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My 'passion' dated fro like what athe service: I had ceased now to be si boy; I was in love I have said that ht have added that s too dated fro was towithintensely about herI pined when away, but in her presence I was no better off I was jealous; I was conscious of nificance; I was stupidly sulky or stupidly abject, and, all the same, an invincible force drew ht whenever I stepped through the doorway of her roouessed at once that I was in love with her, and indeed I never even thought of concealing it She amused herself with my passion, made a fool ofthe sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another, and I was like wax in Zina&iuh, indeed, I was not the only one in love with her All the men who visited the house were crazy over her, and she kept thes at her feet It amused her to arouse their hopes and then their fears, to turn the their heads together), while they never dreaerly sub, so full of life and beauty, there was a peculiarly bewitching mixture of slyness and carelessness, of artificiality and si she did or said, about every action of hers, there clung a delicate, fine charm, in which an individual poastoo; it expressed, almost at the same time, irony, dreaminess, and passion Various e as the shadows of clouds on a sunny day of wind, chased one another continually over her lips and eyes

Each of her adorers was necessary to her Byelovzorov, whom she sometimes called 'ladly have flung himself into the fire for her sake With little confidence in his intellectual abilities and other qualities, he was for ever offering herabout with no serious intention Meidanov responded to the poetic fibres of her nature; a man of rather cold temperament, like almost all writers, he forced himself to convince her, and perhaps hi her praises in endless verses, and read them to her with a peculiar enthusiasm, at once affected and sincere She sympathised with hireat faith in his, she would make him read Pushkin, as she said, to clear the air Lushin, the ironical doctor, so cynical in words, knew her better than any of theh he abused her to her face and behind her back