Sidorenko was even more amiable than on the previous day: he laughed,
rubbed his stomach, made jokes about Matrona Semyonovna, and so on. I
was on the point of asking for his blessing there and then, but I
thought better of it and deferred doing so till the next day. His
ponderous jokes jarred upon me; besides I was exhausted.... I said
good-bye to him and went away.

I am one of those persons who love brooding over their own sensations,
though I cannot endure such persons myself. And so, after the first
transport of heartfelt joy, I promptly began to give myself up to all
sorts of reflections. When I had got half a mile from the house of the
retired lieutenant, I flung my hat up in the air, in excessive delight,
and shouted 'Hurrah!' But while I was being jolted through the long,
crooked streets of Moscow, my thoughts gradually took another turn. All
sorts of rather sordid doubts began to crowd upon my mind. I recalled
my conversation with Ivan Semyonitch about marriage in general ... and
unconsciously I murmured to myself, 'So he was putting it on, the old
humbug!' It is true that I continually repeated, 'but then Varia is
mine! mine!' ... Yet that 'but'--alas, that _but_!--and then, too, the
words, 'Varia is mine!' aroused in me not a deep, overwhelming rapture,
but a sort of paltry, egoistic triumph.... If Varia had refused me
point-blank, I should have been burning with furious passion; but
having received her consent, I was like a man who has just said to a
guest, 'Make yourself at home,' and sees the guest actually beginning
to settle into his room, as if he were at home. 'If she had loved
Kolosov,' I thought, 'how was it she consented so soon? It's clear
she's glad to marry any one.... Well, what of it? all the better for
me.'... It was with such vague and curious feelings that I crossed the
threshold of my room. Possibly, gentlemen, my story does not strike you
as sounding true.