She has a great deal of independence, and I am very glad of it. In the days of our youth, do you remember, young girls would sometimes repeat one’s own words to one, as they so well knew how, and one would be in ecstasies over the echo, and possibly quite impressed by it, till one realised what it meant? but this woman’s … not so; she thinks for herself. She takes nothing on trust; there’s no overawing her with authority; she won’t begin arguing; but she won’t give in either. We have discussed _Faust_ more than once; but, strange to say, Gretchen she never speaks of, herself, she only listens to what I say of her. Mephistopheles terrifies her, not as the devil, but as ‘something which may exist in every man.…’ These are her own words. I began trying to convince her that this ‘something’ is what we call reflection; but she does not understand the word reflection in its German sense; she only knows the French ‘refléxion’, and is accustomed to regarding it as useful. Our relations are marvellous! From a certain point of view I can say that I have a great influence over her, and am, as it were, educating her; but she too, though she is unaware of it herself, is changing me for the better in many ways. It’s only lately, for instance--thanks to her--that I have discovered what an immense amount of conventional, rhetorical stuff there is in many fine and celebrated poetical works. What leaves her cold is at once suspect in my eyes. Yes, I have grown better, serener. One can’t be near her, see her, and remain the man one was. What will come of all this? you ask. I really believe--nothing. I shall pass my time very delightfully till September and then go away. Life will seem dark and dreary to me for the first months … I shall get used to it. I know how full of danger is any tie whatever between a man and a young woman, how imperceptibly one feeling passes into another … I should have had the strength to break it off, if I had not been sure that we were both perfectly undisturbed. It is true one day something queer passed between us. I don’t know how or from what--I remember we had been reading _Oniegin_--I kissed her hand. She turned a little away, bent her eyes upon me (I have never seen such a look, except in her; there is dreaminess and intent attention in it, and a sort of sternness), … suddenly flushed, got up and went away. I did not succeed in being alone with her that day. She avoided me, and for four mortal hours she played cards with her husband, the nurse, and the governess! Next morning she proposed a walk in the garden to me. We walked all through it, down to the lake. Suddenly without turning towards me, she softly whispered--‘Please don’t do that again!’ and instantly began telling me about something else.… I was very much ashamed.