“That’s bad that you don’t sleep at night,” I said.

“Do you think I am ill?  Not at all.  Vladimir sounded me, and said I was perfectly well.  But health is not what matters, it is not so important.  Tell me:  am I right?”

She needed moral support, that was obvious.  Masha had gone away.  Dr. Blagovo was in Petersburg, and there was no one left in the town but me, to tell her she was right.  She looked intently into my face, trying to read my secret thoughts, and if I were absorbed or silent in her presence she thought this was on her account, and was grieved.  I always had to be on my guard, and when she asked me whether she was right I hastened to assure her that she was right, and that I had a deep respect for her.

“Do you know they have given me a part at the Azhogins’?” she went on.  “I want to act on the stage, I want to live—­in fact, I mean to drain the full cup.  I have no talent, none, and the part is only ten lines, but still this is immeasurably finer and loftier than pouring out tea five times a day, and looking to see if the cook has eaten too much.  Above all, let my father see I am capable of protest.”

After tea she lay down on my bed, and lay for a little while with her eyes closed, looking very pale.

“What weakness,” she said, getting up.  “Vladimir says all city-bred women and girls are anaemic from doing nothing.  What a clever man Vladimir is!  He is right, absolutely right.  We must work!”

Two days later she came to the Azhogins’ with her manuscript for the rehearsal.  She was wearing a black dress with a string of coral round her neck, and a brooch that in the distance was like a pastry puff, and in her ears earrings sparkling with brilliants.  When I looked at her I felt uncomfortable.  I was struck by her lack of taste.  That she had very inappropriately put on earrings and brilliants, and that she was strangely dressed, was remarked by other people too; I saw smiles on people’s faces, and heard someone say with a laugh:  “Kleopatra of Egypt.”

She was trying to assume society manners, to be unconstrained and at her ease, and so seemed artificial and strange.  She had lost simplicity and sweetness.

“I told father just now that I was going to the rehearsal,” she began, coming up to me, “and he shouted that he would not give me his blessing, and actually almost struck me.  Only fancy, I don’t know my part,” she said, looking at her manuscript.  “I am sure to make a mess of it.  So be it, the die is cast,” she went on in intense excitement.  “The die is cast. . . .”

It seemed to her that everyone was looking at her, and that all were amazed at the momentous step she had taken, that everyone was expecting something special of her, and it would have been impossible to convince her that no one was paying attention to people so petty and insignificant as she and I were.