In the course of his eight years of married life Pavel Ivanitch had completely got over all sentimental feeling, and he had received no letters from ladies except letters of congratulation, and so, although he tried to carry it off with disdain, the letter quoted above greatly intrigued and agitated him.

An hour after receiving it, he was lying on his sofa, thinking: 

“Of course I am not a silly boy, and I am not going to rush off to this idiotic rendezvous; but yet it would be interesting to know who wrote it!  Hm. . . .  It is certainly a woman’s writing. . . .  The letter is written with genuine feeling, and so it can hardly be a joke. . . .  Most likely it’s some neurotic girl, or perhaps a widow . . . widows are frivolous and eccentric as a rule.  Hm. . . .  Who could it be?”

What made it the more difficult to decide the question was that Pavel Ivanitch had not one feminine acquaintance among all the summer visitors, except his wife.

“It is queer . . .” he mused. “‘I love you!’. . .  When did she manage to fall in love?  Amazing woman!  To fall in love like this, apropos of nothing, without making any acquaintance and finding out what sort of man I am. . . .  She must be extremely young and romantic if she is capable of falling in love after two or three looks at me. . . .  But . . . who is she?”

Pavel Ivanitch suddenly recalled that when he had been walking among the summer villas the day before, and the day before that, he had several times been met by a fair young lady with a light blue hat and a turn-up nose.  The fair charmer had kept looking at him, and when he sat down on a seat she had sat down beside him. . . .

“Can it be she?” Vyhodtsev wondered.  “It can’t be!  Could a delicate ephemeral creature like that fall in love with a worn-out old eel like me?  No, it’s impossible!”

At dinner Pavel Ivanitch looked blankly at his wife while he meditated: 

“She writes that she is young and nice-looking. . . .  So she’s not old. . . .  Hm. . . .  To tell the truth, honestly I am not so old and plain that no one could fall in love with me.  My wife loves me!  Besides, love is blind, we all know. . . .”

“What are you thinking about?” his wife asked him.

“Oh. . . my head aches a little. . .”  Pavel Ivanitch said, quite untruly.

He made up his mind that it was stupid to pay attention to such a nonsensical thing as a love-letter, and laughed at it and at its authoress, but—­alas!—­powerful is the “dacha” enemy of mankind!  After dinner, Pavel Ivanitch lay down on his bed, and instead of going to sleep, reflected: 

“But there, I daresay she is expecting me to come!  What a silly!  I can just imagine what a nervous fidget she’ll be in and how her tournure will quiver when she does not find me in the arbour!  I shan’t go, though. . . .  Bother her!”

But, I repeat, powerful is the enemy of mankind.