"What a fine evening!" he said with a slight Armenian accent.

He was nice-looking, fashionably dressed, and behaved unaffectedly
like a well-bred youth, but Nadyezhda Fyodorovna did not like him
because she owed his father three hundred roubles; it was displeasing
to her, too, that a shopkeeper had been asked to the picnic, and
she was vexed at his coming up to her that evening when her heart
felt so pure.

"The picnic is a success altogether," he said, after a pause.

"Yes," she agreed, and as though suddenly remembering her debt, she
said carelessly: "Oh, tell them in your shop that Ivan Andreitch
will come round in a day or two and will pay three hundred roubles
. . . . I don't remember exactly what it is."

"I would give another three hundred if you would not mention that
debt every day. Why be prosaic?"

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna laughed; the amusing idea occurred to her that
if she had been willing and sufficiently immoral she might in one
minute be free from her debt. If she, for instance, were to turn
the head of this handsome young fool! How amusing, absurd, wild it
would be really! And she suddenly felt a longing to make him love
her, to plunder him, throw him over, and then to see what would
come of it.

"Allow me to give you one piece of advice," Atchmianov said timidly.
"I beg you to beware of Kirilin. He says horrible things about you