Sometimes in the middle of a lesson he would begin dreaming, hoping, making plans. He inwardly composed declarations of love, remembered that Frenchwomen were frivolous and easily won, but it was enough for him to glance at the face of his teacher for his ideas to be extinguished as a candle is blown out when you bring it into the wind on the verandah. Once, overcome, forgetting himself as though in delirium, he could not restrain himself, and barred her way as she was going from the study into the entry after the lesson, and, gasping for breath and stammering, began to declare his love:

“You are dear to me! I⁠ ⁠… I love you! Allow me to speak.”

And Alice turned pale⁠—probably from dismay, reflecting that after this declaration she could not come here again and get a rouble a lesson. With a frightened look in her eyes she said in a loud whisper:

“Ach, you mustn’t! Don’t speak, I entreat you! You mustn’t!”

And Vorotov did not sleep all night afterwards; he was tortured by shame; he blamed himself and thought intensely. It seemed to him that he had insulted the girl by his declaration, that she would not come to him again.

He resolved to find out her address from the address bureau in the morning, and to write her a letter of apology. But Alice came without a letter. For the first minute she felt uncomfortable, then she opened a book and began briskly and rapidly translating as usual:

“ ‘Oh, young gentleman, don’t tear those flowers in my garden which I want to be giving to my ill daughter.⁠ ⁠…’ ”

She still comes to this day. Four books have already been translated, but Vorotov knows no French but the word Mémoires , and when he is asked about his literary researches, he waves his hand, and without answering, turns the conversation to the weather.