Zinaïda avoided me; my presence—I could not help noticing it—affected her disagreeably. She involuntarily turned away from me … involuntarily; that was what was so bitter, that was what crushed me! But there was no help for it, and I tried not to cross her path, and only to watch her from a distance, in which I was not always successful. As before, something incomprehensible was happening to her; her face was different, she was different altogether. I was specially struck by the change that had taken place in her one warm still evening. I was sitting on a low garden bench under a spreading elderbush; I was fond of that nook; I could see from there the window of Zinaïda’s room. I sat there; over my head a little bird was busily hopping about in the darkness of the leaves; a grey cat, stretching herself at full length, crept warily about the garden, and the first beetles were heavily droning in the air, which was still clear, though it was not light. I sat and gazed at the window, and waited to see if it would open; it did open, and Zinaïda appeared at it. She had on a white dress, and she herself, her face, shoulders, and arms, were pale to whiteness. She stayed a long while without moving, and looked out straight before her from under her knitted brows. I had never known such a look on her. Then she clasped her hands tightly, raised them to her lips, to her forehead, and suddenly pulling her fingers apart, she pushed back her hair behind her ears, tossed it, and with a sort of determination nodded her head, and slammed-to the window. Three days later she met me in the garden. I was turning away, but she stopped me of herself. “Give me your arm,” she said to me with her old affectionateness, “it’s a long while since we have had a talk together.” I stole a look at her; her eyes were full of a soft light, and her face seemed as it were smiling through a mist. “Are you still not well?” I asked her. “No, that’s all over now,” she answered, and she picked a small red rose. “I am a little tired, but that too will pass off.” “And will you be as you used to be again?” I asked. Zinaïda put the rose up to her face, and I fancied the reflection of its bright petals had fallen on her cheeks. “Why, am I changed?” she questioned me. “Yes, you are changed,” I answered in a low voice. “I have been cold to you, I know,” began Zinaïda, “but you mustn’t pay attention to that … I couldn’t help it…. Come, why talk about it!” “You don’t want me to love you, that’s what it is!” I cried gloomily, in an involuntary outburst. “No, love me, but not as you did.” “How then?” “Let us be friends—come now!” Zinaïda gave me the rose to smell. “Listen, you know I’m much older than you—I might be your aunt, really; well, not your aunt, but an older sister. And you …” “You think me a child,” I interrupted.