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Kister in the goodness of his heart did not give in even then; perhaps, thought he, Avdey is in a bad temper and is ‘humbugging’ from old habit… he has not yet found a new language to express new feelings. And was there not in himself some other feeling lurking under his indignation? Did not Lutchkov’s avowal strike him so unpleasantly simply because it concerned Masha? How could one tell, perhaps Lutchkov really was in love with her…. Oh, no! no! a thousand times no! That man in love?… That man was loathsome with his bilious, yellow face, his nervous, cat-like movements, crowing with conceit… loathsome! No, not in such words would Kister have uttered to a devoted friend the secret of his love…. In overflowing happiness, in dumb rapture, with bright, blissful tears in his eyes would he have flung himself on his bosom….

‘Well, old man,’ queried Avdey, ‘own up now you didn’t expect it, and now you feel put out. Eh? jealous? Own up, Fedya. Eh? eh?’

Kister was about to speak out, but he turned with his face to the wall. ‘Speak openly… to him? Not for anything!’ he whispered to himself. ‘He wouldn’t understand me… so be it! He supposes none but evil feelings in me–so be it!…’

Avdey got up.

‘I see you’re sleepy,’ he said with assumed sympathy: ‘I don’t want to be in your way. Pleasant dreams, my boy… pleasant dreams!’

And Lutchkov went away, very well satisfied with himself.

Kister could not get to sleep before the morning. With feverish persistence he turned over and over and thought over and over the same single idea–an occupation only too well known to unhappy lovers.

‘Even if Lutchkov doesn’t care for her,’ he mused, ‘if she has flung herself at his head, anyway he ought not even with me, with his friend, to speak so disrespectfully, so offensively of her! In what way is she to blame? How could any one have no feeling for a poor, inexperienced girl?

‘But can she really have a secret appointment with him? She has–yes, she certainly has. Avdey’s not a liar, he never tells a lie. But perhaps it means nothing, a mere freak….

‘But she does not know him…. He is capable, I dare say, of insulting her. After to-day, I wouldn’t answer for anything…. And wasn’t it I myself that praised him up and exalted him? Wasn’t it I who excited her curiosity?… But who could have known this? Who could have foreseen it?…

‘Foreseen what? Has he so long ceased to be my friend?… But, after all, was he ever my friend? What a disenchantment! What a lesson!’

All the past turned round and round before Kister’s eyes. ‘Yes, I did like him,’ he whispered at last. ‘Why has my liking cooled so suddenly?… And do I dislike him? No, why did I ever like him? I alone?’

Kister’s loving heart had attached itself to Avdey for the very reason that all the rest avoided him. But the good-hearted youth did not know himself how great his good-heartedness was.

‘My duty,’ he went on, ‘is to warn Marya Sergievna. But how? What right have I to interfere in other people’s affairs, in other people’s love? How do I know the nature of that love? Perhaps even in Lutchkov…. No, no!’ he said aloud, with irritation, almost with tears, smoothing out his pillow, ‘that man’s stone….

‘It is my own fault… I have lost a friend…. A precious friend, indeed! And she’s not worth much either!… What a sickening egoist I am! No, no! from the bottom of my soul I wish them happiness…. Happiness! but he is laughing at her!… And why does he dye his moustaches? I do, really, believe he does…. Ah, how ridiculous I am!’ he repeated, as he fell asleep.

VII

The next morning Kister went to call on the Perekatovs. When they met, Kister noticed a great change in Masha, and Masha, too, found a change in him, but neither spoke of it. The whole morning they both, contrary to their habit, felt uncomfortable. Kister had prepared at home a number of hints and phrases of double meaning and friendly counsels… but all this previous preparation turned out to be quite thrown away. Masha was vaguely aware that Kister was watching her; she fancied that he pronounced some words with intentional significance; but she was conscious, too, of her own excitement, and did not trust her own observations. ‘If only he doesn’t mean to stay till evening!’ was what she was thinking incessantly, and she tried to make him realise that he was not wanted. Kister, for his part, took her awkwardness and her uneasiness for obvious signs of love, and the more afraid he was for her the more impossible he found it to speak of Lutchkov; while Masha obstinately refrained from uttering his name. It was a painful experience for poor Fyodor Fedoritch. He began at last to understand his own feelings. Never had Masha seemed to him more charming. She had, to all appearances, not slept the whole night. A faint flush stood in patches on her pale face; her figure was faintly drooping; an unconscious, weary smile never left her lips; now and then a shiver ran over her white shoulders; a soft light glowed suddenly in her eyes, and quickly faded away. Nenila Makarievna came in and sat with them, and possibly with intention mentioned Avdey Ivanovitch. But in her mother’s presence Masha was armed jusqu’aux dents, as the French say, and she did not betray herself at all. So passed the whole morning.