Nezhdanov listened to her, looked at her arms and her shoulders, at times glanced at her rosy lips, the faintly waving coils of her hair. At first his answers were very short; he felt a slight tightening in his throat and his chest . . . but gradually this sensation was replaced by another, disturbing enough too, but not devoid of a certain sweetness: he had never expected such a distinguished and beautiful lady, such an aristocrat, would be capable of taking an interest in him, a mere student; and she was not simply taking an interest in him, she seemed to be flirting a little with him. Nezhdanov asked himself why she was doing all this? and he found no answer; nor, indeed, was he very anxious to find one. Madame Sipyagin talked of Kolya; she even began by assuring Nezhdanov that it was simply with the object of talking seriously about her son, to learn his views on the education of Russian children in general, that she wished to get to know him better. The suddenness with which this wish had sprung up might have struck any one as curious. But the root of the matter did not lie in what Valentina Mihalovna had just said, but in the fact that she had been overtaken by something like a wave of sensuality; a craving to conquer, to bring to her feet this stubborn creature, had asserted itself.. . .
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