the spring sun suddenly crumbles into tiny fragments. I had received a blow on the head at the first assault, and, like the Prussians at Jena, in one day I lost everything. No, she was not angry with me!... Alas! on the contrary! She herself--I could see that--was being undermined, as with a billow. Like a young sapling, which has already half deserted the bank, she bent eagerly forward over the flood, ready to surrender to it both the first blossoming of her spring, and her whole life. Any one to whose lot it has fallen to be a witness to such an infatuation has lived through bitter moments, if he himself loved and was not beloved. I shall forever remember the devouring attention, the tender gaiety, the innocent self-forgetfulness, the glance, half-childish and already womanly, the happy smile which blossomed forth, as it were, and never left the half-parted lips and the blushing cheeks.... Everything of which Liza had had a dim foreboding during our stroll in the grove had now come to pass--and she, surrendering herself wholly to love, had, at the same time, grown quiet and sparkling like young wine which has ceased to ferment, because its time has come.... I had the patience to sit out that first evening, and the evenings which followed .... all, to the very end! I could cherish no hope whatsoever. Liza and the Prince grew more and more attached to each other with every day that passed..... But I positively lost all sense of my own dignity, and could not tear myself away from the spectacle of my unhappiness. I remember that one day I made an effort not to go, gave myself my word of honour in the morning that I would remain at home,--and at eight o'clock in the evening (I usually went out at seven), I jumped up like a lunatic, put on my hat, and ran, panting, to Kiríll Matvyéevitch's.