Love in the Shadows: Mitya’s Haunting Tale of Passion and Turmoil Unfolds in Chapters 11-12

Chapter 11

During the first week she arrived home in the country, Mitya found proof that she was coming here. He saw with joy, now his favorite season of spring was on. Mitya was sitting by the living room window with a book in her hand. Looking with bored eyes, the dirty stream flowed from the grove of cedar and pine trees in front of his house, crossing the field towards the village behind the hill. In the garden next door, full of hundred-year-old birch trees, crows stand cheering tirelessly, from morning to night. These standing crows await the arrival of spring. May spring open their Christmas branches. Down the slope, is the village. But there is no life there. There is only roughness. Although the willow trees are covered with yellow leaves. Mitya went to the garden. There was light in the garden, but it was lifeless, dim. The plains were green, covered with turquoise blue flowers. There are bushes on the side of the road. To the south of the garden and down the ravine is a cherry orchard. Little white flowers bloom on those trees. Mitya went to the wheat field. The fields were empty and gray. The straw left after the harvest looked like a comb of hair. The dry path was uneven and the surrounding bushes looked purple. During this period of youthful expectation, everything was empty. But he could still find Katya everywhere. He had a vision for everything, but it was superficial. His eyes fell on the girl who came to work on their estate, on the servants who worked in the outer room. To his walks, to his studies and meeting people he knows in the village, to his conversation with his mother. The chief, a retired soldier and barbarian in nature, with whom he had plundered Droxy, did not spare his gaze.

Another week has passed. After heavy rain overnight, the warm sun suddenly emerged in the morning with great force. This change was happening not in days, but in hours. The fields were being plowed for sowing crops. Because of that severity, the straw of the land became like black velvet mixed with the ground. The roads are painted green. The grass in the courtyard grew thicker, the blue of the sky became deeper, brighter. The garden was also full of fresh greenery. The gray lilac bushes were colored red and the fragrance spread around. Black flies with bright metallic blue wings were concentrated where the light fell on the dark green leaves lying on the path. Apple and pear trees can still be seen, past the profusion of flowers, not a few pale gray leaves. The leaf gaps are filled with flowers. The branches of the tree dance in harmony with each other. The branches of the apple and pear trees have slipped under the other trees, and they look like milky white snow. Every day after flowering they get whiter and denser, and give off a sweet smell.
In this primitive period, when Mitya watches the joyful appearance of spring around him vividly, Katya does not fade away from him in his heart. On the contrary, with the beauty of spring, as the blue of the sky deepened into blue, Katya seemed to become more beautiful in her heart.

Chapter 12

Late in the afternoon, when the sun was shining before nightfall, Mitya came to the tea samovar in her room and saw the letter, for which he had been waiting in vain since the morning. He quickly ran to the table. A long time ago he wrote a letter to Katya, today he must have received a reply. His keen eye caught sight of the familiar small handwriting on the exquisite envelope. With the letter in her hand she went out of the room, across the garden to the path, at the end of the ditch which sloped to the far corner of the garden. There he stopped, looked around, and tore open the envelope very quickly. The letter was very short, only a few lines, but Mitya was so excited that she read it seven or eight times before she understood it. His chest was beating very fast. ‘My only love!’ -This is the speech he was reading over and over until the exclamation mark at the end of the sentence made him feel as if the world was slipping from under his feet. He looked up. The sky above the garden appeared joyous and bright, Around her ablaze with beauty, A nightingale sang in the green foliage of the distant bush, In the winter season of night, Her voice was as clear, clear and strong as a prayer. The blood in Mitya Pandu’s face rose to crimson and he also felt a nervous tension in his head.
He returned home slowly. His heart was overflowing with love, an overflowing cup of happiness. In the following days he carried the letter very carefully. There was also some pride in receiving a letter from a lover. And there was hope of getting another letter later. it will continue