without looking at me. "Well, I too have business to
attend to." At this I felt even more put out, as well as pricked with
compunction; so, to soften my refusal a little, I hastened to say that
the reason why I should not be at home that day was that I had to
call upon the PRINCE Ivan Ivanovitch, the PRINCESS Kornakoff, and the
Monsieur Iwin who held such an influential post, as well as, probably,
to dine with the PRINCESS Nechludoff (for I thought that, on learning
what important folk I was in the habit of mixing with, the Graps would
no longer think it worth while to pretend to me). However, just as they
were leaving, I invited Ilinka to come and see me another day; but he
only murmured something unintelligible, and it was plain that he meant
never to set foot in the house again.

When they had departed, I set off on my round of calls. Woloda, whom I
had asked that morning to come with me, in order that I might not feel
quite so shy as when altogether alone, had declined on the ground that
for two brothers to be seen driving in one drozhki would appear so
horribly "proper."

XVIII. THE VALAKHIN FAMILY

Accordingly I set off alone. My first call on the route lay at the
Valakhin mansion. It was now three years since I had seen Sonetchka,
and my love for her had long become a thing of the past, yet there
still lingered in my heart a sort of clear, touching recollection of our
bygone childish affection. At intervals, also, during those three years,
I had found myself recalling her memory with such force and vividness
that I had actually shed tears, and imagined myself to be in love with
her again, but those occasions had not lasted more than a few minutes at
a time, and had been long in recurring.

I knew that Sonetchka and her mother had been abroad--that, in fact,
they had been so for the last two years. Also, I had heard that they had
been in a carriage accident, and that Sonetchka's face had been so badly
cut with the broken glass that her beauty was marred. As I drove
to their house, I kept recalling the old Sonetchka to my mind, and
wondering what she would look like when I met her. Somehow I imagined
that, after her two years' sojourn abroad, she would look very tall,
with a beautiful waist, and, though sedate and imposing, extremely
attractive. Somehow, also, my imagination refused to picture her with
her face disfigured with scars, but, on the contrary, since I had read
somewhere of a lover who remained