They began to talk, growing happy and excited as they discovered they shared a common language. Their conversation was full of names: Solovyov, Mereshkovsky, Rozanov, Hippius, Byeliy, Byerdyaev, Ustryalov, Balmont, Milyukov, Yevreinov, Remizov, Vyacheslav Ivanov.

It seemed to Yevgenia as though these two men had raised from the ocean-bed a whole sunken world of books, pictures, philosophical systems, theatrical productions…

Limonov suddenly gave voice to her thought.

'It's as though the two of us have raised Atlantis from under the sea.'

Shargorodsky nodded sadly. 'Yes, yes, but you're only an explorer of the Russian Atlantis; I'm one of its inhabitants, someone who sank with it to the bed of the ocean.'

'Well,' said Limonov. 'And now the war's raised you up.'

'Yes,' agreed Shargorodsky. 'The founders of the Comintern proved unable to think of anything better in the hour of war than the old phrase about "the sacred earth of Russia ".' He smiled. 'Just wait. The war will end in victory and then the Internationalists will declare: "Mother Russia's equal to anyone in the world!" '

Yevgenia sensed that if these two were talking so animatedly and wittily, it was not only because they were glad to have met one another and to have found a topic so close to both their hearts. She realized that both these men – one of them very old and the other middle-aged -were conscious of her listening to them and that they were attracted to her. How strange it was. She was quite indifferent to all this, she even found it rather absurd – and yet it was very pleasing, not in the least a matter of indifference.

As she looked at them she thought: 'How can one ever understand oneself? Why does the past make me so sad? Why do I feel so sorry for Krymov? Why can't I stop thinking about him?'

Once she had felt alienated by Krymov's English and German comrades; but now, when Shargorodsky mocked the Comintern, she felt sad and angry… She couldn't make head or tail of it. Not even Limonov's theory of vitamin deficiencies was any help now. Nor was any other theory.

Then she had the idea that she must be worrying so much about Krymov only because she was longing for someone else – a man she hardly ever seemed to think about.

'Do I really love him?' she wondered, surprised.

During the night the sky over the Volga cleared. The hills floated slowly past beneath the stars, separated one from another by the pitch dark of the ravines.

Now and again a shooting-star flashed by and Lyudmila Nikolaevna silently prayed: 'Don't let Tolya die!'

That was her only wish: she asked Heaven for nothing else.

Once, when she was still a student in the Maths and Physics Faculty, she had been employed to do calculations at the Astronomical Institute. She had learned then that meteors came in showers, each meeting the earth in a different month. There were the Perseids, the Orionids, probably the Geminids, the Leonids. She no longer remembered which meteors reached the earth in October and November… But don't let Tolya die!

Viktor had reproached her for her unwillingness to help people and for her unkindness to his relatives. He believed that if Lyudmila had wanted it, his mother would have come to live with them instead of remaining in the Ukraine.

When Viktor's cousin had been released from camp and sent into exile, she hadn't wanted to let him stay the night, afraid that the house management committee would find out. She knew that her mother still remembered how Lyudmila had been staying at the seaside when her father died; instead of cutting short her holiday, she had arrived back in Moscow two days after the funeral.

Her mother sometimes talked to her about Dmitry, horrified at what had happened to him.

'He was honest as a boy and he remained honest all his life. And then suddenly – "espionage, plotting to murder Kaganovich and Voroshilov"… A wild, terrible lie. What's the point of it? Why should anyone want to destroy people who are sincere and honourable?' Once Lyudmila had told her: 'You can't vouch for Mitya entirely. Innocent people don't get arrested.'

She could still remember the look her mother had given her.

Another time she had said to her mother about Dmitry's wife: 'I never could stand the woman and I'm not going to change my mind now.'

'But just imagine!' her mother had protested. 'Being given a ten-year sentence for not denouncing your husband!'

And once she had brought home a stray puppy she'd found on the street. Viktor hadn't wanted to take it in and she'd shouted: 'You're a cruel man!'

'Lyuda,' he had answered, 'I don't want you to be young and beautiful. I only want one thing. I want you to be kind-hearted – and not just towards cats and dogs.'

She sat there on the deck, for once disliking herself instead of blaming everyone else, remembering all the harsh things that had ever been said to her… Once, when he was on the telephone, she'd heard her husband laugh and say: 'Now that we've got a kitten, I sometimes hear my wife sounding affectionate.'

Then there was the time when her mother had said to her: 'Lyuda, how can you refuse beggars? Just think: you've got enough to eat while someone else is hungry and begging…'

It wasn't that she was miserly: she loved having guests, and her dinners were famous amongst her friends.

No one saw her crying there in the darkness. Yes, yes, she was callous; she had forgotten everything she had ever learnt; she was useless; no one would ever find her attractive again; she had grown fat; she had grey hair and high blood pressure; her husband no longer loved her and thought she was heartless. But if only Tolya were still alive! She was ready to admit everything, to confess to all the faults her family accused her of – if only he were still alive!

Why did she keep remembering her first husband? Where was he? How could she find him? Why hadn't she written to his sister in Rostov? She couldn't write now because of the Germans. She would have told him about Tolya.

The sound of the engine, the vibrating deck, the splash of water, the twinkling of the stars, all merged into one; Lyudmila dozed off.

It was nearly dawn. A thick mist swayed over the Volga and everything living seemed to have drowned.

Suddenly the sun rose – like a burst of hope. The dark autumn water mirrored the sky; it began to breathe and the sun seemed to cry out in the waves. The steep banks had been salted by the night's frost and the red-brown trees looked very gay. The wind rose, the mist vanished and the world grew cool and glass-like, piercingly transparent. There was no warmth in the sun, nor in the blue sky and water.

The earth was vast: even the vast forest had both a beginning and an end, but the earth just stretched on for ever… And grief was something equally vast, equally eternal.

On the boat were a number of passengers going to Kuibyshev. In the first-class cabins were important officials from the People's Commissariats, wearing long khaki overcoats and colonels' grey Astrakhan hats. The second-class cabins housed important wives and important mothers-in-law, also wearing uniforms appropriate to their rank – as though there were one for wives and another for mothers and mothers-in-law. The wives wore fur coats and white fur stoles; the mothers and mothers-in-law wore blue cloth coats with black Astrakhan collars and brown scarves. The children who were with them had bored, dissatisfied eyes.

Through the cabin-windows one could see their food-supplies. Lyudmila's experienced eye could easily distinguish the contents of the different bags: clarified butter and honey were sailing down the Volga in string-bags, in soldered tins and in big dark bottles with sealed necks. Now and then she overheard snatches of conversation between the passengers on the deck; she gathered that their main concern was the train leaving Kuibyshev for Moscow.