Still smiling from the fulness of delightful and changing sensations, I sank into bed, and had already closed my eyes when it suddenly occurred to me that I had not thought of my cruel fair one once in the whole evening. "What does it mean?" I asked myself. "Am I not hopelessly in love?" But just as I put this question to myself I fell asleep, as it seemed, like a baby in its cradle. * * * * * The next morning (I was awake, but had not risen) some one knocked with a stick under my window, and a voice that I immediately recognized as Gagin's began to sing, Sleepest thou still? My lute shall wake thee. I ran to open the door for him. "Good morning," said Gagin as he entered. "I disturb you a little early. But what a morning it is! Fresh, dewy; the larks singing." With his wavy, shining hair, his bare neck and ruddy checks, he was as fresh as the morning himself. I dressed myself, and we went out into the garden, sat down upon a bench, ordered coffee, and began to talk. Gagin confided to me his plans for the future. Possessed of a fair property, and entirely independent, he wished to devote himself to painting; only he regretted that this decision had been a late one, and that he had already lost much time. I also detailed my projects, and even took him into the secret of my unhappy love affair. He listened patiently, but, so far as I could see, the story of my passion did not awake any very lively sympathy in him. After he had sighed once or twice out of good manners, he proposed to me to come and see his studio. I was ready at once. We did not find Assja. She had gone to the "ruin," the landlady assured us. Two versts from L---- were the remains of a castle of the middle ages. Gagin laid all his canvases before me. There was life and truth in his sketches, a certain breadth and freedom of treatment, but not one was finished, and the drawing was careless and often faulty. I told him my opinion frankly. "Yes, yes," he interrupted me with a sigh. "You are right; it is all weak and unsatisfactory. But what is to be done? I haven't studied properly, and the inexcusable carelessness shows everywhere. Before working it always seems as if I were capable of eagle flights--it seems as I could hurl the earth out of her course; but when it comes to execution one loses strength quickly enough, and is tired." I began to encourage him, but he motioned with his hand that I should be silent, rolled up his canvases, and threw himself on the sofa. "If my patience lasts, I shall make something yet," he muttered in his beard; "if not--then I shall stay a country lout. Come, let us look after Assja." We started. * * * * *