Looking at him, I said to myself: “He is dreaming already of his dear Nikólskoe, our morning coffee in the bright drawing room, the land and the labourers, our evenings in the music room, and our secret midnight suppers.” Then I decided in my own heart: “Not for all the balls and all the flattering princes in the world will I give up his glad confusion and tender cares.” I was just about to say that I did not wish to go to the ball and would refuse, when he looked round, saw me, and frowned. His face, which had been gentle and thoughtful, changed at once to its old expression of sagacity, penetration, and patronizing composure. He would not show himself to me as a mere man, but had to be a demigod on a pedestal.
“Well, my dear?” he asked, turning towards me with an unconcerned air.
I said nothing. I was provoked, because he was hiding his real self from me, and would not continue to be the man I loved.
“Do you want to go to this reception on Saturday?” he asked.
“I did, but you disapprove. Besides, our things are all packed,” I said.
Never before had I heard such coldness in his tone to me, and never before seen such coldness in his eye.
“I shall order the things to be unpacked,” he said, “and I shall stay till Tuesday. So you can go to the party, if you like. I hope you will; but I shall not go.”
Without looking at me, he began to walk about the room jerkily, as his habit was when perturbed.
“I simply can’t understand you,” I said, following him with my eyes from where I stood. “You say that you never lose self-control” (he had never really said so); “then why do you talk to me so strangely? I am ready on your account to sacrifice this pleasure, and then you, in a sarcastic tone which is new from you to me, insist that I should go.”