In the little room into which I stepped, it was rather dark, and I did not at once see Acia. Wrapped in a big shawl, she was sitting on a chair by the window, turning away from me and almost hiding her head like a frightened bird. She was breathing quickly, and trembling all over. I felt unutterably sorry for her. I went up to her. She averted her head still more.… ‘Anna Nikolaevna,’ I said. She suddenly drew herself up, tried to look at me, and could not. I took her hand, it was cold, and lay like a dead thing in mine. ‘I wished’--Acia began, trying to smile, but unable to control her pale lips; ‘I wanted--No, I can’t,’ she said, and ceased. Her voice broke at every word. I sat down beside her. ‘Anna Nikolaevna,’ I repeated, and I too could say nothing more. A silence followed. I still held her hand and looked at her. She sat as before, shrinking together, breathing with difficulty, and stealthily biting her lower lip to keep back the rising tears.… I looked at her; there was something touchingly helpless in her timid passivity; it seemed as though she had been so exhausted she had hardly reached the chair, and had simply fallen on it. My heart began to melt.… ‘Acia,’ I said hardly audibly.… She slowly lifted her eyes to me.… Oh, the eyes of a woman who loves--who can describe them? They were supplicating, those eyes, they were confiding, questioning, surrendering … I could not resist their fascination. A subtle flame passed all through me with tingling shocks; I bent down and pressed my lips to her hand.… I heard a quivering sound, like a broken sigh and I felt on my hair the touch of a feeble hand shaking like a leaf. I raised my head and looked at her face. How transformed it was all of a sudden. The expression of terror had vanished from it, her eyes looked far away and drew me after them, her lips were slightly parted, her forehead was white as marble, and her curls floated back as though the wind had stirred them. I forgot everything, I drew her to me, her hand yielded unresistingly, her whole body followed her hand, the shawl fell from her shoulders, and her head lay softly on my breast, lay under my burning lips.… ‘Yours …’ she murmured, hardly above a breath. My arms were slipping round her waist.… But suddenly the thought of Gagin flashed like lightning before me. ‘What are we doing,’ I cried, abruptly moving back.… ‘Your brother … why, he knows everything.… He knows I am with you.’ Acia sank back on her chair. ‘Yes,’ I went on, getting up and walking to the other end of the room. ‘Your brother knows all about it.… I had to tell him.…’ ‘You had to?’ she articulated thickly. She could not, it seemed, recover herself, and hardly understood me.