We go back to the house to drink tea, after which we play croquet and listen to one of the variegated young ladies singing a song:  “No, no, thou lovest not, no, no.”  At the word “no” she twists her mouth till it almost touches one ear.

“Charmant!” wail the other young ladies, “Charmant!”

The evening comes on.  A detestable moon creeps up behind the bushes.  There is perfect stillness in the air, and an unpleasant smell of freshly cut hay.  I take up my hat and try to get away.

“I have something I must say to you!” Mashenka whispers to me significantly, “don’t go away!”

I have a foreboding of evil, but politeness obliges me to remain.  Mashenka takes my arm and leads me away to a garden walk.  By this time her whole figure expresses conflict.  She is pale and gasping for breath, and she seems absolutely set on pulling my right arm out of the socket.  What can be the matter with her?

“Listen!” she mutters.  “No, I cannot!  No! . . .”  She tries to say something, but hesitates.  Now I see from her face that she has come to some decision.  With gleaming eyes and swollen nose she snatches my hand, and says hurriedly, “Nicolas, I am yours!  Love you I cannot, but I promise to be true to you!”

Then she squeezes herself to my breast, and at once springs away.

“Someone is coming,” she whispers.  “Farewell! . . .  To-morrow at eleven o’clock I will be in the arbour. . . .  Farewell!”

And she vanishes.  Completely at a loss for an explanation of her conduct and suffering from a painful palpitation of the heart, I make my way home.  There the “Past and Future of the Dog Licence” is awaiting me, but I am quite unable to work.  I am furious. . . .  I may say, my anger is terrible.  Damn it all!  I allow no one to treat me like a boy, I am a man of violent temper, and it is not safe to trifle with me!

When the maid comes in to call me to supper, I shout to her:  “Go out of the room!” Such hastiness augurs nothing good.

Next morning.  Typical holiday weather.  Temperature below freezing, a cutting wind, rain, mud, and a smell of naphthaline, because my maman has taken all her wraps out of her trunks.  A devilish morning!  It is the 7th of August, 1887, the date of the solar eclipse.  I may here remark that at the time of an eclipse every one of us may, without special astronomical knowledge, be of the greatest service.  Thus, for example, anyone of us can (1) take the measurement of the diameters of the sun and the moon; (2) sketch the corona of the sun; (3) take the temperature; (4) take observations of plants and animals during the eclipse; (5) note down his own impressions, and so on.

It is a matter of such exceptional importance that I lay aside the “Past and Future of the Dog Licence” and make up my mind to observe the eclipse.

We all get up very early, and I divide the work as follows:  I am to measure the diameter of the sun and moon; the wounded officer is to sketch the corona; and the other observations are undertaken by Mashenka and the variegated young ladies.