fe Pavel Ivanitch had
completely got over all sentimental feeling, and he had received
no letters from ladies except letters of congratulation, and so,
although he tried to carry it off with disdain, the letter quoted
above greatly intrigued and agitated him.

An hour after receiving it, he was lying on his sofa, thinking:

"Of course I am not a silly boy, and I am not going to rush off to
this idiotic rendezvous; but yet it would be interesting to know
who wrote it! Hm. . . . It is certainly a woman's writing. . . .
The letter is written with genuine feeling, and so it can hardly
be a joke. . . . Most likely it's some neurotic girl, or perhaps a
widow . . . widows are frivolous and eccentric as a rule. Hm. . . .
Who could it be?"

What made it the more difficult to decide the question was that
Pavel Ivanitch had not one feminine acquaintance among all the
summer visitors, except his wife.

"It is queer . . ." he mused. "'I love you!'. . . When did she
manage to fall in love? Amazing woman! To fall in love like this,
apropos of nothing, without making any acquaintance and finding out
what sort of man I am. . . . She must be extremely young and romantic
if she is capable of falling in love after two or three looks at
me. . . . But . . . who is she?"

Pavel Ivanitch suddenly recalled that when he had been walking among
the summer villas the day before, and the day before that, he had
several times been met by a fair young lady with a light blue hat
and a turn-up nose. The fair charmer had kept looking at him, and
when he sat down on a seat she had sat down beside him. . . .

"Can it be she?" Vyhodtsev wondered. "It can't be! Could a delicate
ephemeral creature like that fall in love with a worn-out old eel
like me? No, it's impossible!"

At dinner Pavel Ivanitch looked blankly at his wife while he
meditated:

"She writes that she is young and nice-looking. . . . So she's not
old. . . . Hm. . . . To tell the truth, honestly I am not so old
and plain that no one could fall in love with me. My wife loves me!
Besides, love is blind, we all know. . . ."

"What are you thinking about?" his wife asked him.

"Oh. . . my head aches a little. . ." Pavel Ivanitch said, quite
untruly.

He made up his mind that it was stupid to pay attention to such a
nonsensical thing as a love-letter, and laughed at it and at its
authoress, but--alas!--powerful is the "dacha" enemy of mankind!
After dinner, Pavel Ivanitch lay down on