THIS conversation of ours took place in a phaeton on the way to Kuntsevo. Dimitri had invited me in the morning to go with him to his mother’s, and had called for me after luncheon¹; the idea being that I should spend the evening, and perhaps also pass the night, at the country-house where his family lived. Only when we had left the city and exchanged its grimy streets and the unbearably² deafening³ clatter⁴ of its pavements for the open vista⁵ of fields and the subdued⁶ grinding of carriage-wheels on a dusty high road (while the sweet spring air and prospect⁷ enveloped⁸ us on every side) did I awake from the new impressions and sensations of freedom into which the past two days had plunged⁹ me. Dimitri was in his kind and sociable¹⁰ mood. That is to say, he was neither frowning nor blinking nervously¹¹ nor straightening his neck in his collar. For my own part, I was congratulating myself on those noble sentiments which I have expressed above, in the belief that they had led him to overlook my shameful¹² encounter with Kolpikoff, and to refrain from despising me for it. Thus we talked together on many an intimate subject which even a friend seldom mentions to a friend. He told me about his family whose acquaintance I had not yet made — about his mother, his aunt, and his sister, as also about her whom Woloda and Dubkoff believed to be his “flame,” and always

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