Her answer plunged him into thought from which he branched forth with sudden eagerness ... a French translation of a Russian book revealing marvellously the interior, the self life, of a doctor, through his training and experience in practice. It would be a revelation to English readers and she should translate it; in collaboration with him; if she would excuse the intimate subjects it necessarily dealt with. He was off and back again with the book and reading rapidly while she still pondered his grave enthusiasm over her recent undertaking. In comparison with this idea of translating a book, it seemed nothing. But that was only one of his wild notions. It would take years of evenings of hard work. Meanwhile someone else would do it. They would work at it together. With Saturdays and Sundays it would not take so long ..... it would set her standing within the foreign world she had touched at so many points during the last few years, and that had become, since the coming of Mr. Shatov, more and more clearly a continuation of the first beginnings at school..... alors un faible chuchotement se fit entendre au premier ..... à l’entrée de ce bassin, des arbres .... se fit entendre .... alors un faible chuchotement se fit entendre ... all one word on one tone ... it must have been an extract from some dull mysterious story with an explanation or deliberately without an explanation; then a faint whispering was audible on the first floor; that was utterly different. It was the shape and sound of the sentences, without the meaning that was so wonderful--alors une faible parapluie se fit entendre au premier--Jan would scream, but it was just as wonderful ...... there must be some meaning in having so passionately loved the little book without having known that it was selections from French prose; in getting to Germany and finding there another world of beautiful shape and sound, apart from people and thoughts and things that happened ... Durch die ganze lange Nacht, bis tief in den Morgen hinein ..... it was opening again, drawing her in away from the tuneless shapeless-- “Are you listening?” “Yes, but it hasn’t begun.” “That is true. We can really omit all this introduction and at once begin.” As the pages succeeded each other her hunger and fatigue changed to a fever of anxious attention. “Well? Is not that a masterly analysis? You see. That should be translated for your Wimpole Street.” “I don’t know. We are not like that. It would never occur to an English doctor to write for the general public anything that could shake its confidence in doctors. Foreigners are different. They think nothing of revealing and discussing the most awful things. It’s pessimism. They _like_ pessimism.” “It is a serious mistake to regard enlightenment as pessimism.” “I don’t believe in Continental luminaries.” “Your prejudices are at least frank.”