(discussions which formed the major portion of our intercourse) when thoughts came thronging faster and faster, and, succeeding one another at lightning speed, and growing more and more abstract, at length attained such a pitch of elevation that one felt powerless to express them, and said something quite different from what one had intended at first to say!  How I liked those moments, too, when, carried higher and higher into the realms of thought, we suddenly felt that we could grasp its substance no longer and go no further!

At carnival time Nechludoff was so much taken up with one festivity and another that, though he came to see us several times a day, he never addressed a single word to me.  This offended me so much that once again I found myself thinking him a haughty, disagreeable fellow, and only awaited an opportunity to show him that I no longer valued his company or felt any particular affection for him.  Accordingly, the first time that he spoke to me after the carnival, I said that I had lessons to do, and went upstairs, but a quarter of an hour later some one opened the schoolroom door, and Nechludoff entered.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

“No,” I replied, although I had at first intended to say that I had a great deal to do.

“Then why did you run away just now?  It is a long while since we had a talk together, and I have grown so accustomed to these discussions that I feel as though something were wanting.”

My anger had quite gone now, and Dimitri stood before me the same good and lovable being as before.

“You know, perhaps, why I ran away?” I said.

“Perhaps I do,” he answered, taking a seat near me.  “However, though it is possible I know why, I cannot say it straight out, whereas you can.”

“Then I will do so.  I ran away because I was angry with you—­well, not angry, but grieved.  I always have an idea that you despise me for being so young.”

“Well, do you know why I always feel so attracted towards you?” he replied, meeting my confession with a look of kind understanding, “and why I like you better than any of my other acquaintances or than any of the people among whom I mostly have to live?  It is because I found out at once that you have the rare and astonishing gift of sincerity.”

“Yes, I always confess the things of which I am most ashamed—­but only to people in whom I trust,” I said.

“Ah, but to trust a man you must be his friend completely, and we are not friends yet, Nicolas.  Remember how, when we were speaking of friendship, we agreed that, to be real friends, we ought to trust one another implicitly.”

“I trust you in so far as that I feel convinced that you would never repeat a word of what I might tell you,” I said.