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When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking

of what had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely

understood that the woman he had known as a child, of whom when

her beauty was mentioned he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's

good looking," he had understood that this woman might belong to

him.

"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought.

"There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she

excites in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in

love with her and she with him, that there was quite a scandal

and that that's why he was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother...

Prince Vasili is her father... It's bad...." he reflected, but

while he was thinking this (the reflection was still incomplete),

he caught himself smiling and was conscious that another line of

thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her worthlessness he

was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she would

love him become quite different, and how all he had thought and

heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the

daughter of Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body only

veiled by its gray dress. "But no!