“No, somehow people nowadays are different. The other one was ready to leap into the fire for me⁠—and not without cause. But this one, never fear, is sleeping like a fool, glad to have won⁠—no lovemaking about him. How he used to say on his knees, ‘What do you wish me to do? I would kill myself on the spot, or do anything you like!’ And he would have killed himself had I told him to.”

Suddenly she heard a patter of bare feet in the passage, and Lisa, with a shawl thrown over her, ran in, pale and trembling, and almost fell on to her mother’s bed.

After saying good night to her mother that evening Lisa had gone alone to the room her uncle generally slept in. She put on a white dressing-jacket, and covering her long, thick, plaited hair with a shawl, she extinguished the candle, opened the window, and sat down, feet and all, on a chair, fixing her pensive eyes on the pond, now all glittering in the silvery light.