“Silly, vicious trash!” I said to myself whenever her memory arose in my mind in the midst of my strenuous work.
Occasionally, however, when I lay down to sleep or when I awoke in the morning, I remembered various moments of our acquaintance, and the short connexion I had had with Olga. I remembered the “Stone Grave,” the little house in the wood in which “the girl in red” lived, the road to Tenevo, the meeting in the grotto … and my heart began to beat faster.… I experienced bitter heartache.… But it was not for long. The bright memories were soon obliterated under the weight of the gloomy ones. What poetry of the past could withstand the filth of the present? And now, when I had finished with Olga, I looked upon this “poetry” quite differently to formerly.… Now I looked upon it as an optical illusion, a lie, hypocrisy … and it lost half its charm in my eyes.
The Count had become quite repugnant to me. I was glad not to see him, and I was always angry when his moustachioed face rose timidly to my mind. Every day he sent me letters in which he implored me not to sulk but to come to see the no longer “solitary hermit.” Had I listened to his letters, I would have been doing a displeasure to myself.
“It's finished!” I thought. “Thank God!… It bored me.…”
I decided to break off all connexion with the Count, and this decision did not cost me the slightest struggle. Now I was not at all the same man that I had been three weeks before, when after the quarrel about Pshekhotsky I could scarcely bring myself to sit at home. There was no attraction now.
Sitting always at home bored me at last, and I wrote to Doctor Pavil Ivanovich, asking him to come and have a chat. For some reason I received no reply to this letter, so I wrote another. But the second received the same answer as the first. Evidently dear “Screw” pretended to be angry.… The poor fellow having received a refusal from Nadenka Kalinin, looked upon me as the cause of his misfortune. He had the right to be angry, and if he had never been angry before it was merely because he did not know how to.
“When had he time to learn?” I thought, being perplexed at not receiving answers to my letters.
In the third week of obstinate seclusion in my own house the Count paid me a visit. Having scolded me for not riding over to see him nor sending him answers to his letters, he stretched himself out on the sofa and before he began to snore he spoke on his favourite theme—on women.
“I understand,” he began languidly, screwing up his eyes and placing his hands under his head, “that you are delicate and susceptible. You don't come to me from fear of breaking into our duet … interfering.… An unwelcome guest is worse than a Tartar, a guest during the honeymoon is worse than a horned devil. I understand you. But, my dear friend, you forget that you are a friend and not a guest, that you are loved, esteemed. By your presence you would only complete the harmony.… And what harmony, my dear brother! A harmony that I am unable to describe to you!”
The Count pulled his hands out from under his head and began to wave them about.