ower tone (which pleased me somehow) as she
indicated Lubov Sergievna with her eyes, "since he has discovered in our
poor little Auntie" (such was the pet name which they gave Lubov) "all
sorts of perfections which I, who have known her and her little dog for
twenty years, had never yet suspected. Varenika, go and tell them to
bring me a glass of water," she added, letting her eyes wander again.
Probably she had bethought her that it was too soon, or not entirely
necessary, to let me into all the family secrets. "Yet no--let HIM go,
for he has nothing to do, while you are reading. Pray go to the door, my
friend," she said to me, "and walk about fifteen steps down the passage.
Then halt and call out pretty loudly, 'Peter, bring Maria Ivanovna a
glass of iced water'"--and she smiled her curious smile once more.

"I expect she wants to say something about me in my absence," I thought
to myself as I left the room. "I expect she wants to remark that she can
see very clearly that I am a very, very clever young man."

Hardly had I taken a dozen steps when I was overtaken by Sophia
Ivanovna, who, though fat and short of breath, trod with surprising
lightness and agility.

"Merci, mon cher," she said. "I will go and tell them myself."

XXIV. LOVE

SOPHIA IVANOVNA, as I afterwards came to know her, was one of those
rare, young-old women who are born for family life, but to whom that
happiness has been denied by fate. Consequently all that store of their
love which should have been poured out upon a husband and children
becomes pent up in their hearts, until they suddenly decide to let it
overflow upon a few chosen individuals. Yet so inexhaustible is that
store of old maids' love that, despite the number of individuals so
selected, there still remains an abundant surplus of affection which
they lavish upon all by whom they are surrounded--upon all, good or bad,
whom they may chance to meet in their daily life.

Of love there are three kinds--love of beauty, the love which denies
itself, and practical love.

Of the desire of a young man for a young woman, as well as of the
reverse instance, I am not now speaking, for of such tendresses I am
wary, seeing that I have been too unhappy in my life to have been able
ever to see in such affection a single spark of truth, but rather a
lying pretence in which sensuality, connubial relations, money, and
the wish to bind hands or to unloose them have rendered feeling such a
com