trembling fingers and spilled
in so doing.

"I believe _maman_ has gone," he thought. "That's a good thing . . .
a good thing. . . ."

"Will you be quick?" said Nyuta, drawling.

"In a minute. . . . Here, I believe this is morphine," said Volodya,
reading on one of the labels the word "morph . . ." "Here it is!"

Nyuta was standing in the doorway in such a way that one foot was
in his room and one was in the passage. She was tidying her hair,
which was difficult to put in order because it was so thick and
long, and looked absent-mindedly at Volodya. In her loose wrap,
with her sleepy face and her hair down, in the dim light that came
into the white sky not yet lit by the sun, she seemed to Volodya
captivating, magnificent. . . . Fascinated, trembling all over, and
remembering with relish how he had held that exquisite body in his
arms in the arbour, he handed her the bottle and said:

"How wonderful you are!"

"What?"

She came into the room.

"What?" she asked, smiling.

He was silent and looked at her, then, just as in the arbour, he
took her hand, and she looked at him with a smile and waited for
what would happen next.

"I love you," he whispered.

She left off smiling, thought a minute, and said:

"Wait a little; I think somebody is coming. Oh, these schoolboys!"
she said in an undertone, going to the door and peeping out into
the passage. "No, there is no one to be seen. . . ."

She came back.

Then it seemed to Volodya that the room, Nyuta, the sunrise and
himself--all melted together in one sensation of acute, extraordinary,
incredible bliss, for which one might give up one's whole life and
face eternal torments. . . . But half a minute passed and all that
vanished. Volodya saw only a fat, plain face, distorted by an
expression of repulsion, and he himself suddenly felt a loathing
for what had happened.

"I must go away, though," said Nyuta, looking at Volodya with
disgust. "What a wretched, ugly . . . fie, ugly duckling!"

How unseemly her long hair, her loose wrap, her steps, her voice
seemed to Volodya now! . . .

"'Ugly duckling' . . ." he thought after she had gone away. "I
really am ugly . . . everything is ugly."

The sun was rising, the birds were singing loudly; he could hear
the gardener walking in the garden and the creaking of his wheelbarrow
. . . and soon afterwards he heard the lowing of the cows and the
sounds of the shepherd's pipe. The sunlight and the sounds told him