He held her close to him, and said nothing. There
was no need for him to tell her he loved her.
From that cry alone, from the instant transformation
of the whole man, from the heaving of the breast to
which she clung so confidingly, from the touch of his
finger tips in her hair, Elena could feel that she
was loved. He did not speak, and she needed no
words. ‘He is here, he loves me . . . what
need of more?’ The peace of perfect bliss, the
peace of the harbour reached after storm, of the end
attained, that heavenly peace which gives significance
and beauty even to death, filled her with its divine
flood. She desired nothing, for she had gained
all. ’O my brother, my friend, my dear
one!’ her lips were whispering, while she did
not know whose was this heart, his or her own, which
beat so blissfully, and melted against her bosom.
He stood motionless, folding in his strong embrace
the young life surrendered to him; he felt against
his heart this new, infinitely precious burden; a
passion of tenderness, of gratitude unutterable, was
crumbling his hard will to dust, and tears unknown
till now stood in his eyes.
She did not weep; she could only repeat, ‘O
my friend, my brother!’
‘So you will follow me everywhere?’ he
said to her, a quarter of an hour later, still enfolding
her and keeping her close to him in his arms.
‘Everywhere, to the ends of the earth.
Where you are, I will be.’
’And you are not deceiving yourself, you know
your parents will never consent to our marriage?’
‘I don’t deceive myself; I know that.’
‘You know that I’m poor—almost
a beggar.’
‘I know.’
’That I’m not a Russian, that it won’t
be my fate to live in Russia, that you will have to
break all your ties with your country, with your people.’
‘I know, I know.’
’Do you know, too, that I have given myself
up to a difficult, thankless cause, that I ... that
we shall have to expose ourselves not to dangers only,
but to privation, humiliation, perhaps——’
‘I know, I know all—I love you——’
’That you will have to give up all you are accustomed
to, that out there alone among strangers, you will
be forced perhaps to work——’
She laid her hand on his lips. ‘I love
you, my dear one.’
He began hotly kissing her slender, rosy hand.
Elena did not draw it away from his lips, and with
a kind of childish delight, with smiling curiosity,
watched how he covered with kisses, first the palm,
then the fingers. . . .
All at once she blushed and hid her face upon his
breast.
He lifted her head tenderly and looked steadily into
her eyes.
‘Welcome, then, my wife, before God and men!’
