“My dear madam,... I am, I confess, surprised,... if I can be of any use” ... Ah! I am mad!--I was mistaken in you--in your face!... when I saw you the first time ...! Here ... you stand.... If only one word. What, not one word?’ She ceased.... Her face suddenly flushed, and as suddenly took a wrathful and insolent expression. ‘Mercy! how idiotic this is!’ she cried suddenly, with a shrill laugh. ‘How idiotic our meeting is! What a fool I am!... and you too.... Ugh!’ She gave a contemptuous wave of her hand, as though motioning him out of her road, and passing him, ran quickly out of the boulevard, and vanished. The gesture of her hand, the insulting laugh, and the last exclamation, at once carried Aratov back to his first frame of mind, and stifled the feeling that had sprung up in his heart when she turned to him with tears in her eyes. He was angry again, and almost shouted after the retreating girl: ‘You may make a good actress, but why did you think fit to play off this farce on me?’ He returned home with long strides, and though he still felt anger and indignation all the way, yet across these evil, malignant feelings, unconsciously, the memory forced itself of the exquisite face he had seen for a single moment only.... He even put himself the question, ‘Why did I not answer her when she asked of me only a word? I had not time,’ he thought. ‘She did not let me utter the word ... and what word could I have uttered?’ But he shook his head at once, and murmured reproachfully, ‘Actress!’ And again, at the same time, the vanity of the inexperienced nervous youth, at first wounded, was now, as it were, flattered at having any way inspired such a passion.... ‘Though by now,’ he pursued his reflections, ‘it’s all over, of course.... I must have seemed absurd to her.’... This idea was disagreeable to him, and again he was angry ... both with her ... and with himself. On reaching home, he shut himself up in his study. He did not want to see Platosha. The good old lady came twice to his locked door, put her ear to the keyhole, and only sighed and murmured her prayer. ‘It has begun!’ she thought.... ‘And he only five-and-twenty! Ah, it’s early, it’s early!’ VIII