u declare war on me, I will be merciless!

In the course of the evening, I purposely tried a few times to join in
their conversation, but she met my remarks rather coldly, and, at
last, I retired in pretended vexation. Princess Mary was triumphant,
Grushnitski likewise. Triumph, my friends, and be quick about it!...
You will not have long to triumph!... It cannot be otherwise. I have
a presentiment... On making a woman's acquaintance I have always
unerringly guessed whether she would fall in love with me or not.

The remaining part of the evening I spent at Vera's side, and talked to
the full about the old days... Why does she love me so much? In truth, I
am unable to say, all the more so because she is the only woman who
has understood me perfectly, with all my petty weaknesses and evil
passions... Can it be that wickedness is so attractive?...

Grushnitski and I left the house together. In the street he took my arm,
and, after a long silence, said:

"Well?"

"You are a fool," I should have liked to answer. But I restrained myself
and only shrugged my shoulders.

CHAPTER VII. 6th June.

ALL these days I have not once departed from my system. Princess Mary
has come to like talking to me; I have told her a few of the
strange events of my life, and she is beginning to look on me as
an extraordinary man. I mock at everything in the world, especially
feelings; and she is taking alarm. When I am present, she does not dare
to embark upon sentimental discussions with Grushnitski, and already, on
a few occasions, she has answered his sallies with a mocking smile. But
every time that Grushnitski comes up to her I assume an air of meekness
and leave the two of them together. On the first occasion, she was glad,
or tried to make it appear so; on the second, she was angry with me; on
the third--with Grushnitski.

"You have very little vanity!" she said to me yesterday. "What makes you
think that I find Grushnitski the more entertaining?"

I answered that I was sacrificing my own pleasure for the sake of the
happiness of a friend.

"And my pleasure, too," she added.

I looked at her intently and assumed a serious air. After that for the
whole day I did not speak a single word to her... In the evening, she
was pensive; this morning, at the well, more pensive still. When I went
up to her, she was listening absent-mindedly to Grushnitski, who was
apparently falling into raptures about Nature, but, so soon as
she per