“As you please.”

Vorotov rummaged in his bookcase and picked out a dog’s-eared French book.

“Will this do?”

“It’s all the same,” she said.

“In that case let us begin, and good luck to it! Let’s begin with the title⁠ ⁠… ‘Mémoires.’ ”

“Reminiscences,” Mdlle. Enquête translated.

With a good-natured smile, breathing hard, he spent a quarter of an hour over the word mémoires , and as much over the word de , and this wearied the young lady. She answered his questions languidly, grew confused, and evidently did not understand her pupil well, and did not attempt to understand him. Vorotov asked her questions, and at the same time kept looking at her fair hair and thinking:

“Her hair isn’t naturally curly; she curls it. It’s a strange thing! She works from morning to night, and yet she has time to curl her hair.”

At eight o’clock precisely she got up, and saying coldly and dryly, “ Au revoir, monsieur ,” walked out of the study, leaving behind her the same tender, delicate, disturbing fragrance. For a long time again her pupil did nothing; he sat at the table meditating.