Page:Andreyev - The Little Angel (Knopf, 1916).djvu/151

Rh a pretty girl's face, and were reflected in her dark eyes—as though a glow-worm had appeared at the bottom of a deep dark well. And greedy lips noiselessly kissed those eyes, those lips fresh as the night air, and those cool cheeks. Voices exultant, and trembling with love whispered, prattling of joy and life.

When Vladimir Mikhailovich drove up to his house, he remembered the dog, and his breast ached with a dark foreboding.

When his Aunt opened the door, he asked:

"Well, how's Vasyuk?"

"Dead. He died about an hour after you left."

The dead dog had been already removed to some outhouse, and the litter bed cleared away. But Vladimir Mikhailovich did not even wish to see the body; it would be too distressing a sight. When he lay down in bed, and all noises were stilled in the empty flat, he began to weep restrainedly. His lips puckered up silently, and tears forced their way through his closed eyelids, and rolled quickly down on to his bosom. He was ashamed that he was kissing a woman at the very moment when he, who had been his friend, lay a-dying on the floor alone. And he dreaded what his Aunt would think of him, a serious man, if she heard that he had been crying about a dog.

Much time had elapsed since these events. Mysterious, outrageous fame had left