y likely come all the
same," was the refrain with which all my reflections ended. I was so
uneasy that I sometimes flew into a fury: "She'll come, she is certain
to come!" I cried, running about the room, "if not today, she will come
tomorrow; she'll find me out! The damnable romanticism of these pure
hearts! Oh, the vileness--oh, the silliness--oh, the stupidity of
these 'wretched sentimental souls!' Why, how fail to understand? How
could one fail to understand? ..."

But at this point I stopped short, and in great confusion, indeed.

And how few, how few words, I thought, in passing, were needed; how
little of the idyllic (and affectedly, bookishly, artificially idyllic
too) had sufficed to turn a whole human life at once according to my
will. That's virginity, to be sure! Freshness of soil!

At times a thought occurred to me, to go to her, "to tell her all," and
beg her not to come to me. But this thought stirred such wrath in me
that I believed I should have crushed that "damned" Liza if she had
chanced to be near me at the time. I should have insulted her, have
spat at her, have turned her out, have struck her!

One day passed, however, another and another; she did not come and I
began to grow calmer. I felt particularly bold and cheerful after nine
o'clock, I even sometimes began dreaming, and rather sweetly: I, for
instance, became the salvation of Liza, simply through her coming to me
and my talking to her.... I develop her, educate her. Finally, I
notice that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not to
understand (I don't know, however, why I pretend, just for effect,
perhaps). At last all confusion, transfigured, trembling and sobbing,
she flings herself at my feet and says that I am her saviour, and that
she loves me better than anything in the world. I am amazed, but....
"Liza," I say, "can you imagine that I have not noticed your love? I
saw it all, I divined it, but I did not dare to approach you first,
because I had an influence over you and was afraid that you would force
yourself, from gratitude, to respond to my love, would try to rouse in
your heart a feeling which was perhaps absent, and I did not wish that
... because it would be tyranny ... it would be indelicate (in short, I
launch off at that point into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties a
la George Sand), but now, now you are mine, you are my creation, you
are pure, you are good, you are my noble wife.

'In