fragrant cigar-smoke, like a wide wavering scarf, floated up and away above the bush under the pendant twigs of the birches. As he followed the whiff of smoke with his eyes, Sergyeï Ivanovitch slowly walked on, thinking over the situation.
"And why should I not?" he asked himself. "If this was a caprice of passion, if I had experienced only this attachment, this mutual attachment — for I may call it mutual — and if I felt that it would run counter to the whole scheme of my life — if I felt that in giving way to this impression I should change my calling and duty — then it would not do at all. The one thing that I can bring against it is that when I lost Marie I vowed that I would never marry, in remembrance of her. This is the only thing that I can say against this feeling. .... This is serious," said Sergyeï Ivanovitch to himself, but at the same time he recognized that this consideration had personally for him no great importance, but would simply spoil in the eyes of others the poetic rôle which he had been keeping up so long.
"But besides this, no matter how long I searched, I should never find out what would be said against my feeling. If I used all my wits, I could never find any one better."
Among all the women and girls whom he had ever known he could not think of one who united to such a high degree all, yes, verily, all the qualities which in a cold calculation he should wish to see in his wife. She had all the freshness and charm of youth, and yet she was no longer a child and if she loved him she loved him sensibly, as a woman ought to love: this was one thing. Another was: she was not only far removed from worldly-mindedness, but evidently found fashionable society distasteful; but at the same time she knew society well and had all those ways of a woman of good society, lacking which married life for Sergyeï Ivanovitch was unthinkable. Thirdly, she was religious, but not like a child, irresponsibly religious and good, as Kitty, for example, was, but her life was founded on religious convictions. Even in trifles Sergyeï Ivanovitch found in
