"A dreamer! Indeed I should think I do know. I am a dreamer myself. Sometimes, as I sit by grandmother, all sorts of things come into my head. Why, when one begins dreaming one lets one's fancy run away with one--why, I marry a Chinese Prince!... Though sometimes it is a good thing to dream! But, goodness knows! Especially when one has something to think of apart from dreams," added the girl, this time rather seriously. "Excellent! If you have been married to a Chinese Emperor, you will quite understand me. Come, listen.... But one minute, I don't know your name yet." "At last! You have been in no hurry to think of it!" "Oh, my goodness! It never entered my head, I felt quite happy as it was...." "My name is Nastenka." "Nastenka! And nothing else?" "Nothing else! Why, is not that enough for you, you insatiable person?" "Not enough? On the contrary, it's a great deal, a very great deal, Nastenka; you kind girl, if you are Nastenka for me from the first." "Quite so! Well?" "Well, listen, Nastenka, now for this absurd history." I sat down beside her, assumed a pedantically serious attitude, and began as though reading from a manuscript:-- "There are, Nastenka, though you may not know it, strange nooks in Petersburg. It seems as though the same sun as shines for all Petersburg people does not peep into those spots, but some other different new one, bespoken expressly for those nooks, and it throws a different light on everything. In these corners, dear Nastenka, quite a different life is lived, quite unlike the life that is surging round us, but such as perhaps exists in some unknown realm, not among us in our serious, over-serious, time. Well, that life is a mixture of something purely fantastic, fervently ideal, with something (alas! Nastenka) dingily prosaic and ordinary, not to say incredibly vulgar." "Foo! Good Heavens! What a preface! What do I hear?"