ordinary women in Victor Leontievitch's
company' I heard them say, and I was proud that they should say it.
From the first instant of seeing Alexandra Pavlovna I loved her and I
loved her in a new, an utterly new way. For the first time in my life
I did not think of myself as a traveller who, passing for many years
through countries that did not greatly interest him, feels his aches
and pains, his money troubles, his discomforts and little personal
irritations. Then suddenly he crosses the border and the new land so
possesses him that he is only a vessel for its beauty, to absorb it,
to hold it, to carry the burden of it in safety.... I crossed the
border. For four years after that I pursued that enchanted journey.
Why did I love her? Who can say? Andrey Vassilievitch adored her with
an utter devotion and had done so since the first moment of meeting
her. I have known many others, women and men, who felt that devotion.
On that first evening we were very quiet--only another woman, a cousin
of hers. After dinner I had half an hour's talk with her. I can see
her--ah! how I can see you, my dear!--sitting back a little in her
chair, resting, her hands folded very quietly in her lap, her eyes
watching me gravely. I felt like a boy who has come into the world for
the first time. I could not talk to her--I stammered over the simplest
things. But I was conscious of a deep luxurious delight. I did not, as
I had done before, lay plans, say that this-and-this would be so if I
did this-and-this, I did not consciously try to influence or direct
her. I felt no definite sensual attraction, did not say, as I had
always done with other women, 'It is the hair, the eyes, the mouth.'
If I thought at all it was only 'This is better than anything that I
have known before; I had never dreamt of anything like this.'

"After I had left her that night I did not walk the streets, nor
drink, nor find companions. I went home and slept the soundest sleep
of my life. In the morning I knew tranquillity for the first time in
all my days. I did not, as I had done after many earlier first
meetings, hasten to see my friend. I did not know even that she liked
me and yet I felt no doubt nor confusion. It was, perhaps, that I was
ready to accept this new influence under any conditions, was ready for
once to leave the rules to another. I felt no curiosity, knew no
determination to discover the conditions of her life that I might bend
them to my own purposes. I