No More Learning

"I think," she said, at last, "I think he likes me. "

"Why? "

"Because he proposed to me. "

"Proposed to you! When? "

"Last year, two months before you came. "

"And you did not consent? "

"As you see, Alexey Ivanytch is a man of wit, and of good family, to be
sure, well off, too; but only to think of being obliged to kiss him
before everybody under the marriage crown! No, no; nothing in the world
would induce me. "

The words of Marya Ivanofna enlightened me, and made many things clear
to me. I understood now why Chvabrine so persistently followed her up.
He had probably observed our mutual attraction, and was trying to detach
us one from another.

The words which had provoked our quarrel seemed to me the more infamous
when, instead of a rude and coarse joke, I saw in them a premeditated
calumny.

The wish to punish the barefaced liar took more entire possession of me,
and I awaited impatiently a favourable moment. I had not to wait long.
On the morrow, just as I was busy composing an elegy, and I was biting
my pen as I searched for a rhyme, Chvabrine tapped at my window. I laid
down the pen, and I took up my sword and left the house.

"Why delay any longer? " said Chvabrine. "They are not watching us any
more. Let us go to the river-bank; there nobody will interrupt us. "

We started in silence, and after having gone down a rugged path we
halted at the water's edge and crossed swords.

Chvabrine was a better swordsman than I was, but I was stronger and
bolder, and M. Beaupre, who had, among other things, been a soldier, had
given me some lessons in fencing, by which I had profited.

Chvabrine did not in the least expect to find in me such a dangerous
foeman. For a long while we could neither of us do the other any harm,
but at last, noticing that Chvabrine was getting tired, I vigorously
attacked him, and almost forced him backwards into the river.

Suddenly I heard my own name called in a loud voice. I quickly turned my
head, and saw Saveliitch running towards me down the path. At this
moment I felt a sharp prick in the chest, under the right shoulder, and
I fell senseless.




CHAPTER V.

LOVE.