On parting from Tatyana, Litvinov held one thought in his mind, to see Irina; he set off indeed to see her. But the general was at home, so at least the porter told him, and he did not care to go in, he did not feel himself capable of hypocrisy, and he moved slowly off towards the Konversation Hall. Litvinov’s incapacity for hypocrisy was evident that day to both Voroshilov and Pishtchalkin, who happened to meet him; he simply blurted out to the former that he was empty as a drum; to the latter that he bored every one to extinction; it was lucky indeed that Bindasov did come across him; there would certainly have been a ‘_grosser Scandal_.’ Both the young men were stupefied; Voroshilov went so far as to ask himself whether his honour as an officer did not demand satisfaction? But like Gogol’s lieutenant, Pirogov, he calmed himself with bread and butter in a café. Litvinov caught sight in the distance of Kapitolina Markovna running busily from shop to shop in her striped mantle.... He felt ashamed to face the good, absurd, generous old lady. Then he recalled Potugin, their conversation yesterday.... Then something was wafted to him, something intangible and unmistakable: if a falling shadow shed a fragrance, it could not be more elusive, but he felt at once that it was Irina near him, and in fact she appeared a few paces from him, arm-in-arm with another lady; their eyes met at once. Irina probably noticed something peculiar in the expression of Litvinov’s face; she stopped before a shop, in which a number of tiny wooden clocks of Black Forest make were exhibited, and summoning him by a motion of her head, she pointed to one of these clocks, and calling upon him to admire a charming clock-face with a painted cuckoo above it, she said, not in a whisper, but as though finishing a phrase begun, in her ordinary tone of voice, much less likely to attract the attention of outsiders, ‘Come in an hour’s time, I shall be alone.’ But at this moment the renowned lady-killer Monsieur Verdier swooped down upon her, and began to fall into ecstasies over the colour, _feuille morte_, of her gown and the low-crowned Spanish hat she wore tilted almost down to her eyebrows.... Litvinov vanished in the crowd. XXI ‘Grigory,’ Irina was saying to him two hours later, as she sat beside him on the sofa, and laid both hands on his shoulder, ‘what is the matter with you? Tell me now quickly, while we’re alone.’ ‘The matter with me?’ said Litvinov. ‘I am happy, happy, that’s what’s the matter with me.’ Irina looked down, smiled, sighed. ‘That’s not an answer to my question, my dear one.’ Litvinov grew thoughtful. ‘Well, let me tell you then ... since you insist positively on it’ (Irina opened her eyes wide and trembled slightly), ‘I have told everything to-day to my betrothed.’ ‘What, everything? You mentioned me?’ Litvinov fairly threw up his arms. ‘Irina, for God’s sake, how could such an idea enter your head! that I----’