looked down on them. Did you ever see, pray, the like of such in our
house?'

Aratov made no reply, and went back to his study. Platonida Ivanovna looked
after him, shook her head, put on her spectacles again, and again took
up her comforter ... but more than once sank into thought, and let her
knitting-needles fall on her knees.

Aratov up till very night kept telling himself, no! no! but with the same
irritation, the same exasperation, he fell again into musing on the note,
on the 'gipsy girl,' on the appointed meeting, to which he would certainly
not go! And at night she gave him no rest. He was continually haunted
by her eyes--at one time half-closed, at another wide open--and their
persistent gaze fixed straight upon him, and those motionless features with
their dominating expression....

The next morning he again, for some reason, kept expecting Kupfer; he was
on the point of writing a note to him ... but did nothing, however,...
and spent most of the time walking up and down his room. He never for
one instant admitted to himself even the idea of going to this idiotic
rendezvous ... and at half-past three, after a hastily swallowed dinner,
suddenly throwing on his cloak and thrusting his cap on his head, he dashed
out into the street, unseen by his aunt, and turned towards the Tversky
boulevard.


VII

Aratov found few people walking in it. The weather was damp and rather
cold. He tried not to reflect on what he was doing, to force himself to