evening. But that was only for a moment, next day he was worse
and more ill-humoured than ever.

But what I was most vexed with him for was that he could not bring
himself to call on the Drozdovs, as he should have done on their
arrival, to renew the acquaintance of which, so we heard they were
themselves desirous, since they kept asking about him. It was a source
of daily distress to him. He talked of Lizaveta Nikolaevna with an
ecstasy which I was at a loss to understand. No doubt he remembered in
her the child whom he had once loved. But besides that, he imagined for
some unknown reason that he would at once find in her company a solace
for his present misery, and even the solution of his more serious
doubts. He expected to meet in Lizaveta Nikolaevna an extraordinary
being. And yet he did not go to see her though he meant to do so every
day. The worst of it was that I was desperately anxious to be presented
to her and to make her acquaintance, and I could look to no one but
Stepan Trofimovitch to effect this. I was frequently meeting her, in the
street of course, when she was out riding, wearing a riding-habit and
mounted on a fine horse, and accompanied by her cousin, so-called, a
handsome officer, the nephew of the late General Drozdov--and these
meetings made an extraordinary impression on me at the time. My
infatuation lasted only a moment, and I very soon afterwards recognised
the impossibility of my dreams myself--but though it was a fleeting
impression it was a very real one, and so it may well be imagined
how indignant I was at the time with my poor friend for keeping so
obstinately secluded.

All the members of our circle had been officially informed from the
beginning that Stepan Trofimovitch would see nobody for a time, and
begged them to leave him quite alone. He insisted on sending round a
circular notice to this effect, though I tried to dissuade him. I
went round to every one at his request and told everybody that Varvara
Petrovna had given "our old man" (as we all used to call Stepan
Trofimovitch among ourselves) a special job, to arrange in order some
correspondence lasting over many years; that he had shut himself up to
do it and I was helping him. Liputin was the only one I did not have
time to visit, and I kept putting it off--to tell the real truth I was
afraid to go to him. I knew beforehand that he would not believe one
word of my story, that he would certainly imagine that there was some
se