“‘Come in and have some tea,’ Kisotchka suggested.  ’The samovar must have been on the table long ago. . . .  I am alone at home,’ she said, as her villa came into sight through the green of the acacias.  ’My husband is always in the town and only comes home at night, and not always then, and I must own that I am so dull that it’s simply deadly.’

“I followed her in, admiring her back and shoulders.  I was glad that she was married.  Married women are better material for temporary love affairs than girls.  I was also pleased that her husband was not at home.  At the same time I felt that the affair would not come off. . . .

“We went into the house.  The rooms were smallish and had low ceilings, and the furniture was typical of the summer villa (Russians like having at their summer villas uncomfortable heavy, dingy furniture which they are sorry to throw away and have nowhere to put), but from certain details I could observe that Kisotchka and her husband were not badly off, and must be spending five or six thousand roubles a year.  I remember that in the middle of the room which Kisotchka called the dining-room there was a round table, supported for some reason on six legs, and on it a samovar and cups.  At the edge of the table lay an open book, a pencil, and an exercise book.  I glanced at the book and recognised it as ’Malinin and Burenin’s Arithmetical Examples.’  It was open, as I now remember, at the ’Rules of Compound Interest.’

“‘To whom are you giving lessons?’ I asked Kisotchka.’

“‘Nobody,’ she answered.  ’I am just doing some. . . .  I have nothing to do, and am so bored that I think of the old days and do sums.’

“‘Have you any children?’

“‘I had a baby boy, but he only lived a week.’

“We began drinking tea.  Admiring me, Kisotchka said again how good it was that I was an engineer, and how glad she was of my success.  And the more she talked and the more genuinely she smiled, the stronger was my conviction that I should go away without having gained my object.  I was a connoisseur in love affairs in those days, and could accurately gauge my chances of success.  You can boldly reckon on success if you are tracking down a fool or a woman as much on the look out for new experiences and sensations as yourself, or an adventuress to whom you are a stranger.  If you come across a sensible and serious woman, whose face has an expression of weary submission and goodwill, who is genuinely delighted at your presence, and, above all, respects you, you may as well turn back.  To succeed in that case needs longer than one day.

“And by evening light Kisotchka seemed even more charming than by day.  She attracted me more and more, and apparently she liked me too, and the surroundings were most appropriate:  the husband not at home, no servants visible, stillness around. . . .  Though I had little confidence in success, I made up my mind to begin the attack anyway.  First of all it was necessary to get into a familiar tone and to change Kisotchka’s lyrically earnest mood into a more frivolous one.