Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/168

Rh admitted him to her confidence, she, as it were, revealed herself to him, and with sweet curiosity, with half-maternal tenderness, watched this very nice-looking, interesting, and severe young radical slowly and awkwardly beginning to respond to her. In a day, an hour, a minute—all this would disappear, leaving no trace; but meanwhile she found it pleasant, rather amusing, rather pathetic, and even rather touching. Forgetting his origin, and knowing how such interest is appreciated by people who are lonely and among strangers, Valentina Mihalovna began questioning Nezhdanov about his youth, his family. But guessing instantly by his confused and short replies that she had made a blunder, Valentina Mihalovna tried to smooth over her mistake, and opened her heart even more ingenuously to him. As in the languid heat of noonday a full-blown rose opens its fragrant petals, which are soon folded up close again by the bracing coolness of night.

She did not succeed, however, in fully effacing her mistake. Nezhdanov, touched on a sore spot, could not feel confiding as before. The bitter feeling he had always with him, always rankling at the bottom of his heart, was astir again; his democratic suspicion and self-reproach were awakened. 'This wasn't what I came here for,' he thought; Paklin's