Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/46

Rh my God! . . . But how to do it. . . how to do it!' Aratov was walking by her side, a little behind her; he could not see her face; he saw only her hat and part of her veil. . . and her long black shabby cape. All his irritation, both with her and with himself, suddenly came back to him; all the absurdity, the awkwardness of this interview, these explanations between perfect strangers in a public promenade, suddenly struck him. 'I have come on your invitation,' he began in his turn. 'I have come, my dear madam' (her shoulders gave a faint twitch, she turned off into a side passage, he followed her), 'simply to clear up, to discover to what strange misunderstanding it is due that you are pleased to address me, a stranger to you. . . who. . . only guessed, to use your expression in your letter, that it was you writing to him. . . guessed it because during that literary matinée, you saw fit to pay him such. . . such obvious attention.' All this little speech was delivered by Aratov in that ringing but unsteady voice in which very young people answer at examinations on a subject in which they are well prepared. . . . He was angry; he was furious. ... It was just this fury which loosened his ordinarily not very ready tongue.