Nyuta was standing in the doorway in such a way that one foot was in his room and one was in the passage. She was tidying her hair, which was difficult to put in order because it was so thick and long, and looked absent-mindedly at Volodya. In her loose wrap, with her sleepy face and her hair down, in the dim light that came into the white sky not yet lit by the sun, she seemed to Volodya captivating, magnificent.... Fascinated, trembling all over, and remembering with relish how he had held that exquisite body in his arms in the arbour, he handed her the bottle and said: "How wonderful you are!" "What?" She came into the room. "What?" she asked, smiling. He was silent and looked at her, then, just as in the arbour, he took her hand, and she looked at him with a smile and waited for what would happen next. "I love you," he whispered. She left off smiling, thought a minute, and said: "Wait a little; I think somebody is coming. Oh, these schoolboys!" she said in an undertone, going to the door and peeping out into the passage. "No, there is no one to be seen...." She came back. Then it seemed to Volodya that the room, Nyuta, the sunrise and himself--all melted together in one sensation of acute, extraordinary, incredible bliss, for which one might give up one's whole life and face eternal torments.... But half a minute passed and all that vanished. Volodya saw only a fat, plain face, distorted by an expression of repulsion, and he himself suddenly felt a loathing for what had happened. "I must go away, though," said Nyuta, looking at Volodya with disgust. "What a wretched, ugly ... fie, ugly duckling!" How unseemly her long hair, her loose wrap, her steps, her voice seemed to Volodya now!... "'Ugly duckling' ..." he thought after she had gone away. "I really am ugly ... everything is ugly." The sun was rising, the birds were singing loudly; he could hear the gardener walking in the garden and the creaking of his wheelbarrow ... and soon afterwards he heard the lowing of the cows and the sounds of the shepherd's pipe. The sunlight and the sounds told him that somewhere in this world there is a pure, refined, poetical life. But where was it? Volodya had never heard a word of it from his _maman_ or any of the people round about him. When the footman came to wake him for the morning train, he pretended to be asleep.... "Bother it! Damn it all!" he thought. He got up between ten and eleven. Combing his hair before the looking-glass, and looking at his ugly face, pale from his sleepless night, he thought: "It's perfectly true ... an ugly duckling!" When _maman_ saw him and was horrified that he was not at his examination, Volodya said: "I overslept myself, _maman_.... But don't worry, I will get a medical certificate."