The same thing happened in Rome, where it rained and there was a cold wind.  After a heavy lunch we went to look at St. Peter’s, and thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an indifference to art, we almost quarrelled.

The money came from my father.  I went to get it, I remember, in the morning.  Lubkov went with me.

“The present cannot be full and happy when one has a past,” said he.  “I have heavy burdens left on me by the past.  However, if only I get the money, it’s no great matter, but if not, I’m in a fix.  Would you believe it, I have only eight francs left, yet I must send my wife a hundred and my mother another.  And we must live here too.  Ariadne’s like a child; she won’t enter into the position, and flings away money like a duchess.  Why did she buy a watch yesterday?  And, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being good children?  Why, our hiding our relations from the servants and our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as I have to have a separate room.  What’s the object of it?”

I felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest.  There was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me.  I turned cold all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to run away from them, to go home at once. . . .

“To get on terms with a woman is easy enough,” Lubkov went on.  “You have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a silly business!”

When I counted over the money I received he said: 

“If you don’t lend me a thousand francs, I am faced with complete ruin.  Your money is the only resource left to me.”

I gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address secret from his wife.  When I reached the hotel I packed and paid my bill.  I had still to say good-bye to Ariadne.

I knocked at the door.

“Entrez!”

In her room was the usual morning disorder:  tea-things on the table, an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of scent.  The bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had slept in it.

Ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket.

I said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then I asked her, trembling all over: 

“Why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?”

Evidently she guessed what I was thinking; she took me by the hand and said: 

“I want you to be here, you are so pure.”