Book Description

ON THE SCREEN a scene at Kursk station in Moscow. A bright April day of 1902. A group of friends, who came to see Zinaida Krutitsky and her mother off to the Crimea, stand on the platform by the sleeping-car. Among them Ivan Osokin, a young man about twentysix. Osokin is visibly agitated although he tries not to show it. Zinaida is talking to her brother, Michail, Osokin’s friend, a young officer in the uniform of one of the Moscow Grenadier regiments, and two girls. Then she turns to Osokin and walks aside with him. “I am going to miss you very much,” she says. “It’s a pity you cannot come with us. Though it seems to me that you don’t particularly want to, otherwise you would come. You don’t want to do anything for me. Your staying behind now makes all our talks ridiculous and futile. But I am tired of arguing with you. You must do as you like.” Ivan Osokin becomes more and more troubled, but he tries to control himself and says with an effort: “I can’t come at present, but I shall come later, I promise you. You cannot imagine how hard it is for me to stay here.” “No, I cannot imagine it and I don’t believe it,” says Zinaida quickly. “When a man wants anything as strongly as you say you do, he acts. I am sure you are in love with one of your pupils here—some nice, poetical girl who studies fencing. Confess!” She laughs. Zinaida’s words and tone hurt Osokin very deeply. He begins to speak but stops himself, then says: “You know that is not true; you know I am all yours.” “How am I to know?” says Zinaida with a surprised air. “You are always busy. You always refuse to come and see us. You never have any time for me, and now I should so much like you to come with us.