“They will probably give her a good dowry,” thought Startseff, listening vacantly to what was being read.
After his sleepless night he felt almost stunned, as if he had drunk some sweet but poisonous sleeping potion. His mind was hazy but warm and cheerful, though at the same time a cold, hard fragment of his brain kept reasoning with him and saying:
“Stop before it is too late! Is she the woman for you? She is wilful and spoiled; she sleeps until two every day, and you are a government doctor and a poor deacon’s son.”
“Well, what does that matter?” he thought. “What if I am?”
“And what is more,” that cold fragment continued. “If you marry her her family will make you give up your government position, and live in town.”
“And what of that?” he thought. “I’ll live in town then! She will have a dowry. We will keep house.”
At last Katherine appeared, looking pretty and immaculate in her low-necked ball dress, and the moment Startseff saw her he fell into such transports that he could not utter a word and could only stare at her and laugh.
She began to say good-bye, and as there was nothing to keep him here now that she was going, he, too, rose, saying that it was time for him to be off to attend to his patients in Dialij.
“If you must go now,” said Turkin, “you can take Kitty to the club; it is on your way.”
A light drizzle was falling and it was very dark, so that only by the help of Panteleimon’s cough could they tell where the carriage was. The hood of the victoria was raised.