I felt no desire for music, but I did not know how to begin the conversation.  She sat down to the piano and played, I don’t remember what.  I sat down beside her and looked at her plump white hands and tried to read something on her cold, indifferent face.  Then she smiled at something and looked at me.

“You are dull without your friend,” she said.

I laughed.

“It would be enough for friendship to be here once a month, but I turn up oftener than once a week.”

Saying this, I got up and walked from one end of the room to the other.  She too got up and walked away to the fireplace.

“What do you mean to say by that?” she said, raising her large, clear eyes and looking at me.

I made no answer.

“What you say is not true,” she went on, after a moment’s thought.  “You only come here on account of Dmitri Petrovitch.  Well, I am very glad.  One does not often see such friendships nowadays.”

“Aha!” I thought, and, not knowing what to say, I asked:  “Would you care for a turn in the garden?”

I went out upon the verandah.  Nervous shudders were running over my head and I felt chilly with excitement.  I was convinced now that our conversation would be utterly trivial, and that there was nothing particular we should be able to say to one another, but that, that night, what I did not dare to dream of was bound to happen—­that it was bound to be that night or never.

“What lovely weather!” I said aloud.

“It makes absolutely no difference to me,” she answered.

I went into the drawing-room.  Marya Sergeyevna was standing, as before, near the fireplace, with her hands behind her back, looking away and thinking of something.

“Why does it make no difference to you?” I asked.

“Because I am bored.  You are only bored without your friend, but I am always bored.  However . . . that is of no interest to you.”

I sat down to the piano and struck a few chords, waiting to hear what she would say.

“Please don’t stand on ceremony,” she said, looking angrily at me, and she seemed as though on the point of crying with vexation.  “If you are sleepy, go to bed.  Because you are Dmitri Petrovitch’s friend, you are not in duty bound to be bored with his wife’s company.  I don’t want a sacrifice.  Please go.”

I did not, of course, go to bed.  She went out on the verandah while I remained in the drawing-room and spent five minutes turning over the music.  Then I went out, too.  We stood close together in the shadow of the curtains, and below us were the steps bathed in moonlight.  The black shadows of the trees stretched across the flower beds and the yellow sand of the paths.

“I shall have to go away tomorrow, too,” I said.

“Of course, if my husband’s not at home you can’t stay here,” she said sarcastically.  “I can imagine how miserable you would be if you were in love with me!  Wait a bit:  one day I shall throw myself on your neck. . . .  I shall see with what horror you will run away from me.  That would be interesting.”