Here's the illustration.
Given time the drawings will be supplied with explanations in verse.
"Vasya Sheyin, sobbing, returned the engagement ring to Vera.
'I will not stand in the way of your happiness,' he said, 'but, I implore you, do not be hasty.
Think it over before you take the final step — test his feelings and your own.
Child, you know nothing about life, and you are flying like a moth to a glowing flame.
But I — alas! I know the cold, hypocritical world.
You should know that telegraphists are attractive but perfidious.
It gives them an indescribable pleasure to deceive an innocent victim by their proud beauty and false feelings and cruelly abandon her afterwards.'
"Six months rolled by.
In the whirl of life's waltz Vera forgot her admirer and married young handsome Vasya, but the telegraphist did not forget her.
One day he disguised himself as a chimney-sweep and, smearing himself with soot, made his way into Princess Vera's boudoir.
You can see that he left the traces of his five fingers and two lips everywhere: on the rugs and pillows and wallpaper, and even on the floor.
"Then, dressed as a countrywoman, he took up the duties of dish-washer in our kitchen.
But the excessive favour which Luka the cook bestowed upon him put him to flight.
"He found himself in a mad-house.
And here you see him as a monk.
But every day he unfailingly sent a passionate letter to Vera.
And where his tears fell on the paper the ink ran in splotches.
"At last he died, but before his death he willed to Vera two telegraph-office buttons and a perfume bottle, filled with his tears."
"How about some tea, ladies and gentlemen?" asked Vera Nikolayevna.
VII
The long autumn sunset was dying.
The narrow crimson slit glowing on the edge of the horizon, between a bluish cloud and the earth, faded out.
Now earth and trees and sky could no longer be seen.
Overhead big stars shimmered with their eyelashes in the blackness of night, and the blue beam of the lighthouse shot upwards in a thin column that seemed to splash into a liquid, blurred circle of light as it struck the firmament.
Moths fluttered against the glass hoods over the candles.
In the front garden the star-shaped flowers of the tobacco-plant gave off a stronger scent in the cool darkness.
Speshnikov, the vice-governor and Colonel Ponamaryov had left long ago, promising to send the horses back from the tramway terminus to pick up the general.
The remaining guests sat on the terrace.
Despite his protests General Anosov was made to put on his greatcoat, and his feet were wrapped in a warm rug.
He sat between the two sisters, with a bottle of his favourite Pommard claret in front of him.
The}' waited on him eagerly, filling his thin glass with the heavy, thick wine, passing the matches, cutting cheese for him, and so on.
The old general all but purred with bliss.
"Yes, autumn's coming," said the old man, gazing at the candle-light and thoughtfully shaking his head. "Autumn.
And I must start packing up.
What a pity!
It would have been so nice to stay here at the seaside, in ease and quiet, now that the weather's so fine!"
"Why not do so, Grandad?" said Vera.
"I can't, my dear, I can't.
Duty calls.
My leave is over.
But I certainly wish I could.
How the roses smell!
I can feel it from here.
And in summer the flowers somehow had no scent, except the white acacias — and they smelled of sweets."
Vena took two little roses — pink and carmine — out of a small jug and stuck them into the buttonhole of the general's greatcoat.
"Thanks, Vera dear." He bent his head lo smell the flowers, and smiled the friendly smile of a kind old man.
"I remember when we took up our quarters in Bucharest.
One day as I was walking down the street there came a strong smell of roses. I stopped and saw two soldiers, with a line cut-glass bottle of attar standing between them.