thinking of the many women and girls buried in these tombs who had
been beautiful and fascinating, who had loved, at night burned with
passion, yielding themselves to caresses. How wickedly Mother Nature
jested at man's expense, after all! How humiliating it was to
recognise it!

Startsev thought this, and at the same time he wanted to cry out
that he wanted love, that he was eager for it at all costs. To his
eyes they were not slabs of marble, but fair white bodies in the
moonlight; he saw shapes hiding bashfully in the shadows of the
trees, felt their warmth, and the languor was oppressive. . . .

And as though a curtain were lowered, the moon went behind a cloud,
and suddenly all was darkness. Startsev could scarcely find the
gate--by now it was as dark as it is on an autumn night. Then he
wandered about for an hour and a half, looking for the side-street
in which he had left his horses.

"I am tired; I can scarcely stand on my legs," he said to Panteleimon.

And settling himself with relief in his carriage, he thought: "Och!
I ought not to get fat!"

III

The following evening he went to the Turkins' to make an offer. But
it turned out to be an inconvenient moment, as Ekaterina Ivanovna
was in her own room having her hair done by a hair-dresser. She was
getting ready to go to a dance at the club.