saying. I would leave him a note explaining everything; this is what I told him the other day: 'This is my birthday.' How forward I was! How could I have been so? But then I was foolish, and didn't understand. Yes, how sensible the poor girls are in Paris! Well, can't I be just as sensible? How strange it will be! They'll come into the room; they won't see anything; only there'll be a smell of gas, a greenish tint to the air; they'll be frightened. 'What does this mean? Where is Viérotchka?' Mámenka will scold pápenka: 'What are you standing therefor? Open the window.' They open the window, and see me sitting at my bureau, my head resting on it, and my face in my hands. 'Viérotchka, are you suffocated?' I make no reply. 'Viérotchka, why don't you speak? Akh! she is suffocated!' They'll begin to scream, to weep. Akh! how strange it will be! for them to weep, and for mámenka to begin to tell how she loved me. Yes, but he will be grieved. Well, I'll leave him a note. Yes, I'll think about it, think about it, and do like the poor girls in Paris; if I make up my mind, I shall do it. I'm not afraid! And what is there to be afraid of? It must be so good! But I will wait till he has told me what the plan is that he proposes. But no, there can't be any; he only said so to console me. Why do people try to offer consolation? There's no sense in it at all. Can there be any consolation when there's no help? He is sensible, and yet he does just the same. What did he say so for? There's no sense in it. But what's he talking about? He seems to feel happy. How merry his voice sounds! Has he really thought of some plan? No, there can't be any way whatever. But if he had not thought of something, would he be so happy? What can he have thought of?"
XVII.
"Viérotchka, come to dinner!" shouted Marya Alekséyevna. In fact Pavel Konstantinuitch had returned; the pirog was all ready long ago; it was not the pirog from the confectioner's, but one that Matrióna had made out of the stuffed beef that they had the day before.
"Marya Alekséyevna, do you ever take a glass of vodka before dinner? It's very healthful, especially this kind, made out of bitter oranges; I tell you this as a medical
