“Let us go for a walk,” I said.

Kátya agreed, but said I must put on galoshes.

“I don’t want them, Kátya,” I said; “Sergéy Mikháylych will give me his arm.”

As if that would prevent me from wetting my feet! But to us three this seemed perfectly natural at the time. Though he never used to offer me his arm, I now took it of my own accord, and he saw nothing strange in it. We all went down from the veranda together. That whole world, that sky, that garden, that air, were different from those that I knew.