Then, after four years of this
new life, she quite suddenly died. Again in that little house, on a
'white night,' just as when I had at first met her, the purple
curtains hanging in the little street, the _isvostchik_ sleeping, the
clocks in the house chattering in their haste to keep up with time....
Only two months before the outbreak of the war she caught cold, for a
week suffered from pneumonia and died. At the last Andrey
Vassilievitch and I were alone with her. He had her hand in his but
her last cry was 'Victor,' and as she died I felt as though, at last,
after that long waiting, she had leapt into my arms for ever....
"After her death for many weeks, she was with me more completely than
she had been during her lifetime. I knew that she was dead, but I
thought that I also had died. I went into Finland alone, saw no one,
talked to no one, saw only her. Then quite suddenly I came to life
again. She withdrew from me.... Work seemed the only possible thing;
but I was, during all this time, happy not miserable.
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