‘Go alone, if you want to; and tell the coachman that I shall not be going.’

He turned his back on me, and walked quickly away. I followed him with my eyes. He disappeared behind the gate. I saw his hat moving along the hedge: he went into the Zasyekins’ house.

He did not stay there more than an hour. Then he went straight off to the town and stayed away till evening.

After dinner I myself called on the Zasyekins. In the drawing-room I found only the old princess. When she saw me she scratched her head under her bonnet with a knitting needle and suddenly asked me whether I would copy out a petition for her.

‘With pleasure,’ I replied, and sat down on the edge of a chair.

‘Only mind, make your letters nice and big,’ said the princess, handing me a badly scribbled sheet of paper.

‘Could you do it today, my dear sir?’

‘I will copy it today, ma’am.’

The door into the next room opened slightly. Through the gap Zinaida’s face appeared – pale, pensive, her hair carelessly thrown back. She looked at me with large, cold eyes and softly closed the door.

‘Zina, I say, Zina,’ said the old woman. Zinaida did not respond. I took away the old woman’s petition and sat the whole evening over it.

9

From that day my ‘passion’ began. What I experienced then, I remember, was something similar to what a man must feel when first given an official post. I had ceased to be simply a young boy; I was someone in love. I say that my passion began from that day; and I might add that my suffering began on that day too. In Zinaida’s absence I pined: I could not concentrate: I could not do the simplest thing. For whole days I did nothing but think intensely about her. I pined away, but her presence brought me no relief. I was jealous and felt conscious of my worthlessness. I was stupidly sulky, and stupidly abject; yet an irresistible force drew me towards her, and it was always with an involuntary shiver of happiness that I went through the door of her room.

Zinaida guessed at once that I had fallen in love with her, but then I wouldn’t have thought of concealing it. My passion amused her. She made fun of me, played with me, and tormented me. It is sweet to be the sole source, the arbitrary and irresponsible source of the greatest joys and profoundest miseries to someone else. I was like soft wax in the hands of Zinaida; not that I alone had fallen in love with her. All the men who visited the house were hopelessly infatuated, and she kept them all on leading-strings at her feet. She found it amusing to excite alternate hopes and fears in them; to twist them according to her whim. She called this, ‘knocking people against each other’; they did not even think of resistance, but gladly submitted to her. In her whole being, vital and beautiful, there was a peculiarly fascinating mixture of cunning and insouciance, artifice and simplicity, gentleness and gaiety. Over everything she did and said, over every movement, there hovered a subtle, exquisite enchantment. Everything expressed the unique, peculiar force of the life which played within her. Her face, too, was constantly changing.