She quickly closed the window, and I thought I saw her embrace the old German. Gaguine offered me the flower in silence. Without saying a word I put it in my pocket, and returning to the place where they cross the river, I passed over to the other side. I recollect walking towards my house with a singularly sad heart, though thinking of nothing, when a perfume well known to me, but rare enough in Germany, attracted my attention. I stopped, and saw near the road a plot of ground sown with hemp. The perfume that this plant of the steppes gave out suddenly transported me to Russia, and brought forth in my soul a passionate enthusiasm towards my country; I conceived the ardent desire of breathing my native air, and feeling again under my feet the soil of my fatherland. "What am I doing here?" I exclaimed; "What interest have I in wandering in a strange land, among people who are nothing to me?" and the oppression that filled my heart soon gave way to an emotion violent and full of bitterness. I re-entered my house in a state of mind the opposite to that of the night before; I felt almost vexed, and was long in calming myself. I felt a deep vexation, for which I could not account. I ended by sitting down, and recalling my faithless widow (she came to my recollection officially every evening); I took one of her letters, but did not open it, for my thoughts took wing to the other side of the river. I began to dream, and Annouchka was the subject. I recalled that in the course of our conversation; Gaguine gave me to understand that certain circumstances prevented him from returning to Russia.--"Who knows, indeed, if she is his sister," I asked myself aloud. I laid down and tried to sleep, but an hour after I was still leaning on my elbow, and thinking again of that capricious little girl with a forced laugh. She has the figure of _La Galathée_ of Raphael of the Farnese palace, I murmured.--It is well that--and she is not his sister. During this time the widow's letter reposed quietly upon the floor, lighted up by a pale ray of the moon. V.