"It's by pictures, pictures like that one must get at you," I thought to
myself, though I did speak with real feeling, and all at once I flushed
crimson. "What if she were suddenly to burst out laughing, what should I
do then?" That idea drove me to fury. Towards the end of my speech I
really was excited, and now my vanity was somehow wounded. The
silence continued. I almost nudged her.
"Why are you--" she began and stopped. But I understood: there
was a quiver of something different in her voice, not abrupt, harsh and
unyielding as before, but something soft and shamefaced, so shamefaced
that I suddenly felt ashamed and guilty.
"What?" I asked, with tender curiosity.
"Why, you ..."
"What?"
"Why, you ... speak somehow like a book," she said, and again there
was a note of irony in her voice.
That remark sent a pang to my heart. It was not what I was expecting.
I did not understand that she was hiding her feelings under irony,
that this is usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people
when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded, and
that their pride makes them refuse to surrender till the last moment
and shrink from giving expression to their feelings before you. I ought
to have guessed the truth from the timidity with which she had repeatedly
approached her sarcasm, only bringing herself to utter it at last
with an effort. But I did not guess, and an evil feeling took possession
of me.
"Wait a bit!" I thought.
VII
"Oh, hush, Liza! How can you talk about being like a book, when it
makes even me, an outsider, feel sick? Though I don't look at it as an
outsider, for, indeed, it touches me to the heart .... Is it possible, is it
possible that you do not feel sick at being here yourself? Evidently habit
does wonders! God knows what habit can do with anyone. Can you
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