Elena’s first sensation on awakening was one of happy consternation. ‘Is it possible? Is it possible?’ she asked herself, and her heart grew faint with happiness. Recollections came rushing on her . . . she was overwhelmed by them. Then again she was enfolded by the blissful peace of triumph. But in the course of the morning, Elena gradually became possessed by a spirit of unrest, and for the remainder of the day she felt listless and weary. It was true she knew now what she wanted, but that made it no easier for her. That never-to-be forgotten meeting had cast her for ever out of the old groove; she was no longer at the same standpoint, she was far away, and yet everything went on about her in its accustomed order, everything pursued its own course as though nothing were changed; the old life moved on its old way, reckoning on Elena’s interest and co-operation as of old. She tried to begin a letter to Insarov, but that too was a failure; the words came on to paper either lifeless or false. Her diary she had put an end to by drawing a thick stroke under the last line. That was the past, and every thought, all her soul, was turned now to the future. Her heart was heavy. To sit with her mother who suspected nothing, to listen to her, answer her and talk to her, seemed to Elena something wicked; she felt the presence of a kind of falseness in her, she suffered though she had nothing to blush for; more than once an almost irresistible desire sprang up in her heart to tell everything without reserve, whatever might come of it afterwards. ‘Why,’ she thought, ‘did not Dmitri take me away then, ............