“How could I have managed to be so long and so passionately devoted to Seriosha?” I asked myself as I lay in bed that night.

“He never either understood, appreciated, or deserved my love. But Sonetchka! What a darling SHE is! ‘Wilt THOU?’ — ‘THY hand’!”

I crept closer to the pillows, imagined to myself her lovely face, covered my head over with the bedclothes, tucked the counterpane in on all sides, and, thus snugly covered, lay quiet and enjoying the warmth until I became wholly absorbed in pleasant fancies and reminiscences.

If I stared fixedly at the inside of the sheet above me I found that I could see her as clearly as I had done an hour ago could talk to her in my thoughts, and, though it was a