"Grischenka, my dear one, my loved one! How good you have grown towards me, my dear brave lad!... We are living now just as we did when we were first married--you never say a bad word to me.... You talk to me, and open your heart to me.... Not once have you scolded me...." "Are you already longing for something of that sort? If so, I will give you a thorough good beating," he said jokingly, whilst he felt for her in his heart nothing but sympathy and tenderness. He stroked her hair softly, and experienced a real pleasure in giving her these fatherly caresses. Matrona appeared to him at this moment as a child. She sat on his knees, and nestled soft and warm against his breast. "My dear, dear one!" she whispered. He breathed deeply, and words poured from his mouth, which were to her, and to himself, full of new meaning. "Ah! my poor little girl!... Little coaxing thing! You see now, you have no one nearer to you in the world than your husband! And you look at me always with such a frightened glance out of the corner of your eye. If I have hurt you now and then, it was because I was suffering from this ache, Motrja! We lived in our hole ... we saw no sunlight, we knew no one. Now I have got out of the hole, and am among human beings. How blind I was to the world and to life!... Now I understand that a wife should be a man's best friend, the friend of his heart, so to speak. For men are vicious and cruel.... They are always trying to harm one another.... There's this Pronim Wasioukoff!... devil take him!... We won't talk of that, Motrja. We shall be all right in time, and we won't lose courage! We will live in a human way, and reasonably, won't we?... What do you say to that, you dear little goose?" She was crying. Tears rolled down her cheeks, as she realized the happiness which he pictured to her; and she only replied with kisses. "Ah! my only loved one!" he whispered, returning her caresses. Clinging tenderly together, they sat there and kissed the salt tears from each other's cheeks. And for some time Orloff continued to speak in the same new tone.... It had become quite dark. Countless stars lit up the evening sky, which looked down with triumphant sadness on the earth. The plain all around them was as peaceful as the heavens above. CHAPTER VII They had grown into the habit of taking their early tea together. The morning after their conversation in the fields, Orloff appeared in his wife's room with a gloomy, disturbed expression on his face. Felizata had been ill. Matrona was alone in the room, and received her husband with a radiant smile. She was surprised, however, on seeing his expression, and inquired anxiously--"What is the matter then? are you ill?.. "I have nothing the matter with me," he replied dryly, sitting down on a chair, and drawing towards him the cup of tea which she had poured out. "What has happened then?" ... Matrona waited for an answer.