Women do not wish, and do not understand how to be intelligent. When the sun shines on them, when the heavens smile on them, they pull down the blinds.... Everything is only play, amusement, and a joke to them. Not one them of knows how to raise herself to the height of a serious feeling.... Flirts, who don't deserve that a man with a soul should waste his time and lose his heart for them.... Well did Heine say ... And what a bitter truth Byron wrote ... and Montesquieu, that great jurist.... Mimotchka finally gave up trying to understand altogether. Great men's names always bewildered her. Her lips trembled, she would have liked to cry. And why does he scream at her here so, where so many people are passing, and when she cannot say anything for fear she will burst into tears?
Taking advantage of a momentary silence, Mimotchka got up and said:
"I think it is time for me to go home." He bowed coldly and politely. "Aren't you going to see me home?"
"If you desire it."
And they came down the mountain. He played with his stick; Mimotchka looked on the ground, and Rex walked lazily after them, wagging his tail, and wondering they were not tired of such stupid talk.
"When are you going to Kislovodsk?" asked Valerian Nicolaevitch.
"To-morrow. And you?" and Mimotchka looked up at him with the tenderest, most beseeching look.
"I am not going there at all."
There was a silence.
"Why are you in such a hurry to get home?" began Mimotchka again.