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364 nothing to hinder people from belonging wholly to each other? These people did not know true love. They felt only an erotic selfishness, or an erotic fancy. Real love begins only when people begin to live together."

"Do you notice that in me?"

"I notice in you something that is much more interesting. In three years you will forget that you have studied medicine, and in three years you will forget to read, and from all your senses, which are needful for intellectual life, you will use only one,—that of sight; and sight, too, will forget to see anything else but me."

Such conversations do not last long, and are not frequent; but still, occasionally, they have such conversations.

"Yes, it grows stronger every year."

"In the nature of man does attachment grow weaker? does it fail to be developed by time? When does friendship become stronger and firmer? in a week, or a year, or twenty years after it began? It is only necessary that people should choose the right friends; that they should be suited to each other."

These conversations take place, but they are not frequent. They are brief, and not frequent. In fact, what reason have they to talk about this subject very often?

But this kind come oftener and last longer:—

"Sasha, how greatly your love supports me! Through it I am becoming independent; I am getting rid of all dependence upon anybody, even upon you. But what has my love brought to you?"

"For me? not less than for you! It is a constant, powerful, healthy stimulus of the nerves; it essentially develops the nervous system!" ("Coarse materialism!" declare the sapient reader and I together.) "And therefore the intellectual and moral strength grow in me from my love."

"Yes, Sasha, I hear from everybody—I myself am a bad witness in the case; my eyes are blinded—but everybody sees the same thing; your eyes are growing brighter, your views become clearer and keener."

"Viérotchka, why should I praise or not praise myself before you? We are one. But this must really be reflected in the eyes. My mind has become far stronger; when I make conclusions from observations, or a general examination of