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'What is it? she wondered, 'won't you... or can't you? It was Lutchkov's turn to feel shy. He was conscious again of his miserable, overwhelming diffidence; already he was raging!... 'It was the devil's own notion to have anything to do with the wretched girl, he muttered to himself.... And all the while how easy it was to touch Masha's heart at that instant!
His horse, tied up near by, more than once whinnied in response to the sonorous neighing of the mares and fillies in the meadow. Avdey was ill-tempered and shy, as usual. Not yet convinced of Masha's love, he felt wrathful with her and annoyed with himself... but his excitement smothered his annoyance.
The first blow that fell upon him was the most heartrending for him. Masha left him. What induced her to forsake his roof, where she seemed to be so thoroughly at home, it is hard to say. Tchertop-hanov to the end of his days clung to the conviction that a certain young neighbour, a retired captain of Uhlans, named Yaff, was at the root of Masha's desertion.
Masha's conduct was consequently even more unexpected for him; it made almost a deeper impression on him than on Tchertop-hanov himself. With his natural sweetness and diffidence, he gave utterance to nothing but the tenderest sympathy with his friend, and the most painful perplexity... but it crushed and made havoc of everything in him.
Masha's white neck and her youthful bosom were not fully developed, but you fancy the sculptor would need a great creative genius to mold them. You gaze, and little by little the desire comes over you to say to Masha something extraordinarily pleasant, sincere, beautiful, as beautiful as she herself was.
Tchertop-hanov looked after her, ran to the place where the pistol was lying, snatched it up, took aim, fired.... But before he touched the trigger, his arm twitched upwards; the ball whistled over Masha's head. She looked at him over her shoulder without stopping, and went on, swinging as she walked, as though in defiance of him. He hid his face and fell to running.
If his imagination could have conceived in prenuptial days what depths of emotion might be wakened by fatherhood, he would not have treated the birth of Masha's first child in "Conjugal Happiness" as a trivial material event, in no way affecting the mutual relations of the disillusioned pair.
And Darya Alexandrovna described Masha's crime. "That proves nothing; it's not a question of evil propensities at all, it's simply mischief," Levin assured her. "But you are upset about something? What have you come for?" asked Dolly. "What's going on there?" And in the tone of her question Levin heard that it would be easy for him to say what he had meant to say.
Likewise, I confess that the knowledge of Masha's love for Basil had greatly cooled my ardour for her, and that my passion underwent a final cure by their marriage a consummation to which I myself contributed by, at Basil's request, asking Papa's consent to the union.
She succeeded in getting back to her bedroom; but she had scarcely crossed the threshold when her strength failed her, and she fell senseless into Masha's arms. But Rudin remained a long while still standing on the bank. At last he shivered, and with slow steps made his way to the little path and quietly walked along it. He was deeply ashamed... and wounded.
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