An Unhappy Girl
And if you had seen her face! Only think, imagine, to make up her mind to come to me . . . what it must have cost her. . . .'
'She's a little high-flown,' observed Fustov, who had apparently regained his self-possession completely. 'All girls are like that . . . at first. I repeat, everything will be all right to-morrow. Meanwhile, good-bye. I'm tired, and you're sleepy too.'
He took his cap, and went out of the room.
'But you promise to come here at once, and tell me all about it?' I called after him.
'I promise. . . . Good-bye!'
I went to bed, but in my heart I was uneasy, and I felt vexed with my friend. I fell asleep late and dreamed that I was wandering with Susanna along underground, damp passages of some sort, and crawling along narrow, steep staircases, and continually going deeper and deeper down, though we were trying to get higher up out into the air. Some one was all the while incessantly calling us in monotonous, plaintive tones.
XXI
Some one's hand lay on my shoulder and pushed it several times. . . . I opened my
140
