A quarter of an hour later we were sitting in the carriage driving to
the town. The horses flew along at an even trot; we were rapidly
whirled along through the darkening, damp air. I suddenly began
talking, more than once addressing first Bizmyonkov, and then Madame
Ozhogin. I did not look at Liza, but I could see that from her corner
in the carriage her eyes did not once rest on me. At home she roused
herself, but would not read with me, and soon went off to bed. A
turning-point, that turning-point I have spoken of, had been reached by
her. She had ceased to be a little girl, she too had begun ... like me
... to wait for something. She had not long to wait.

But that night I went home to my lodgings in a state of perfect
ecstasy. The vague half presentiment, half suspicion, which had been
arising within me, had vanished. The sudden constraint in Liza's manner
towards me I ascribed to maidenly bashfulness, timidity.... Hadn't I
read a thousand times over in many books that the first appearance of
love always agitates and alarms a young girl? I felt supremely happy,
and was already making all sorts of plans in my head.

If some one had whispered in my ear then: 'You're raving, my dear chap!
that's not a bit what's in store for you. What's in store for you is to
die all alone, in a wretched little cottage, amid the insufferable
grumbling of an old hag who will await your death with impatience to
sell your boots for a few coppers...'!

Yes, one can't help saying with the Russian philosopher--'How's one to
know what one doesn't know?'

Enough for to-day.