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The steps were coming straight towards me; I bent – I craned forward to meet him...

A man came into view...

My God! it was my father! I recognised him at once, though he was all muffled up in a dark cloak, and his hat was pulled down over his face.

On tip-toe he walked by.

He did not notice me, though nothing concealed me; but I was so huddled up and shrunk together that I fancy I was almost on the level of the ground.

The jealous Othello, ready for murder, was suddenly transformed into a school-boy...

I was so taken aback by my father's unexpected appearance that for the first moment I did not notice where he had come from or in what direction he disappeared.

I only drew myself up, and thought, 'Why is it my father is walking about in the garden at night?' when everything was still again.

In my horror I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not even attempt to look for it; I was very much ashamed of myself.

I was completely sobered at once.

On my way to the house, however, I went up to my seat under the elder-tree, and looked up at Zinaida's window.

The small slightly-convex panes of the window shone dimly blue in the faint light thrown on them by the night sky.

All at once – their colour began to change...

Behind them – I saw this, saw it distinctly – softly and cautiously a white blind was let down, let down right to the window-frame, and so stayed.

'What is that for?' I said aloud almost involuntarily when I found myself once more in my room. 'A dream, a chance, or ... ' The suppositions which suddenly rushed into my head were so new and strange that I did not dare to entertain them.

I got up in the morning with a headache. My emotion of the previous day had vanished. It was replaced by a dreary sense of blankness and a sort of sadness I had not known till then, as though something had died in me.

'Why is it you're looking like a rabbit with half its brain removed?' said Lushin on meeting me.

At lunch I stole a look first at my father, then at my mother: he was composed, as usual; she was, as usual, secretly irritated.

I waited to see whether my father would make some friendly remarks to me, as he sometimes did...

But he did not even bestow his everyday cold greeting upon me.

'Shall I tell Zinaida all?' I wondered...

'It's all the same, anyway; all is at an end between us.' I went to see her, but told her nothing, and, indeed, I could not even have managed to get a talk with her if I had wanted to.

The old princess's son, a cadet of twelve years old, had come from Petersburg for his holidays; Zinaida at once handed her brother over to me.

'Here,' she said,' my dear Volodya,' – it was the first time she had used this pet-name to me – 'is a companion for you.

Chapter XVIII

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