passion. To be frank, I will only say that she was extraordinarily handsome, magnificently developed, and a woman — as also that I was but fourteen.

At one of those moments when, lesson-book in hand, I would pace the room, and try to keep strictly to one particular crack in the floor as I hummed a fragment of some tune or repeated some vague formula — in short, at one of those moments when the mind leaves off thinking and the imagination gains the upper hand and yearns for new impressions — I left the schoolroom, and turned, with no definite purpose in view, towards the head of the staircase.

Somebody in slippers was ascending the second flight of stairs. Of course I felt curious to see who it was, but the footsteps ceased abruptly, and then I heard Masha’s voice say: