successfully, to escape a disagreeable interview, the quick flash of
delight I had time to catch in her eyes when she fancied she really had
managed to creep away unnoticed--it all spoke too clearly; that girl
did not love me. For a long, long while I could not take my eyes off
that motionless, dumb door, which was once more a patch of white in the
looking-glass. I tried to smile at my own long face--dropped my head,
went home again, and flung myself on the sofa. I felt extraordinarily
heavy at heart, so much so that I could not cry ... and, besides, what
was there to cry about...? 'Is it possible?' I repeated incessantly,
lying, as though I were murdered, on my back with my hands folded on my
breast--'is it possible?'...Don't you think that's rather good, that
'is it possible?'


_March 26. Thaw._

When, next day, after long hesitation and with a low sinking at my
heart, I went into the Ozhogins' familiar drawing-room, I was no longer
the same man as they had known during the last three weeks. All my old
peculiarities, which I had begun to get over, under the influence of a
new feeling, reappeared and took possession of me, like proprietors
returning to their house. People of my sort are usually guided, not so
much by positive facts, as by their own impressions: I, who no longer
ago than the day before had been dreaming of the 'raptures of love
returned,' was that day no less convinced of my 'unhappiness,' and was
absolutely despairing, though I was not myself able to find any
rational ground for my despair. I could not as yet be jealous of Prince
N., and whatever his qualities might be, his mere arrival was not
sufficient to extinguish Liza's good-will towards me at once.... But
stay, was there any good-will on her part? I recalled the past. 'What