"When women love they become acclimatised and at home with people
very quickly, like cats. Kisotchka had only spent an hour and a
half in my room when she already felt as though she were at home
and was ready to treat my property as though it were her own. She
packed my things in my portmanteau, scolded me for not hanging my
new expensive overcoat on a peg instead of flinging it on a chair,
and so on.

"I looked at her, listened, and felt weariness and vexation. I was
conscious of a slight twinge of horror at the thought that a
respectable, honest, and unhappy woman had so easily, after some
three or four hours, succumbed to the first man she met. As a
respectable man, you see, I didn't like it. Then, too, I was
unpleasantly impressed by the fact that women of Kisotchka's sort,
not deep or serious, are too much in love with life, and exalt what
is in reality such a trifle as love for a man to the level of bliss,
misery, a complete revolution in life. . . . Moreover, now that I
was satisfied, I was vexed with myself for having been so stupid
as to get entangled with a woman whom I should have to deceive. And
in spite of my disorderly life I must observe that I could not bear
telling lies.

"I remember that Kisotchka sat down at my feet, laid her head on
my knees, and, looking at me with shining, loving eyes, asked:

"'Kolya, do you love me? Very, very much?'

"And she laughed with happiness. . . . This struck me as sentimental,
affected, and not clever; and meanwhile I was already inclined to