Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/174

Rh you mean? Isn't that it? Well, but what could I do? He's a good man. But it's not my fault; I don't love him.'

Marianna again walked on in front as though she wished to save her companion from any obligation to reply to this unexpected confession.

They both reached the end of the avenue. Marianna turned quickly into a narrow path that ran through the densely planted firs, and walked along it. Nezhdanov followed Marianna. He was conscious of a twofold perplexity; it was amazing that this shy girl could suddenly be so open with him, and he wondered still more that her openness did not strike him as strange, that he felt it natural.

Marianna turned round suddenly and stood still in the middle of the path, so that it came to pass that her face was about a yard from Nezhdanov's and her eyes were fixed straight upon his.

'Alexey Dmitritch,' she said, 'don't suppose my aunt is ill-natured. No! she is all deceit, she's an actress, she poses, she wants every one to adore her as a beauty, and to worship her as a saint! She makes a sympathetic phrase, says it to one person, and then repeats the phrase to a second and a third, and always with the same air of only just having