assured myself that I was already in love with Sonetchka, and that Varenika was only an ordinary girl, the sister of my friend. Though she pleased me at that moment, I somehow felt a vague desire to show her, by word or deed, some small unfriendliness.

“I tell you what, Dimitri,” I said to my friend as I moved nearer to Varenika, so that she might overhear what I was going to say, “it seems to me that, even if there had been no mosquitos here, there would have been nothing to commend this spot; whereas “ — and here I slapped my cheek, and in very truth annihilated one of those insects — ”it is simply awful.”

“Then you do not care for nature?” said Varenika without turning her head.

“I think it a foolish, futile pursuit,”