I have forgotten, I fancy, to make known to you that up to that time I had been afraid of women and avoided them, though I would sometimes, in solitude, spend whole hours in dreaming of tender interviews, of love, of mutual love, and so on. Varvara Ivanovna was the first girl with whom I was forced to talk, by necessity—by necessity it really was. Varia was an ordinary girl, and yet there are very few such girls in holy Russia. You will ask me—why so? Because I never noticed in her anything strained, unnatural, affected; because she was a simple, candid, rather melancholy creature, because one could never call her ‘a young lady.’ I liked her soft smile; I liked her simple-hearted, ringing little voice, her light and mirthful laugh, her attentive though by no means ‘profound’ glances. The c
