I met him at two o'clock in the afternoon, I
should have learnt no more from him than I had done at five o'clock,
for the reason that I had no definite question to ask. It was bound to
have been so. For me to formulate the query which I really wished to
put was a simple impossibility.

Polina spent the whole of that day either in walking about the park
with the nurse and children or in sitting in her own room. For a long
while past she had avoided the General and had scarcely had a word to
say to him (scarcely a word, I mean, on any SERIOUS topic). Yes, that I
had noticed. Still, even though I was aware of the position in which
the General was placed, it had never occurred to me that he would have
any reason to avoid HER, or to trouble her with family explanations.
Indeed, when I was returning to the hotel after my conversation with
Astley, and chanced to meet Polina and the children, I could see that
her face was as calm as though the family disturbances had never
touched her. To my salute she responded with a slight bow, and I
retired to my room in a very bad humour.

Of course, since the affair with the Burmergelms I had exchanged not a
word with Polina, nor had with her any kind of intercourse. Yet I had
been at my wits' end, for, as time went on, there was arising in me an
ever-seething dissatisfaction. Even if she did not love me she ought
not to have trampled upon my feelings, nor to have accepted my
confessions with such contempt, seeing that she must have been aware
that I loved her (of her own accord she had allowed me to tell her as
much). Of course the situation between us had arisen in a curious
manner. About two months ago, I had noticed that she had a desire to
make me her friend, her confidant--that she was making trial of me for
the purpose; but, for some reason or another, the desired result had
never come about, and we had fallen into the present strange relations,
which had led me to address her as I had done. At the same time, if my
love was distasteful to her, why had she not FORBIDDEN me to speak of
it to her?

But she had not so forbidden me. On the contrary, there had been
occasions when she had even INVITED me to speak. Of course, this might
have been done out of sheer wantonness, for I well knew--I had remarked
it only too often--that, after listening to what I had to say, and
angering me almost beyond endurance, she loved suddenly to torture me
with some fresh outburst of contempt and alo