“Cannot you see what is taking place in me? To me, speaking is a difficulty. Give me your hand, give me your hand! There seems to be something hindering me, something weighing me down. It is a something that is like the great rock which oppresses a man during deep sorrow. And, strangely enough, the effect of it is the same whether I happen to be sad or gay. Somehow my breath seems to hurt me as I draw it, and occasionally I come near to weeping. Yet, like a man overcome with grief, I feel that I should be lightened and relieved if I could weep. What, think you, is amiss with me?” She looked at him with a smile of happiness which nothing could disturb. Evidently no weight was pressing upon _her_ heart. “Shall I tell you?” she said. “Yes.” “You are in love.” He kissed her hand. “And you?” he asked. “Are _you_ in love?” “In love?” she repeated. “I do not like the term for myself. I like you: that is better.” “‘I like you’?” he re-echoed. “But a mother or a father or a nurse or even a dog may be _liked_: the phrase may be used as a garment, even as can, can--” “Even as can an old dressing-gown,” she suggested with a smile. Presently she added-- “Whether I am actually in love with you or not I hardly know. Perhaps it is a stage that has not yet arrived. All I know is that I have never liked father or mother or nurse or dog as I like you. I feel lost without you. To be parted from you for a short while makes me sorry; to be parted from you for a long while makes me sad; and, were you to die, I should wear mourning for the rest of my life, and never again be able to smile. To me such love is life, and life is----” “Yes?” “Is a duty, an obligation. Consequently love also is a duty. God has sent me that duty, and has bid me perform it.” As she spoke she raised her eyes to heaven. “Who can have inspired her with these ideas?” Oblomov thought to himself. “Neither through experience nor through trial nor through ‘fire and smoke’ can she have attained this clear, simple conception of life and of love.” “Then, since there is joy in life, is there also suffering?” he asked aloud. “I do not know,” she replied. “That lies beyond my experience as much as it lies beyond my understanding.” “But how well _I_ understand it!” “Ah!” she said merrily. “What glances you throw at me sometimes! Even my aunt has noticed it.” “But how can there be joy in love if it never brings one moments of ecstatic delight?”