“What sort of hope?”

“It is difficult to explain, but certainly not the hopes you have in your mind. Hopes⁠—well, in a word, hopes for the future, and a feeling of joy that there , at all events, I was not entirely a stranger and a foreigner. I felt an ecstasy in being in my native land once more; and one sunny morning I took up a pen and wrote her that letter, but why to her , I don’t quite know. Sometimes one longs to have a friend near, and I evidently felt the need of one then,” added the prince, and paused.

“Are you in love with her?”

“N⁠—no! I wrote to her as to a sister; I signed myself her brother.”

“Oh yes, of course, on purpose! I quite understand.”

“It is very painful to me to answer these questions, Lizabetha Prokofievna.”