In the third place, the youth could not for one instant get rid of a strange, unpleasant feeling which was absolutely new to him. . . .  It seemed to him that he was in love with Anna Fyodorovna, the Shumihins’ cousin, who was staying with them.  She was a vivacious, loud-voiced, laughter-loving, healthy, and vigorous lady of thirty, with rosy cheeks, plump shoulders, a plump round chin and a continual smile on her thin lips.  She was neither young nor beautiful—­ Volodya knew that perfectly well; but for some reason he could not help thinking of her, looking at her while she shrugged her plump shoulders and moved her flat back as she played croquet, or after prolonged laughter and running up and down stairs, sank into a low chair, and, half closing her eyes and gasping for breath, pretended that she was stifling and could not breathe.  She was married.  Her husband, a staid and dignified architect, came once a week to the villa, slept soundly, and returned to town.  Volodya’s strange feeling had begun with his conceiving an unaccountable hatred for the architect, and feeling relieved every time he went back to town.

Now, sitting in the arbour, thinking of his examination next day, and of his maman, at whom they laughed, he felt an intense desire to see Nyuta (that was what the Shumihins called Anna Fyodorovna), to hear her laughter and the rustle of her dress. . . .  This desire was not like the pure, poetic love of which he read in novels and about which he dreamed every night when he went to bed; it was strange, incomprehensible; he was ashamed of it, and afraid of it as of something very wrong and impure, something which it was disagreeable to confess even to himself.

“It’s not love,” he said to himself.  “One can’t fall in love with women of thirty who are married.  It is only a little intrigue . . . .  Yes, an intrigue. . . .”

Pondering on the “intrigue,” he thought of his uncontrollable shyness, his lack of moustache, his freckles, his narrow eyes, and put himself in his imagination side by side with Nyuta, and the juxtaposition seemed to him impossible; then he made haste to imagine himself bold, handsome, witty, dressed in the latest fashion.

When his dreams were at their height, as he sat huddled together and looking at the ground in a dark corner of the arbour, he heard the sound of light footsteps.  Some one was coming slowly along the avenue.  Soon the steps stopped and something white gleamed in the entrance.

“Is there any one here?” asked a woman’s voice.

Volodya recognised the voice, and raised his head in a fright.

“Who is here?” asked Nyuta, going into the arbour.  “Ah, it is you, Volodya?  What are you doing here?  Thinking?  And how can you go on thinking, thinking, thinking? . . .  That’s the way to go out of your mind!”

Volodya got up and looked in a dazed way at Nyuta.  She had only just come back from bathing.  Over her shoulder there was hanging a sheet and a rough towel, and from under the white silk kerchief on her head he could see the wet hair sticking to her forehead.  There was the cool damp smell of the bath-house and of almond soap still hanging about her.  She was out of breath from running quickly.  The top button of her blouse was undone, so that the boy saw her throat and bosom.