‘You’ve met for certain at that matinée one of those long-tailed creatures’--this was how Platonida Ivanovna always spoke of all fashionably-dressed ladies of the period--‘with a pretty dolly face; and she goes prinking _this_ way ... and pluming _that_ way’--Platonida presented these fancied manoeuvres in mimicry--‘and making saucers like this with her eyes’--and she drew big, round circles in the air with her forefinger--‘You’re not used to that sort of thing. So you fancied ... but that means nothing, Yasha ... no-o-thing at all! Drink a cup of posset at night ... it’ll pass off!... Lord, succour us!’ Platosha ceased speaking, and left the room.... She had hardly ever uttered such a long and animated speech in her life.... While Aratov thought, ‘Auntie’s right, I dare say.... I’m not used to it; that’s all ...’--it actually was the first time his attention had ever happened to be drawn to a person of the female sex ... at least he had never noticed it before--‘I mustn’t give way to it.’ And he set to work on his books, and at night drank some lime-flower tea; and positively slept well that night, and had no dreams. The next morning he took up his photography again as though nothing had happened.... But towards evening his spiritual repose was again disturbed. VI And this is what happened. A messenger brought him a note, written in a large irregular woman’s hand, and containing the following lines: ‘If you guess who it is writes to you, and if it is not a bore to you, come to-morrow after dinner to the Tversky boulevard--about five o’clock--and wait. You shall not be kept long. But it is very important. Do come.’