‘Better not think now, really,’ Litvinov repeated, as he strode along the street, feeling that the inward riot was rising up again in him. ‘The thing’s decided. She will keep her promise, and it only remains for me to take all necessary steps.... Yet she hesitates, it seems.’... He shook his head. His own designs struck even his own imagination in a strange light; there was a smack of artificiality, of unreality about them. One cannot dwell long upon the same thoughts; they gradually shift like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope ... one peeps in, and already the shapes before one’s eyes are utterly different. A sensation of intense weariness overcame Litvinov.... If he could for one short hour but rest!... But Tanya? He started, and, without reflecting even, turned submissively homewards, merely struck by the idea, that this day was tossing him like a ball from one to the other.... No matter; he must make an end. He went back to his hotel, and with the same submissiveness, insensibility, numbness, without hesitation or delay, he went to see Tatyana. He was met by Kapitolina Markovna. From the first glance at her, he knew that she knew about it all; the poor maiden lady’s eyes were swollen with weeping, and her flushed face, fringed with her dishevelled white locks, expressed dismay and an agony of indignation, sorrow, and boundless amazement. She was on the point of rushing up to Litvinov, but she stopped short, and, biting her quivering lip, she looked at him as though she would supplicate him, and kill him, and assure herself that it was a dream, a senseless, impossible thing, wasn’t it? ‘Here you ... you are come,’ she began.... The door from the next room opened instantaneously, and with a light tread Tatyana came in; she was of a transparent pallor, but she was quite calm. She gently put one arm round her aunt and made her sit down beside her. ‘You sit down too, Grigory Mihalitch,’ she said to Litvinov, who was standing like one distraught at the door. ‘I am very glad to see you once more. I have informed auntie of your decision, our common decision; she fully shares it and approves of it.... Without mutual love there can be no happiness, mutual esteem alone is not enough’ (at the word ‘esteem’ Litvinov involuntarily looked down) ‘and better to separate now, than to repent later. Isn’t it, aunt?’ ‘Yes, of course,’ began Kapitolina Markovna, ‘of course, Tanya darling, the man who does not know how to appreciate you ... who could bring himself----’ ‘Aunt, aunt,’ Tatyana interrupted, ‘remember what you promised me. You always told me yourself: truth, Tatyana, truth before everything--and independence. Well, truth’s not always sweet, nor independence either; or else where would be the virtue of it?’ She kissed Kapitolina Markovna on her white hair, and turning to Litvinov, she went on: ‘We propose, aunt and I, leaving Baden.... I think it will be more comfortable so for all of us.’