-oh, no, forgive me! One must strive towards
a lofty, glorious goal, and married life would put me in bondage
for ever. Dmitri Ionitch" (she faintly smiled as she pronounced his
name; she thought of "Alexey Feofilaktitch")--"Dmitri Ionitch,
you are a good, clever, honourable man; you are better than any
one. . . ." Tears came into her eyes. "I feel for you with my whole
heart, but . . . but you will understand. . . ."

And she turned away and went out of the drawing-room to prevent
herself from crying.

Startsev's heart left off throbbing uneasily. Going out of the club
into the street, he first of all tore off the stiff tie and drew a
deep breath. He was a little ashamed and his vanity was wounded--
he had not expected a refusal--and could not believe that all his
dreams, his hopes and yearnings, had led him up to such a stupid
end, just as in some little play at an amateur performance, and he
was sorry for his feeling, for that love of his, so sorry that he
felt as though he could have burst into sobs or have violently
belaboured Panteleimon's broad back with his umbrella.

For three days he could not get on with anything, he could not eat
nor sleep; but when the news reached him that Ekaterina Ivanovna
had gone away to Moscow to enter the Conservatoire, he grew calmer
and lived as before.

Afterwards, remembering sometimes how he had wandered about the
cemetery or how he had driven all over the town to get a dress suit,
he stretched lazily and said:

"What a lot of trouble, though!"

IV

Four years had passed. Startsev already had a large practice in the
town. Every morning he hurriedly saw his patients at Dyalizh, then
he drove in to see his town patients. By now he drove, not with a
pair, but with a team of three with bells on them, and he returned
home late at night. He had grown broader and stouter, and was not
very fond of walking, as he was somewhat asthmatic. And Panteleimon
had grown stout, too, and the broader he grew, the more mournfully
he sighed and complained of his hard luck: he was sick of driving!
Startsev used to visit various households and met many people, but
did not become intimate with any one. The inhabitants irritated him
by their conversation, their views of life, and even their appearance.
Experience taught him by degrees that while he played cards or
lunched with one of these people, the man was a peaceable, friendly,
and even intelligent human being; that as soon as one talked of