Elena, blushing for some unknown reason, moved silently closer--and there was a strange timorousness in her movement--a timorous desire. Piotr complied with her wish, and sat down at her side. She looked at him tenderly, lovingly. Her glances touched him. He thought: “Why do I not love Elena? Or is it she alone that I really love? Perhaps some mistake of the will had dimmed my eyes?” He conversed with her gently and tenderly, and as he looked at her again and again, a new love took spark in him. It was as if by some prodigious power the strange being at the river-bank had instilled this new love into him. Elena’s heart beat joyfully. CHAPTER XIX After that evening Trirodov, suppressing his devotion to quiet loneliness, once more began to visit the Rameyevs. He resisted no longer the all-powerful desire to see Elisaveta, to look into the depth of her blue eyes, to listen to the golden sonorousness of her words, and to feel the breathing and the witchery of her fresh, primitive strength. It was so pleasant to look upon her simple attire, upon the trusting openness of her shoulders, upon the light tan of her feet, and upon the austere outlines of her face. Elisaveta’s sunlit depth became transformed for Trirodov into a blue, fathomless height. Elisaveta’s love grew stronger; to grow stronger was its desire, and it wished to surmount all intolerable obstacles. Rameyev looked at Elisaveta and Trirodov, and he was consumed by a strange, mature joy. He seemed to think: “They will marry and bring me grandchildren.” There were already certain hours in which they expected him. He and Elisaveta often remained alone. Something in their natures drew them apart from other people, whether strangers or kin. They would go off somewhere into a neglected part of the garden, where under the spread net of superb black poplars the agreeable aroma of thyme reached them with a gentle poignancy--and here they loved to chat with one another. Had he been alone instead of with Elisaveta, he could not have expressed his thoughts more simply or more candidly. They spoke of so many things--they tried, as it were, to contain the whole world within the rigid bounds of rapid words. As they strolled along the high bank of the river, under the broad shadows of the mighty black poplars and strange black maples, and listened to the loud, cheerful twitter of the birds that came to the bushes, Elisaveta said: “The sensation of existence and of the fullness and joy of life is delicious. A new sky seems to have opened above my head, and for the first time the violets and the lilies of the valley besprinkled with their first dew have begun to bloom for me; and for the first time May-drinks made from herbs by young housewives taste delicious.” Trirodov smiled sadly and said: “I feel the heavy burden of life. But what’s to be done? I don’t know whether life can be made more easy and tranquil.”