the moving train car with a very strange feeling.When I entered the carriage, I said to myself: Hey, I am as free as a bird again!It was a dark winter night without snow, and the carriage rumbled and rattled in the dry air.I sat in a corner by the door with a small suitcase, recalling a Polish proverb I loved to repeat in front of her: "Man lives for happiness, bird lives for flight".I kept staring out of the rumble-blackened car windows, keeping my tears from being seen.This night the train was going to Kharkov... The night two years ago was from Kharkov: it was a spring dawn, and she was still sleeping soundly in the gradually brightening compartment... in the dim light Next, I sat nervously in the stuffy and crowded carriage, looking forward to the dawn, to people walking around, to a cup of hot coffee at the Kharkov station... Later, when I arrived in Kursk, it also aroused my memory: a spring noon.I ate at the station with her, and she looked very happy, saying: "It's the first time in my life that I ate at the station!" It was a gray and cold day, it was almost dusk, and our train was too long and very long. Ordinary passenger cars stopped in front of the station: the third-class carriages on the Kursk-Kharkov-Azov railway line were huge and heavy, like an endless wall.I got out of the car and looked around, and there was a dark front of the car in the distance ahead, almost invisible.Some jumped off the steps with teapots and hurried to the station canteen to turn on the water—they were all equally repulsive.Several of my neighbors got out of the car: a businessman, dispirited by his own obesity, indifferent to everything; Makes me gag all day.He always casts suspicious glances at me... I also attract his attention all day long: he will say, why is this man always sitting there silent, whether it is a young master or someone else!But he reminded me kindly, talking like a cannonball: "Attention, roast goose is always sold here, it's extremely cheap!" I stopped, thinking about the commissary, I can't go.Because there was a table where she and I used to sit.Although the snow has not yet fallen in this place, the air is already filled with the breath of the harsh Russian winter.What a grave awaits me at Baturino!The parents are old, the unfortunate sister has lost her beauty, the neglected manor, the dilapidated house.In the ruined garden, only the cold wind howls there, and the barking of dogs in winter is extraordinarily redundant and sad in this cold wind... The tail of the train is so long that it can't be seen.Opposite, the railing of the platform stands a row of poplar trees, as bare as a broom.On the frozen cobblestone sidewalk behind the poplar trees, there are several cabs waiting for business. Looking at this scene, the depression and loneliness in Kursk can be self-evident.On the platform, a group of village women stood under the poplar tree. They were all tightly wrapped up in scarves tied around their waists. Their faces were blue from the cold. Roasted geese at home—fat, stiff, and pimple-like.The people who filled the water ran back from the station to the warm compartment. Although they felt cold, they were quite happy. While running, they happily bargained with the village wives... Finally, the locomotive roared in the distance Wake up, it's eerie and scary, it threatens me that there is still a long way to go... What makes me most helpless is that I don't know where she is hiding. If it weren't for this, I would have disregarded any shame, no matter where I went, no matter what price I paid , but also chase her to the sun.Her reckless action was undoubtedly a momentary impulse, and it was only shame that prevented her from regretting it. I went back to my father's house again, it was not the same as it was three years ago.Now I see everything through different eyes.Baturino is worse than I imagined on the road: the wooden houses in the village are dilapidated, the shaggy dogs and the ice-covered water truck parked in front of the door remind people of the barbaric era, and the threshold is frozen with the mud , as hard as iron, the driveway leading to my manor is also covered with this kind of mud, like a hump, the empty yard faces the gloomy house, and the windows are also sad and unseemly high The heavy, heavy roof was built in the time of great-grandfather and grandfather. There are two dark steps with eaves, and the wood has turned gray with age.Everything is old, it seems abandoned, useless, and even this useless wind presses down on the top of an ancestral fir tree that rises above the roof in a garden that is desolate in winter... I found home His life became poorer: the stove was cracked, only a little mud was spread, and the farmer's horse clothes were spread on the floor for warmth... Only the father tried to keep the same, as if to resist all these changes: he became thin and thin , lost weight, and grayed his beard and hair, but even now he often clean-shaven, combed his hair, and dressed less casually than in the past.It's sad to be trying to put on a face in spite of old age and poverty.He appeared more spirited and cheerful than all (obviously for me, for my humiliation and misfortune).One day, he held a cigarette with his trembling, withered hands, looked at me melancholy and tenderly, and said: "Come, my friend, there is a grain of truth to everything, whether it be the anxieties, sorrows, or joys of youth, or the peace and tranquility of old age . 'Pleasures of peace' Ha, that's bullshit; In this humble hut, We shun the seclusion of the world, Breathe the free air of the fields, Enjoying the joys of peace..." When I think of my father, I always regret that I didn't respect and love him enough, and I often feel guilty that I knew so little about his life, especially his youth.When I can understand, it rarely occurs to me to do so!Now I try my best, but I can't fully figure out what kind of person he is.He is a man of a special age and a special family, a strange man, easy to get along with people, endowed with many talents, but somehow he failed to achieve anything, which is really incredible; Xiao Chang is subtle; his character is a rare combination: frank and straightforward but hidden, simple on the outside but complex on the inside, cold and sharp eyes and chic and romantic.I was twenty that winter, and he was sixty.It's hard to believe that I was already twenty years old, but anyway, I was in the prime of my life!And his life is over.But that winter, no one understood my inner activities as well as he did. Probably no one was as aware of the contradiction between grief and youthful vitality in my heart as he was.One day we were sitting in his study.It was a quiet sunny day, the yard was covered with snow, and the snow light came in from the low study window.This is a warm, tobacco-smelling, neglected study, which I have found very lovely since I was a child; Inseparable, inseparable from all my recollections of his early life, and my own, that after he had spoken on "The Pleasures of Peace," he put down his cigarette, took an old guitar from the wall, and began to play his beloved Folk tunes come.At this moment his eyes become firm and happy, and at the same time, there seems to be some secret hidden in his heart; he should hum to the light and happy beat of the guitar, which is telling with a sad smile the preciousness that has been lost Something that tells that life is going to end anyway, and it's not worth crying about. Not long after I got back to Baturino, I couldn't bear it any longer.One day I got up suddenly and without thinking, I ran into the city.But I got nothing, and returned that day, because the doctor's family had literally turned me away.When the little sled reached the familiar gate which now terrified me, I jumped down desperately in despair, and looked with horror at the half-curtained window of the dining-room where we had been sitting on the divan. Many hours were spent in the sky--those autumn days, when we first fell in love!I rang the doorbell... the door opened, unexpectedly I was face to face with her brother, his face turned pale, and he said to me word by word: "My father doesn't want to see you. She, you know she's not there." This is the middle school student who ran up and down the stairs frantically with the little yellow dog gyro that autumn.Standing in front of me now is a gloomy, dark-skinned young man, wearing a white officer-style shirt with a slanted collar, high leather boots, a small black mustache just protruding from his upper lip, and a pair of small black eyes with stubborn eyes. And the fierce light, because of the dark skin, the pale face glowed green. "Please go." He added softly, his heart beating violently under his cross-collared shirt. I still stubbornly waited for her letter every day throughout the winter. I would not believe that she had a heart of stone. thirty-one In the spring of that year, I learned that she had pneumonia and returned home, and died a week later.I also learned that one of her last wishes was to keep her death hidden from me for as long as possible. I still have a notebook with a brown sheepskin surface, which she bought as a gift from her first month's salary. This day may be the most touching day in her life.On the title page of the notebook, you can also read a few words of gift she wrote to me. Due to excitement, haste, and shyness, there are two mistakes... I dreamed of her not long ago, the only time in my long life after losing her.In the dream, she was as old as we were when we lived together and spent our youth together, but her face showed that her beauty had faded.She was thin and dressed in what looked like mourning.I saw her only dimly, and yet I was filled with such intense love and joy, and felt such closeness, physical and spiritual, as I had never known in anyone else. 1927-1929, 1933 Maritime Alps