Do I love him?  I cannot tell.  Not yet.  Love is a gentle plant.  You cannot force its growth.

As he passed I leaned from the window and threw a rosebud at him.

But he did not see it.

Then I threw a cake of soap and a toothbrush at him.  But
I missed him, and he passed on.

* * *

Another Day.

Love has come into my life.  It fills it.  I have seen HIM again.  I have spoken with him.  He sat beside the river on his camp stool.  How beautiful he looked, sitting on it:  how strong he seemed and how frail the little stool on which he sat.

Before him was the easel and he was painting.  I spoke to him.

I know his name now.

His name—.  How my heart beats as I write it—­no, I cannot write it, I will whisper it—­it is Otto Dinkelspiel.

Is it not a beautiful name?  Ah!

He was painting on a canvas—­beautiful colours, red and gold and white, in glorious opalescent streaks in all directions.

I looked at it in wonder.

Instinctively I spoke to him.  “What are you painting?” I said.  “Is it the Heavenly Child?”

“No,” he said, “it is a cow!”

Then I looked again and I could see that it was a cow.

I looked straight into his eyes.

“It shall be our secret,” I said; “no one else shall know.”

And I knew that I loved him.

* * *

A Week Later.

Each morning I go to see Otto beside the river in the meadow.

He sits and paints, and I sit with my hands clasped about my knees and talk to him.  I tell him all that I think, all that I read, all that I know, all that I feel, all that I do not feel.

He listens to me with that far-away look that I have learned to love and that means that he is thinking deeply; at times he almost seems not to hear.

The intercourse of our minds is wonderful.

We stimulate one another’s thought.

Otto is my master.  I am his disciple!

Yesterday I asked him if Hegel or Schlegel or Whegel gives the truest view of life.

He said he didn’t know!  My Otto!

* * *

To-day.

Otto touched me!  He touched me!

How the recollection of it thrills me!

I stood beside him on the river bank, and as we talked the handle of my parasol touched the bottom button of his waistcoat.

It seemed to burn me like fire!

To-morrow I am to bring Otto to see my father.

But to-night I can think of nothing else but that Otto has touched me.

* * *

Next Day.

Otto has touched father!  He touched him for ten roubles.  My father is furious.  I cannot tell what it means.

I brought Otto to our home.  He spoke with my father, Ivan Ivanovitch.  They sat together in the evening.  And now my father is angry.  He says that Otto wanted to touch him.