How very dear and near this is to people who have lived through the fantom of happiness. She, Xenia Pavlovna, had once been just such a sweet girl, with a thick, golden braid hanging down her back; she had been just as happy and carefree, and sang just as sweetly to the stars and the silent garden flooded with the mysterious, sad moonlight, and she also, just as this maiden, had trembled with fear and pleaded with the man she loved for mercy. “Ha! ha! ha! ha!” rolled the thundering laugh of Mephistopheles--such pitiless, powerful, and provoking laughter--and the chord, which echoed in Xenia Pavlovna’s heart with inexpressible tenderness and sadness, broke and grew silent, leaving room only for this laughter, oppressive and revolting in its triumphant triviality and truth. And reality suddenly broke into the realm of dreams and fancies. Xenia Pavlovna lowered her eyes, compressed her lips, and a smile passed over her face, the strange smile of a person who has been caught unawares. “He laughs first rate!” remarked Iván Mikhailovich in an earnest voice, slightly moving in his chair. Xenia Pavlovna looked at her husband and sighed sorrowfully. She had already resigned herself to Iván Mikhailovich, to his pompous solemnity, and his hands crossed over his paunch. Those hands no longer awakened her ire. Once this very same man who now sat by her side was _her_ Faust, and with him was closely bound up her love-drama. Even if it had been a mirage, a mistake, it was the mistake of her whole life, a mistake which would never be repeated--like youth itself. The curtain came down. The noise of applause, resembling a rainstorm, and the wild roar of the over-enthusiastic gallery filled the theatre from top to bottom. The curtain rose once more on the sea and the ruins, and Faust, Marguerite, and Mephistopheles appeared holding each other’s hands, bowing and smiling to the public, and Xenia Pavlovna felt as if she had been suddenly awakened from a sleep full of tender, delicious dreams, vague and enchanting, but already forgotten, and she felt vexed because she was awakened, and was now possessed by a tormenting longing to recall and bring back the frightened-off dreams. She did not want to look at Marguerite, who had suddenly turned into an actress, thirsting for hand-clapping and making eyes at that huge monster--the public; at Mephistopheles, who stood with his right hand pressed to his breast as a token of gratitude and sincere pleasure, nor at Faust, who suddenly looked very much like a hair-dresser, and who was sending in all directions sweetish, airy kisses. “Come, Vania!” Iván Mikhailovich rose and offered her his arm, and they once more repaired to the lobby. Here he treated her to tea and fruits. “It is splendid for allaying thirst!” he said, handing her an orange. And from this moment all animosity was forgotten, and peace reigned once more between them. “Not sour, I hope?” “No, it is very good.”