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She got up, put on her hat and gloves, threw a cape over her shoulders, and, slipping unnoticed out of the house, she went with swift steps along the road leading to Bersenyev's lodging. Elena walked with her head bent and her eyes fixed straight before her. She feared nothing, she considered nothing; she wanted to see Insarov once more.
'Pavel was making a fool of me, he thought; ... but she will love one day... whom will she love? In Bersenyev's room there was a piano, small, and by no means new, but of a soft and sweet tone, though not perfectly in tune. Bersenyev sat down to it, and began to strike some chords.
Shubin tried to get a look at Bersenyev's face, but he turned away and walked out of the lime-tree's shade. Shubin went after him, moving his little feet with easy grace. Bersenyev walked clumsily, with his shoulders high and his neck craned forward. Yet, he looked a man of finer breeding than Shubin; more of a gentleman, one might say, if that word had not been so vulgarised among us.
On the very day on which Elena had written this last fatal line in her diary, Insarov was sitting in Bersenyev's room, and Bersenyev was standing before him with a look of perplexity on his face. Insarov had just announced his intention of returning to Moscow the next day. 'Upon my word! cried Bersenyev. 'Why, the finest part of the summer is just beginning. What will you do in Moscow?
He returned three hours later; and in response to Bersenyev's invitation to share his repast, he said that he would not refuse to dine with him that day, but that he had already spoken to the woman of the house, and would get her to send him up his meals for the future. 'Upon my word! said Bersenyev, 'you will fare very badly; that old body can't cook a bit.
Insarov had really made less impression on Elena than she had expected, or, speaking more exactly, he had not made the impression she had expected. She liked his directness and unconstraint, and she liked his face; but the whole character of Insarov with his calm firmness and everyday simplicity did not somehow accord with the image formed in her brain by Bersenyev's account of him.
Sadness came upon her at the thought that she would not soon see Insarov. He could not without awakening suspicion remain at Bersenyev's, and so this was what he and Elena had resolved on.
Insarov had a rather queer cap with flaps, over which Shubin fell into not very spontaneous raptures. Insarov walked without haste, and looked about, breathing, talking, and smiling with the same tranquillity; he was giving this day up to pleasure, and enjoying it to the utmost. 'Just as well-behaved boys walk out on Sundays, Shubin whispered in Bersenyev's ear.
The owner of eighty-two serfs, whom he set free before his death, an old Gottingen student, and disciple of the 'Illuminati, the author of a manuscript work on 'transformations or typifications of the spirit in the world' a work in which Schelling's philosophy, Swedenborgianism and republicanism were mingled in the most original fashion Bersenyev's father brought him, while still a boy, to Moscow immediately after his mother's death, and at once himself undertook his education.
It was long since she had slept or wept. Bersenyev's words turned out only partly true; the danger was over, but Insarov gained strength slowly, and the doctor talked of a complete undermining of the whole system.
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