Her words and her pale face were angry, but her eyes were full of tender passionate love.  I already looked upon this lovely creature as my property, and then for the first time I noticed that she had golden eyebrows, exquisite eyebrows.  I had never seen such eyebrows before.  The thought that I might at once press her to my heart, caress her, touch her wonderful hair, seemed to me such a miracle that I laughed and shut my eyes.

“It’s bed-time now. . . .  A peaceful night,” she said.

“I don’t want a peaceful night,” I said, laughing, following her into the drawing-room.  “I shall curse this night if it is a peaceful one.”

Pressing her hand, and escorting her to the door, I saw by her face that she understood me, and was glad that I understood her, too.

I went to my room.  Near the books on the table lay Dmitri Petrovitch’s cap, and that reminded me of his affection for me.  I took my stick and went out into the garden.  The mist had risen here, too, and the same tall, narrow, ghostly shapes which I had seen earlier on the river were trailing round the trees and bushes and wrapping about them.  What a pity I could not talk to them!

In the extraordinarily transparent air, each leaf, each drop of dew stood out distinctly; it was all smiling at me in the stillness half asleep, and as I passed the green seats I recalled the words in some play of Shakespeare’s:  “How sweetly falls the moonlight on yon seat!”

There was a mound in the garden; I went up it and sat down.  I was tormented by a delicious feeling.  I knew for certain that in a moment I should hold in my arms, should press to my heart her magnificent body, should kiss her golden eyebrows; and I wanted to disbelieve it, to tantalize myself, and was sorry that she had cost me so little trouble and had yielded so soon.

But suddenly I heard heavy footsteps.  A man of medium height appeared in the avenue, and I recognized him at once as Forty Martyrs.  He sat down on the bench and heaved a deep sigh, then crossed himself three times and lay down.  A minute later he got up and lay on the other side.  The gnats and the dampness of the night prevented his sleeping.

“Oh, life!” he said.  “Wretched, bitter life!”

Looking at his bent, wasted body and hearing his heavy, noisy sighs, I thought of an unhappy, bitter life of which the confession had been made to me that day, and I felt uneasy and frightened at my blissful mood.  I came down the knoll and went to the house.

“Life, as he thinks, is terrible,” I thought, “so don’t stand on ceremony with it, bend it to your will, and until it crushes you, snatch all you can wring from it.”

Marya Sergeyevna was standing on the verandah.  I put my arms round her without a word, and began greedily kissing her eyebrows, her temples, her neck. . . .