he
loveliest woman in all Petersburg.' And then he told me that I could
see Nastasia Philipovna at the opera-house that evening, if I liked, and
described which was her box. Well, I'd like to see my father allowing
any of us to go to the theatre; he'd sooner have killed us, any day.
However, I went for an hour or so and saw Nastasia Philipovna, and I
never slept a wink all night after. Next morning my father happened to
give me two government loan bonds to sell, worth nearly five thousand
roubles each. 'Sell them,' said he, 'and then take seven thousand five
hundred roubles to the office, give them to the cashier, and bring me
back the rest of the ten thousand, without looking in anywhere on the
way; look sharp, I shall be waiting for you.' Well, I sold the bonds,
but I didn't take the seven thousand roubles to the office; I went
straight to the English shop and chose a pair of earrings, with a
diamond the size of a nut in each. They cost four hundred roubles more
than I had, so I gave my name, and they trusted me. With the earrings
I went at once to Zaleshoff's. 'Come on!' I said, 'come on to Nastasia
Philipovna's,' and off we went without more ado. I tell you I hadn't a
notion of what was about me or before me or below my feet all the way;
I saw nothing whatever. We went straight into her drawing-room, and then
she came out to us.

"I didn't say right out who I was, but Zaleshoff said: 'From Parfen
Rogojin, in memory of his first meeting with you yesterday; be so kind
as to accept these!'

"She opened the parcel, looked at the earrings, and laughed.

"'Thank your friend Mr. Rogojin for his kind attention,' says she, and
bowed and went off. Why didn't I die there on the spot? The worst of it
all was, though, that the beast Zaleshoff got all the credit of it! I
was short and abominably dressed, and stood and stared in her face and
never said a word, because I was shy, like an ass! And there was he all
in the fashion, pomaded and dressed out, with a smart tie on, bowing and
scraping; and I bet anything she took him for me all the while!

"'Look here now,' I said, when we came out, 'none of your interference
here after this-do you understand?' He laughed: 'And how are you going
to settle up with your father?' says he. I thought I might as well jump
into the Neva at once without going home first; but it struck me that I
wouldn't, after all, and I went home feeling like one of the damned."

"My goodness!" shivered the