Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/88

Rh permission. He took up her photograph, he began reproducing it, enlarging it. Then he took it into his head to fit it to the stereoscope. He had a great deal of trouble to do it. . . at last he succeeded. He fairly shuddered when through the glass he looked upon her figure, with the semblance of corporeal solidity given it by the stereoscope. But the figure was grey, as though covered with dust. . . and moreover the eyes — the eyes looked always to one side, as though turning away. A long, long while he stared at them, as though expecting them to turn to him. . .he even half-closed his eyelids on purpose. . . but the eyes remained immovable, and the whole figure had the look of some sort of doll. He moved away, flung himself in an armchair, took out the leaf from her diary, with the words underlined, and thought, 'Well, lovers, they say, kiss the words traced by the hand of the beloved — but I feel no inclination to do that — and the handwriting I think ugly. But that line contains my sentence.' Then he recalled the promise he had made Anna about the article. He sat down to the table, and set to work upon it, but everything he wrote struck him as so false, so rhetorical. . . especially so false. . . as though he did not believe in what he was writing nor in his own feelings. . . . And Clara herself seemed