is an authoress. And of course I didn't understand you then, but
afterwards in Moscow I often thought of you. I thought of no one
but you. What happiness to be a district doctor; to help the
suffering; to be serving the people! What happiness!" Ekaterina
Ivanovna repeated with enthusiasm. "When I thought of you in Moscow,
you seemed to me so ideal, so lofty. . . ."

Startsev thought of the notes he used to take out of his pockets
in the evening with such pleasure, and the glow in his heart was
quenched.

He got up to go into the house. She took his arm.

"You are the best man I've known in my life," she went on. "We will
see each other and talk, won't we? Promise me. I am not a pianist;
I am not in error about myself now, and I will not play before you
or talk of music."

When they had gone into the house, and when Startsev saw in the
lamplight her face, and her sad, grateful, searching eyes fixed
upon him, he felt uneasy and thought again:

"It's a good thing I did not marry her then."

He began taking leave.

"You have no human right to go before supper," said Ivan Petrovitch
as he saw him off. "It's extremely perpendicular on your part. Well,
now, perform!" he added, addressing Pava in the hall.