to have been ' no ' and vice versd; it was clear that she was not attending to him.
Then he made a sudden transition to oysters, expressing the conviction he had eaten in the morning a hundred and seventy, and did not even receive a glance. He uttered a few commonplaces more and, as nothing came of them, seized his hat and stood about close to Julia, so that she might observe that he was not pleased and was preparing to take his leave. But she did not notice it.
'I am just off!' He said at last expressively, ' Good-bye!'
His ill-concealed annoyance was perceptible in his voice.
' So soon ? ' she replied. ' Let us see you to-morrow in the box, if only for one minute'.'
' What treachery ! One minute, when you know that I would not give up a place by you for a place in Paradise.'
' If it were a place in a theatre, I believe you.'
Now he did not want to go. His vexation vanished at the friendly words Julia had uttered at leave-taking. But every one had seen him make his bow; he had to go, however unw&lingly.
T ulia Pay jognajyas^twenty-three or twenty : four years old. Piotr Ivanitch's surmise had been correct; she was, in fact, dn a nervous temperament, but this did not prevent her from being a very pretty, clever, and graceful woman. But she was timid, dreamy, sensitive, like most nervous women. Her features were soft and refined, her glance mild, and always thoughtful, often sad without reason, or, if you like, by reason of her nerves.
Her views on life and the world were not at all optimistic; she reflected on the problem of her existence, and arrived at the conclusion that she was not needed here. The bright side of life quite escaped her notice. At the theatre she always chose to see a tragedy, seldom a comedy, never a farce; she was deaf to the strains of any lively song which chanced to reach her, she never smiled at a joke. At times her face expressed exhaustion, not the exhaustion of suffering, or of illness, but rather a luxurious exhaustion. One could see she had been through an inward conflict with some seductive dream, and had been too weak for it. After such a conflict she was a long while silent, mournful, and then all at once would fall into an unaccountable liveliness of spirits, always preserving her characteristic temperament however. What made her lively would not have made any one else lively. All her nerves 1
a>
' How well you have divined me,' said Madame Taphaev to Alexandr at parting. ' No man, not even my husband^ has been able to understand my character fully.'
The fact was that Alexandr was not far from being of the same type himself. No wonder he felt in his element with /her.
' Au revoir.'
She gave him her hand.
' I hope now you will find the way here without your uncle ? ' she added.
The winter came. It had been AlexanoVs habit to dine with his uncle every Friday. But four Fridays had now gone by without his making his appearance, nor did he come any other day instead. Lizaveta Alexandrovna grew vexed; Piotr Ivanitch grumbled at his keeping them waiting half an hour beyond dinner-time for him for nothing.
(Meanwhile Alexandr was not without occupation; he was carrying out his uncle's commission. Surkoff had long ago given up going to Madame Taphaev's, and declared everywhere that all was over between them. In a stormy interview with Piotr Ivanitch he complained bitterly of AlexanoVs treachery and informed the uncle that his nephew was head over ears in love with Madame Taphaev and spent his whole time with her.
S Surkoff had not spoken fdsely; Alexandr loved Julia. Almost with dread he had felt the first symptoms of this passion, as though they were the symptoms of some plague. He was tortured both by fear and by shame—fear of being again at the mercy of all the caprices of his own and of another's heart; shame before other people, above all before his uncle. He would have given a great deal to be able to hide it from him. Was it long—only three months back—since he had so proudly, so decisively forsworn love, had even written in verse an epitaph on this disturbing passion which his uncle had read, and had above all shown openly his contempt for women, and all at once he was again at a woman's feet
He would gladly have run away to avoid his new passion. But how could he run away ? What a contrast between his love for Nadinka and his love for Julia. His first love was nothing more than an unfortunate mistake of a heart which craved for food, and at that age the heart has so little
discrimination; it takes what comes first. But Julia ! she was not a capricious girl, who did not understand him, or herself, or love. She was a woman in full maturity, weak in body, but ardent in spirit—for love; she was all love ! She recognised no other conditions as needful for happiness and life. People say love is a pastime; no, it is a gift; and Julia had a genius for it. This was the love he had dreamed of—a love conscious, intelligent, but still overmastering, heeding nothing outside its own sphere. Like a rightful sovereign he had stepped proudly into possession of the wealth that was his heritage, and had been recognised with submissive loyalty. What consolation, what bliss, thought Alexandr to know that there is a being in the world, who, wherever she may be, whatever she may be doing, is remembering me, is bending all her thoughts, all her occupations, all her actions to one end and one idea—that of her beloved one ! It is like a second self. Whatever he hears or sees, whatever he comes near, or comes near him, every impression is confided to the other, his second self; the impression is shared by both, both teach each other, and then the impression confided in this way is received and imprinted on the soul in indelible characters. The second self would renounce her own sensations if they could not be shared or adopted by the other. She likes what the other likes, and hates what the other hates. They exist inseparably in one thought, one feeling; they have one spiritual sight, one hearing, one mind, one soul.
Julia loved Alexandr still more fervently than he did her.^ She was not even conscious of the full force of her passion, and did not meditate upon it. She was in love for the first time—that would have been nothing, for there is no real falling in love a second time—but the misfortune was that her heart had been over-developed to an impossible degree, cultivated by romances, and prepared not so much for first love as for that romantic passion which exists only . in some novels, not in nature, and which therefore is bound ¦ always to be unhappy because it is not possible in fact. I She could never imagine a calm simple love without tempestuous demonstrations and excesses of tenderness.
Hence arose the romanticism, in which she created a world of her own. Directly anything in the real world was done not in accordance with the canons of her world, her
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heart rose in revolt and she was wretched. Her feminine organisation, weak enough without this strain, endured a shock, often a very violent one. Repeated emotions shook her nerves, and at last reduced them to a state of complete derangement. This is the reason of the pensiveness and melancholy without cause, the pessimistic view of life in so many women; this is why the order of human existence, marvellously and harmoniously framed and carried on according to immutable laws, seems to them a heavy bondage ; in a word, this is why they are frightened by reality. ! She had been educated on French novels, music, and theatre going. At eighteen she had first tasted the sweet-i ness of Russian poetry and her imagination was in quest ^ i now of an Onegin, now of some hero of a masterpiece of I the new school—pale, melancholy, disillusioned.
When she had been displayed to the world in the drawing-rooms, with a constantly melancholy gaze, an interesting pallor, an ethereal shape, and slender foot, she attracted the notice of Taphaev, a man with every qualification of a suitor; that is to say, of respectable rank, good circumstances, with a decoration on his breast—in fact, with a career and a fortune.
The pale, melancholy girl, through some strange inconsistency in his robust temperament, made a strong impression on him. He retreated from the cards at evening parties and fell into unwonted reverie gazing at the half-ethereal shape that flitted before him. When her languid glance fell, of course accidentally, upon him, tried fencer in drawing-room conversation as he was, he grew abashed before the timid girl, attempted to say something to her sometimes and could not. This annoyed him and he resolved to act with more decision through the medium of several aunts.
His inquiries concerning her dowry seemed fairly satisfactory. ' Why, we are well matched!' he argued with himself. ' I am only forty-five, she is eighteen; with our fortunes more than two can live comfortably. As to externals she is rather pretty, and I am what is called presentable. Yes, we are a suitable match.'
And so, directly Julia had emerged from childhood, there met her at the very first step a most grievous actuality—an ordinary husband ! How far removed he was from those heroes created for her by her fancy and the
