rming, open-hearted and noble Selenin
constantly recurred to his mind. Nekhludoff, after the impressions of
his stay in St. Petersburg, was almost in despair of ever reaching any
results. All the plans he had laid out in Moskow seemed to him like
those youthful dreams which usually end in disappointment. However, he
considered it his duty, while in St. Petersburg, to exhaust his
resources in endeavoring to fulfill his mission.

Soon after he reached his room, a servant called him upstairs for tea.
Mariette, in a multi-colored dress, was sitting beside the Countess,
sipping tea. On Nekhludoff's entering the room, Mariette had just
dropped some funny, indecent joke. Nekhludoff noticed it by the
character of their laughter. The good-natured, mustached Countess
Catherine Ivanovna was shaking in all her stout body with laughter,
while Mariette, with a particularly mischievous expression, and her
energetic and cheerful face somewhat bent to one side, was silently
looking at her companion.

"You will be the death of me," said the Countess, in a fit of
coughing.

No sooner had Nekhludoff seated himself than Mariette, noticing the
serious and slightly displeased expression on his face, immediately
changed not only her expression, but her frame of mind. This was with
the intention she had in mind since she first saw him--to get him to
like her. She suddenly became grave, dissatisfied with her life,
seeking something, striving after something. She not merely feigned,
but actually induced in herself a state of mind similar to that in
which Nekhludoff was, although she would not be able to say what it
consisted of. In a sympathetic conversation about the injustice of the
strong, the poverty of the people, the awful condition of the
prisoners, she succeeded in rousing in him the least expected feeling
of physical attraction, and under the din of conversation their eyes
plainly queried, "Can you love me?" and they answered, "Yes, I can."

On leaving, she told him that she was always ready to be of service to
him, and asked him to visit her at the theatre the next day, if only
for a minute, saying that she wished to have a talk with him on a
matter of importance.

"When will I see you again?" she added, sighing, and carefully
putting the gloves on her ring-bedecked hand. "Tell me that you will
come."

Nekhludoff promised to come.

For a long time that night Nekhludoff could not fall asleep. When he
recalled Maslova, the decis