“Then you’re convinced that I won’t go to Fedka’s little shop?”
“Oh, God!” she cried, clasping her hands. “Why do you torture me like this?”
“Oh, forgive me my stupid joke. I must be picking up bad manners from them. Do you know, ever since last night I feel awfully inclined to laugh, to go on laughing continually forever so long. It’s as though I must explode with laughter. It’s like an illness.… Oh! my mother’s coming in. I always know by the rumble when her carriage has stopped at the entrance.”
Dasha seized his hand.
“God save you from your demon, and … call me, call me quickly!”
“Oh! a fine demon! It’s simply a little nasty, scrofulous imp, with a cold in his head, one of the unsuccessful ones. But you have something you don’t dare to say again, Dasha?”
She looked at him with pain and reproach, and turned towards the door.
“Listen,” he called after her, with a malignant and distorted smile. “If … Yes, if, in one word, if … you understand, even if I did go to that little shop, and if I called you after that—would you come then?”
She went out, hiding her face in her hands, and neither turning nor answering.
“She will come even after the shop,” he whispered, thinking a moment, and an expression of scornful disdain came into his face. “A nurse! H’m!… but perhaps that’s what I want.”