‘I used to know Irina Pavlovna ten years ago; but since then----’ ‘Ah, Grigory Mihalitch, why do you say that? Do you suppose any one’s character changes? Such as one is in one’s cradle, such one is still in one’s tomb. Or perhaps it is’ (here Potugin bowed his head still lower) ‘perhaps, you’re afraid of falling into her clutches? that’s certainly ... But of course one is bound to fall into some woman’s clutches.’ Litvinov gave a constrained laugh. ‘You think so?’ ‘There’s no escape. Man is weak, woman is strong, opportunity is all-powerful, to make up one’s mind to a joyless life is hard, to forget oneself utterly is impossible ... and on one side is beauty and sympathy and warmth and light,--how is one to resist it? Why, one runs like a child to its nurse. Ah, well, afterwards to be sure comes cold and darkness and emptiness ... in due course. And you end by being strange to everything, by losing comprehension of everything. At first you don’t understand how love is possible; afterwards one won’t understand how life is possible.’ Litvinov looked at Potugin, and it struck him that he had never yet met a man more lonely, more desolate ... more unhappy. This time he was not shy, he was not stiff; downcast and pale, his head on his breast, and his hands on his knees, he sat without moving, merely smiling his dejected smile. Litvinov felt sorry for the poor, embittered, eccentric creature. ‘Irina Pavlovna mentioned among other things,’ he began in a low voice, ‘a very intimate friend of hers, whose name if I remember was Byelsky, or Dolsky....’ Potugin raised his mournful eyes and looked at Litvinov. ‘Ah!’ he commented thickly.... ‘She mentioned ... well, what of it? It’s time, though,’ he added with a rather artificial yawn, ‘for me to be getting home--to dinner. Good-bye.’ He jumped up from the seat and made off quickly before Litvinov had time to utter a word.... His compassion gave way to annoyance--annoyance with himself, be it understood. Want of consideration of any kind was foreign to his nature; he had wished to express his sympathy for Potugin, and it had resulted in something like a clumsy insinuation. With secret dissatisfaction in his heart, he went back to his hotel. ‘Rotten to the marrow of her bones,’ he thought a little later ... ‘but proud as the devil! She, that woman who is almost on her knees to me, proud? proud and not capricious?’ Litvinov tried to drive Irina’s image out of his head, but he did not succeed. For this very reason he did not think of his betrothed; he felt to-day this haunting image would not give up its place. He made up his mind to await without further anxiety the solution of all this ‘strange business’; the solution could not be long in coming, and Litvinov had not the slightest doubt it would turn out to be most innocent and natural. So he fancied, but meanwhile he was not only haunted by Lina’s image--every word she had uttered kept recurring in its turn to his memory.