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On the note was written in an unsteady hand the words: To Andrei Nikolaevitch. Next day I set off early in the morning to Kolosov's. I'm bound to confess that, although I assured myself that my intentions were not only honourable, but positively brimful of great-hearted self-sacrifice, I was yet conscious of a certain awkwardness, even timidity. I arrived at Kolosov's.
Marry her.... This idea alarmed me; I was only eighteen; I felt a dread of putting all my future into bondage so early; I thought of my father, I could hear the jeering comments of Kolosov's comrades.... But they say every thought is like dough; you have only to knead it well you can make anything you like of it.
'Get on! get on! we objected plaintively. 'I see, gentlemen, you don't care for the agreeable, and cling solely to the profitable. As you please! We groped our way through a dark and narrow passage to Kolosov's room; we went in. You have most likely an approximate idea of what a poor student's room is like. Directly facing the door Kolosov was sitting on a chest of drawers, smoking a pipe.
She does not love me.... No, she does not love me now, while she has not quite lost hope of Kolosov's return.... But afterwards...who knows, my devotion will touch her. I will make no claims.... I will give myself up to her wholly, irrevocably.... Varia! is it possible you will not love me?...never!...never!...
But what for? from pity for her? If she's a decent girl, she won't care for such charity herself, but if she is glad to be consoled by my ... my sympathy, well, she's not good for much! Kolosov's carelessly offhand expressions offended me, perhaps, the more because they were applied to the woman with whom I was secretly in love.... I fired up. 'Stop, I said to him; 'stop!
The first time I was delighted at his letting me off so easily; but afterwards I would sometimes begin myself begging him to sit down to whist, the part of third person was so insupportable! I was so unpleasantly in Kolosov's and Varia's way, though they did assure each other that there was no need to mind me!...
It was not simple curiosity that disturbed me. I longed to become the friend, the attendant squire of Kolosov; I was jealous of Gavrilov; I envied him; I could never find an explanation to satisfy me of Kolosov's strange absences.
The first time, with noble indignation, I told him to go to the devil; the second time, with chilly contempt, I informed him that he was not capable of judging of our friendship but I did not send him away; and when, on taking leave of me, he observed that without Kolosov's permission I didn't even dare to praise him, I felt annoyed; Shtchitov's last words sank into my heart.
A half-tipsy rhymester with an everlastingly ecstatic smile!" ... "Oh no! Kolosov's not like that." I was on the point of observing that it was for Mr. Kolosov to call on me; but, I don't know why, I obeyed Bobov and went.
Kolosov's presence gave a special harmony to our evening reunions. Before him, our liveliness never passed into vulgar riotousness; if we were all melancholy this half childlike melancholy, in his presence, led on to quiet, sometimes fairly sensible, conversation, and never ended in dejected boredom.
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