“Dites tout,” she said with a malicious smile.
“She was walking alone, lost in thought,” he said in a confidential tone, while Paulina Karpovna played with her watch chain, and listened with strained attention. “I was at her heels, determined to have an answer from her. She took one or two steps down the face of the precipice, when someone suddenly came towards her.”
“He?”
“He.”
“What did he do?”
“‘Good evening, Vera Vassilievna,’ he said. ‘How do you do?’ She shuddered.”
“Hypocrisy!”
“Not at all. I hid myself and listened. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘I am spending two days in town,’ he said, ‘to be present at your sister’s fête, and I have chosen that day.... Decide, Vera Vassilievna, whether I am to love or not.”
“Où le sentiment va-t-il se nicher?” exclaimed Paulina Karpovna. “Even in that clod.”
“‘Ivan Ivanovich!’ pleaded Vera,” continued Raisky. “He interrupted her with ‘Vera Vassilievna, decide whether to-morrow I should ask Tatiana Markovna for your hand, or throw myself into the Volga!’”