We had a very strange conversation yesterday. We touched first upon apparitions. Fancy, she believes in them, and says she has her own reasons for it. Priemkov, who was sitting there, dropped his eyes, and shook his head, as though in confirmation of her words. I began questioning her, but soon noticed that this conversation was disagreeable to her. We began talking of imagination, of the power of imagination. I told them that in my youth I used to dream a great deal about happiness (the common occupation of people, who have not had or are not having good luck in life). Among other dreams, I used to brood over the bliss it would be to spend a few weeks, with the woman I loved, in Venice. I so often mused over this, especially at night, that gradually there grew up in my head a whole picture, which I could call up at will: I had only to close my eyes. This is what I imagined--night, a moon, the moonlight white and soft, a scent--of lemon, do you suppose? no, of vanilla, a scent of cactus, a wide expanse of water, a flat island overgrown with olives; on the island, at the edge of the shore, a small marble house, with open windows; music audible, coming from I know not where; in the house trees with dark leaves, and the light of a half-shaded lamp; from one window, a heavy velvet cloak, with gold fringe, hangs out with one end falling in the water; and with their arms on the cloak, sit _he_ and _she_, gazing into the distance where Venice can be seen. All this rose as clearly before my mind as though I had seen it all with my own eyes. She listened to my nonsense, and said that she too often dreamed, but that her day-dreams were of a different sort: she fancied herself in the deserts of Africa, with some explorer, or seeking the traces of Franklin in the frozen Arctic Ocean. She vividly imagined all the hardships she had to endure, all the difficulties she had to contend with.… ‘You have read a lot of travels,’ observed her husband. ‘Perhaps,’ she responded; ‘but if one must dream, why need one dream of the unattainable?’ ‘And why not?’ I retorted. ‘Why is the poor unattainable to be condemned?’ ‘I did not say that,’ she said; ‘I meant to say, what need is there to dream of oneself, of one’s own happiness? It’s useless thinking of that; it does not come--why pursue it? It is like health; when you don’t think of it, it means that it’s there.’ These words astonished me. There’s a great soul in this woman, believe me.… From Venice the conversation passed to Italy, to the Italians. Priemkov went away, Vera and I were left alone. ‘You have Italian blood in your veins too,’ I observed. ‘Yes,’ she responded; ‘shall I show you the portrait of my grandmother?’ ‘Please do.’