“Vera did not invite the uninvited guest into the house, but took her to the shore of the lake. Knowing his wife’s passion for water, Arkady built a beautiful, albeit somewhat pretentious, gazebo there, but Vera preferred to sit on an old willow, stroke the rough bark, heated by the sun during the day, and think how inconvenient it must be to hang over the surface of the lake like that. Unnoticed the quiet June twilight had fallen, and the dark water lay motionless, reflecting, as if in a mirror, the sky and old oak trees with foliage that had not yet matured on gnarled branches...”