“Well, certainly I shall ask to go for one next Tuesday, and, if they won’t take me I shall go by myself—­even without my hat, if necessary.  I know the way all right.”

“Do you know what I have just thought of?” she went on.  “You know, I call some of the boys who come to see us thou.  Shall you and I call each other thou too?  Wilt thou?” she added, bending her head towards me and looking me straight in the eyes.

At this moment a more lively section of the Grosvater dance began.

“Give me your hand,” I said, under the impression that the music and din would drown my exact words, but she smilingly replied, “Thy hand, not your hand.”  Yet the dance was over before I had succeeded in saying thou, even though I kept conning over phrases in which the pronoun could be employed—­and employed more than once.  All that I wanted was the courage to say it.

“Wilt thou?” and “Thy hand” sounded continually in my ears, and caused in me a kind of intoxication I could hear and see nothing but Sonetchka.  I watched her mother take her curls, lay them flat behind her ears (thus disclosing portions of her forehead and temples which I had not yet seen), and wrap her up so completely in the green shawl that nothing was left visible but the tip of her nose.  Indeed, I could see that, if her little rosy fingers had not made a small, opening near her mouth, she would have been unable to breathe.  Finally I saw her leave her mother’s arm for an instant on the staircase, and turn and nod to us quickly before she disappeared through the doorway.

Woloda, the Iwins, the young Prince Etienne, and myself were all of us in love with Sonetchka and all of us standing on the staircase to follow her with our eyes.  To whom in particular she had nodded I do not know, but at the moment I firmly believed it to be myself.  In taking leave of the Iwins, I spoke quite unconcernedly, and even coldly, to Seriosha before I finally shook hands with him.  Though he tried to appear absolutely indifferent, I think that he understood that from that day forth he had lost both my affection and his power over me, as well as that he regretted it.

XXIV —­ IN BED

“How could I have managed to be so long and so passionately devoted to Seriosha?” I asked myself as I lay in bed that night.  “He never either understood, appreciated, or deserved my love.  But Sonetchka!  What a darling she is!  ’Wilt thou?’—­’Thy hand’!”

I crept closer to the pillows, imagined to myself her lovely face, covered my head over with the bedclothes, tucked the counterpane in on all sides, and, thus snugly covered, lay quiet and enjoying the warmth until I became wholly absorbed in pleasant fancies and reminiscences.