Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XI).djvu/238

Rh 'Anything in the world is possible. I used not to believe in it—but I do now. I don't know myself.'

Maria Nikolaevna thought a moment and looked about her. 'I fancy this place seems familiar to me. Look, Sanin, behind that bushy oak—is there a red wooden cross, or not?'

Sanin moved a few steps to one side. 'Yes, there is.' Maria Nikolaevna smiled. 'Ah, that's good! I know where we are. We haven't got lost as yet. What's that tapping? A wood-cutter?'

Sanin looked into the thicket. 'Yes there's a man there chopping up dry branches.'

'I must put my hair to rights,' said Maria Nikolaevna. 'Else he 'll see me and be shocked.' She took off her hat and began plaiting up her long hair, silently and seriously. Sanin stood facing her All the lines of her graceful limbs could be clearly seen through the dark folds of her habit, dotted here and there with tufts of moss.

One of the horses suddenly shook itself behind Sanin's back; he himself started and trembled from head to foot. Everything was in confusion within him, his nerves were strung up like harpstrings. He might well say he did not know himself. He really was