ALL these days I have not once departed from my system. Princess Mary
has come to like talking to me; I have told her a few of the
strange events of my life, and she is beginning to look on me as
an extraordinary man. I mock at everything in the world, especially
feelings; and she is taking alarm. When I am present, she does not dare
to embark upon sentimental discussions with Grushnitski, and already, on
a few occasions, she has answered his sallies with a mocking smile. But
every time that Grushnitski comes up to her I assume an air of meekness
and leave the two of them together. On the first occasion, she was glad,
or tried to make it appear so; on the second, she was angry with me; on
the third--with Grushnitski.
“You have very little vanity!” she said to me yesterday. “What makes you
think that I find Grushnitski the more entertaining?”
I answered that I was sacrificing my own pleasure for the sake of the
happiness of a friend.
“And my pleasure, too,” she added.
I looked at her intently and assumed a serious air. After that for the
whole day I did not speak a single word to her... In the evening, she
was pensive; this morning, at the well, more pensive still. When I went
up to her, she was listening absent-mindedly to Grushnitski, who was
apparently falling into raptures about Nature, but, so soon as
she perceived me, she began to laugh--at a most inopportune
moment--pretending not to notice me. I went on a little further and
began stealthily to observe her. She turned away from her companion and
yawned twice. Decidedly she had grown tired of Grushnitski--I will not
talk to her for another two days.