"Do you really want me?" she would ask, looking up, laughing, in his face. "Of course I do." "Well, you should have told me last night. This morning I go with Anna Petrovna to the cholera. All is arranged." "I'm afraid you must change your plans." "I'm afraid not." "Goga may go...." "No, I wish to go." And she went. He had certainly never before in his life been thus defied. He simply did not know what to do about it. If he had thought that bullying would frighten her he would, I believe, have bullied her, but he knew quite well that it wouldn't. And then, as I now began to perceive (I had at first thought otherwise), he was for the first time in his life experiencing something deeper and more confusing than his customary animal passions. He may at first have wanted Marie Ivanovna as he wanted his dinner or his supper ... now he wanted her differently. New emotions, surprising confusing emotions stirred in him. At least that is how I interpret the uneasiness, the hesitation, which I now seemed to perceive in him. He was no longer sure of himself. I witnessed just at this time a little scene that surprised me. I had been in the bandaging room alone one evening, cutting up bandages. I was going through the passage into the other part of the house when a sound stopped me. I could not avoid seeing beyond the open door a little scene that happened so swiftly that I could neither retire nor advance. Marie Ivanovna and Semyonov were coming together towards the bandaging room. She was in front of him when he put his hand on her arm. "Do you love me?" he said in a low voice. She turned round to him, laughing. "Yes," she said, looking at him. "Then kiss me." "No, not now." "Why not now?" "I don't want to." "Why don't you want to?" She shook her head, still laughing into his eyes. "But if I command you?" "Ah! _command_!... Then I certainly will not." His hand tightened on her arm and she did not draw away. "Kiss me." "No." "I say yes." "I say no." He suddenly caught her, held her to him as though he would kill her and kissed her furiously, on her eyes, her mouth, her hair. With his violence he pushed back her head-dress. I could see his back bent like a bow, and his thick short legs wide apart, every muscle taut. She lay quite motionless, as though asleep in his arms, giving him no response--then quite suddenly she flung her hands round his neck and kissed him as passionately as he had kissed her. At last they parted, both of them laughing. He looked at her, and then with a gentleness and courtesy that I had never seen in him before nor dreamed that he possessed, very softly kissed her hand. "I love you and--and you love me," he said. "Yes ... I love you," she answered gravely. "At least, part of me does." "It shall be all of you soon," he answered. "If there's time enough," she replied. "Time!... I'll follow you wherever you go--"