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 people who were previously unacquainted with one another suddenly become very good friends."

"Yes, but not in the street," said Mashenka, and now she laughed outright.

There was nothing to laugh at, of course, and Mashenka quickly recollected herself and bit her pretty full red underlip with her strong little white teeth. It seemed to her that her laugh only encouraged this importunate young man.

But he said in a beseeching tone:

"For mercy's sake, Marya Constantìnovna, and why not in the street? Isn't it all the same? If a man is truly in love, believe me, Marya Constantìnovna, all outward circumstances and worldly conventions cease to exist for him; he cannot think of anything else except the object of his passionate affection."

Saying this, he pressed both his hands on his heart and then waved his left hand in the air exactly as the singer in the opera had done when he sang the declaration of Lohengrin.

Mashenka could not possibly take him seriously. She even felt a little disappointed that the adventure had nothing in it to frighten her—it was simply amusing. She