The next morning she took the dress she had had made for her wedding out of the moth balls in the trunk where it was put away, and began altering it.
The swallows were still swooping by as they had the day before; and a pale sun was shining.
In the stillness, infrequent distant blows could be heard, and an occasional rending sound, followed by the fall of something heavy on the road—probably a wooden house being broken up in some side street.
Dasha went on sewing with leisured movements.
Her finger had grown so thin that her thimble kept falling off. Once it almost fell out of the window.
She could remember sitting on a trunk in the hall of Katya's flat with this very thimble on her finger, eating bread and marmalade.
That had been in 1914.
Katya had quarrelled with her husband and was leaving for Paris.
She had on a little hat with a tiny feather in it, which somehow had a pathetically self-sufficient air.
She had turned round in the doorway, only remembering about Dasha when she caught sight of her on the trunk.
"Come with me, Dasha...." But Dasha had not gone.
And now ... should she try to get to Paris? Dasha knew it from Katya's letters: blue, silky, smelling like the box in which a bottle of scent is packed.... She went on sewing, giving an unconscious sigh in her agitation.
Leave Russia!
There were said to be no trains, nobody was allowed to go abroad.... One might try going on foot, trudging, knapsack on back, through forests, over hills, fields, blue rivers, from country to country, till one got to the divine, elegant city....
The tears rolled down her cheeks.
What folly!...
Everywhere was war.
The Germans were firing on Paris from enormous cannon.
Dreams, dreams.
Was it right not to allow a person to lead a quiet, happy life?
"What did I ever do to them?"
The thimble rolled beneath an armchair, the sunshine swam through her tears, the swallows swooped past with their hollow cries: they're all right, all they need is flies and mosquitoes....
"I will go—I will!" sobbed Dasha.
Just then there was a series of insistent, separate knocks on the door.
Dasha placed the needle and scissors on the window sill, rolled her sewing into a ball and wiped her eyes on it, then flung it into the armchair and went to see who it was that had knocked....
"Does Darya Dmitrevna Telegin live here?"
Instead of replying, Dasha bent down to the keyhole.
Someone was bending down on the other side, too, and a cautious voice said into the keyhole:
"A letter for her from Rostov...."
Dasha opened the door immediately.
A strange man in a crumpled soldier's greatcoat and worn peaked cap, stepped across the threshold.
Alarmed, Dasha retreated, extending her arms.
The stranger said hastily:
"For God's sake.... Darya Dmitrevna, don't you know me?"
"No, no...."
"It's Kulichok, Nikanor Yurevich... barrister.
Don't you remember Sestroretsk?"
Dasha dropped her hands and peered into the lean, unshaven face, with the pointed nose.
The wrinkles around the watchful, restless eyes spoke of habitual caution, the crooked mouth, of resoluteness and cruelty.
He was like some small animal on the lookout for danger.
"Surely you haven't forgotten, Darya Dmitrevna.... I used to be the assistant of Nikolai Ivanovich Smokovnikov, your sister's late husband.... I was in love with you, but you turned me down, you know.... Don't you remember?"
Suddenly he smiled, and in his smile was something of forgotten, prewar days, and everything came back to Dasha: the flat, sandy shore, the mist of sunshine over the warm, drowsy gulf, her prickly self, the girlish bow on her dress, the enamoured Kulichok, whom she had despised with all her supercilious virginity.... The smell of the tall pines, rustling solemnly day and night on the sand dunes....
"You've changed so," she said in trembling tones, as she held out her hand to him.
Kulichok caught it adroitly and kissed it.
Despite his soldier's coat, it was obvious that he had been in the cavalry all these years.
"Allow me to hand you a letter.
Allow me to go somewhere and take off my boot.... Excuse me, but it's in my boot, you see...."
He glanced round significantly and followed Dasha into an empty room, where he sat down on the floor and, frowning, began pulling at his muddy boot.
The letter was from Katya, it was the one she had handed Lieutenant Colonel Tetkin in Rostov.
At the very first lines Dasha gave a cry and clutched at her throat. Vadim was killed!