child convalescent after sickness, and a man of the smallest experience
cannot fail at the first glance to recognise a hundred yards off what
is the matter with you. Till that day I had never happened to have Liza
on my arm. We walked side by side, stepping slowly over the green
grass. A light breeze, as it were, flitted about us between the white
stems of the birches, every now and then flapping the ribbon of her hat
into my face. I incessantly followed her eyes, until at last she turned
gaily to me and we both smiled at each other. The birds were chirping
approvingly above us, the blue sky peeped caressingly at us through the
delicate foliage. My head was going round with excess of bliss. I
hasten to remark, Liza was not a bit in love with me. She liked me; she
was never shy with any one, but it was not reserved for me to trouble
her childlike peace of mind. She walked arm in arm with me, as she
would with a brother. She was seventeen then.... And meanwhile, that
very evening, before my eyes, there began that soft inward ferment
which precedes the metamorphosis of the child into the woman.... I was
witness of that transformation of the whole being, that guileless
bewilderment, that agitated dreaminess; I was the first to detect the
sudden softness of the glance, the sudden ring in the voice--and oh,
fool! oh, superfluous man! For a whole week I had the face to imagine
that I, I was the cause of this transformation!

This was how it happened.

We walked rather a long while, till evening, and talked little. I was
silent, like all inexperienced lovers, and she, probably, had nothing
to say to me. But she seemed to be pondering over something, and shook
her head in a peculiar way, as she pensively nibbled a leaf she had
picked. Sometimes she started walking ahead, so resolutely...then all
at once stopped, waited for me, and looked round with lifted eyebrows