The widow did not hear of Gustav's death immediately; Yosef concealed it, fearing too violent an impression. Later he was astonished to find that she received the news with sadness, it is true, but with no sign of despair. We have much to tell of those new relations; in the succeeding part we shall pass to them directly. CHAPTER VII Yosef, according to his promise given Gustav, visited Helena, and after the second visit went away in love. He returned late at night. The stars were twinkling on a serene sky; from the Dnieper came the cool, but bracing breath of water. Light streaks of mist wound in a long line on the east. There was music in the air and music in Yosef's breast. He was in love! It seemed to him that the serene night had visited his betrothal with happiness. Full happiness is both a remembrance and a hope. Yosef felt yet in his palms the small hands of Helena; he remembered that moment, thought of the tenderness of the morrow, looked forward to that moment. A wonderful thing! She took farewell of him with the word, "Remember;" but who could forget happiness, especially when the future is smiling with it? He loved! Pressed by the power and the charm of the night, the trembling of the stars and the majesty of dark expanses, he cast a look full of fire to the remotest borders of heavenly loneliness, and whispered with quivering lips,-- "If Thou exist! Thou art great and good." Notwithstanding the condition set up before this statement, that for Yosef was very much. He recognized greatness and goodness. He said, "If Thou art." If those words had been spoken about some being, they would be conditional; spoken to some being they were an affirmation of existence: "Thou art." In spite of all his realism let us not wonder so much at these words. The lips which pronounced them had drunk freshly from the cup of ecstasy. When Yosef reached home, Augustinovich was sleeping in the best fashion possible; his snoring was heard even on the stairway. He drew out the song of slumber, now short, now long, now lower, now higher, now puffing, now blowing, now whistling. Yosef roused him. He determined finally to embrace him. Augustinovich stared at him with astonished eyes, and at the first moment cried,-- "Go to the--" Yosef laughed joyously. "Good-night!" said Augustinovich. "I will tell thee to-morrow where thou art coming from--now I wish to sleep--good-night." The next day was Sunday. In the morning Yosef poured the tea; Augustinovich, lying in bed yet, and looking at the ceiling, was smoking a pipe. Both were thinking of the day previous. Finally Augustinovich was the first to speak,-- "Dost thou know what has come to my head?" "No." "Then I will tell thee. I will tell thee that it is not worth while to attach one's life to the first woman that comes along; as I wish well to Jove, it is not! There are better things in this world." "Whence did those ideas come to thee?"