his bed, and instead of
going to sleep, reflected:

"But there, I daresay she is expecting me to come! What a silly! I
can just imagine what a nervous fidget she'll be in and how her
_tournure_ will quiver when she does not find me in the arbour! I
shan't go, though. . . . Bother her!"

But, I repeat, powerful is the enemy of mankind.

"Though I might, perhaps, just out of curiosity . . ." he was musing,
half an hour later. "I might go and look from a distance what sort
of a creature she is. . . . It would be interesting to have a look
at her! It would be fun, and that's all! After all, why shouldn't
I have a little fun since such a chance has turned up?"

Pavel Ivanitch got up from his bed and began dressing. "What are
you getting yourself up so smartly for?" his wife asked, noticing
that he was putting on a clean shirt and a fashionable tie.

"Oh, nothing. . . . I must have a walk. . . . My head aches. . . .
Hm."

Pavel Ivanitch dressed in his best, and waiting till eight o'clock,
went out of the house. When the figures of gaily dressed summer
visitors of both sexes began passing before his eyes against the
bright green background, his heart throbbed.

"Which of them is it? . . ." he wondered, advancing irresolutely.
"Come, what am I afraid of? Why, I am not going to the rendezvous!
What . . . a fool! Go forward boldly! And what if I go into the
arbour? Well, well . . . there is no reason I should."

Pavel Ivanitch's heart beat still more violently. . . . Involuntarily,
with no desire to do so, he suddenly pictured to himself the
half-darkness of the arbour. . . . A graceful fair girl with a
little blue hat and a turn-up nose rose before his imagination. He
saw her, abashed by her love and trembling all over, timidly approach
him, breathing excitedly, and . . . suddenly clasping him in her
arms.

"If I weren't married it would be all right . . ." he mused, driving
sinful ideas out of his head. "Though . . . for once in my life,
it would do no harm to have the experience, or else one will die
without knowing what. . . . And my wife, what will it matter to
her? Thank God, for eight years I've never moved one step away from
her. . . . Eight years of irreproachable duty! Enough of her. . . .
It's positively vexatious. . . . I'm ready to go to spite her!"

Trembling all over and holding his breath, Pavel Ivanitch went up
to the arbour, wreathed with ivy and wild vine, and peeped into it
. . . . A smell of da