'Yes.'

'Well?'... she gasped for breath. I glanced at her.... There was a
sudden flash of spiteful pleasure within me.

'He told me to tell you,' I pronounced deliberately, 'that "what has
been will not be again...."'

Varia pressed her left hand to her heart, stretched her right hand out
in front, staggered, and went quickly out of the room. I tried to
overtake her.... Ivan Semyonitch stopped me. I stayed another two hours
with him, but Varia did not appear. On the way back I felt ashamed ...
ashamed before Varia, before Andrei, before myself; though they say it
is better to cut off an injured limb at once than to keep the patient
in prolonged suffering; but who gave me a right to deal such a
merciless blow at the heart of a poor girl?... For a long while I could
not sleep ... but I fell asleep at last. In general I must repeat that
'love' never once deprived me of sleep.

I began to go pretty often to Ivan Semyonitch's. I used to see Kolosov
as before, but neither he nor I ever referred to Varia. My relations
with her were of a rather curious kind. She became attached to me with
that sort of attachment which excludes every possibility of love. She
could not help noticing my warm sympathy, and talked eagerly with me
... of what, do you suppose?... of Kolosov, nothing but Kolosov! The
man had taken such possession of her that she did not, as it were,
belong to herself. I tried in vain to arouse her pride ... she was
either silent or, if she talked--chattered on about Kolosov. I did not
even suspect in those days that sorrow of that kind--talkative
sorrow--is in reality far more genuine than any silent suffering. I