of the reproaches--I don't mean of the woman--the reproaches of every
chance fool? Which of us is proof against the temptation of making a
display of magnanimity, or of playing egoistically with another devoted
heart? Which of us, in fact, has the force of character to be superior
to petty vanity, to _petty fine feelings_, sympathy and
self-reproach?... Oh, gentlemen, the man who leaves a woman at that
great and bitter moment when he is forced to recognise that his heart
is not altogether, not fully, hers, that man, believe me, has a truer
and deeper comprehension of the sacredness of love than the
faint-hearted creatures who, from dulness or weakness, go on playing on
the half-cracked strings of their flabby and sentimental hearts! At the
beginning of my story I told you that we all considered Andrei Kolosov
an extraordinary man. And if a clear, simple outlook upon life, if the
absence of every kind of cant in a young man, can be called an
extraordinary thing, Kolosov deserved the name. At a certain age, to be
natural is to be extraordinary.... It is time to finish, though. I
thank you for your attention.... Oh, I forgot to tell you that three
months after my last visit I met the old humbug Ivan Semyonitch. I
tried, of course, to glide hurriedly and unnoticed by him, but yet I
could not help overhearing the words, 'Feather-headed scoundrels!'
uttered angrily.

'And what became of Varia?' asked some one.

'I don't know,' answered the story-teller.

We all got up and separated.

1864.