I forgot to tell you in my last letter that when I got home from the Priemkovs’ I felt sorry I had mentioned _Faust_; Schiller would have been a great deal better for the first time, if it was to be something German. I felt especially afraid of the first scenes, before the meeting with Gretchen. I was not quite easy about Mephistopheles either. But I was under the spell of _Faust_, and there was nothing else I could have read with zest. It was quite dark when we went into the summer-house; it had been made ready for us the day before. Just opposite the door, before a little sofa, stood a round table covered with a cloth; easy-chairs and seats were placed round it; there was a lamp alight on the table. I sat down on the little sofa, and took out the book. Vera Nikolaevna settled herself in an easy-chair, a little way off, close to the door. In the darkness, through the door, a green branch of acacia stood out in the lamplight, swaying lightly; from time to time a flood of night air flowed into the room. Priemkov sat near me at the table, the German beside him. The governess had remained in the house with Natasha. I made a brief, introductory speech. I touched on the old legend of doctor Faust, the significance of Mephistopheles, and Goethe himself, and asked them to stop me if anything struck them as obscure. Then I cleared my throat.… Priemkov asked me if I wouldn’t have some sugar water, and one could perceive that he was very well satisfied with himself for having put this question to me. I refused. Profound silence reigned. I began to read, without raising my eyes. I felt ill at ease; my heart beat, and my voice shook. The first exclamation of sympathy came from the German, and he was the only one to break the silence all the while I was reading.… ‘Wonderful! sublime!’ he repeated, adding now and then, ‘Ah! that’s profound.’ Priemkov, as far as I could observe, was bored; he did not know German very well, and had himself admitted he did not care for poetry!… Well, it was his own doing! I had wanted to hint at dinner that his company could be dispensed with at the reading, but I felt a delicacy about saying so. Vera Nikolaevna did not stir; twice I stole a glance at her. Her eyes were fixed directly and intently upon me; her face struck me as pale. After the first meeting of Faust with Gretchen she bent forward in her low chair, clasped her hands, and remained motionless in that position till the end. I felt that Priemkov was thoroughly sick of it, and at first that depressed me, but gradually I forgot him, warmed up, and read with fire, with enthusiasm.… I was reading for Vera Nikolaevna alone; an inner voice told me that _Faust_ was affecting her. When I finished (the intermezzo I omitted: that bit belongs in style to the second part, and I skipped part, too, of the ‘Night on the Brocken’) … when I finished, when that last ‘Heinrich!’ was heard, the German with much feeling commented--‘My God! how splendid!’ Priemkov,