My heart stood still.... Alas! I was myself in love with the girl who
had written to Asanov, and I could have no doubt now that she loved
him. The whole letter, which was in French, expressed tenderness and
devotion....

'Mon cher ami Constantin!' so it began ... and it ended with the words:
'be careful as before, and I will be yours or no one's.'

Stunned as by a thunderbolt, I sat for a few instants motionless; at
last I regained my self-possession, jumped up, and rushed out of the
room.

A quarter of an hour later I was back at home in my own lodgings.


* * * * *


The family of the Zlotnitskys was one of the first whose acquaintance I
made on coming to Petersburg from Moscow. It consisted of a father and
mother, two daughters, and a son. The father, a man already grey, but
still vigorous, who had been in the army, held a fairly important
position, spent the morning in a government office, went to sleep after
dinner, and in the evening played cards at his club.... He was seldom
at home, spoke little and unwillingly, looked at one from under his
eyebrows with an expression half surly, half indifferent, and read
nothing except books of travels and geography. Sometimes he was unwell,
and then he would shut himself up in his own room, and paint little
pictures, or tease the old grey parrot, Popka. His wife, a sickly,