NEXT morning I went again to L - - - - . I persuaded myself I wanted to see Gagin, but secretly I was tempted to go and see what Acia would do, whether she would be as whimsical as on the previous day. I found them both in their sitting - room, and strange to say - - possibly because I had been thinking so much that night and morning of Russia - - Acia struck me as a typically Russian girl, and a girl of the humbler class, almost like a Russian servant - girl. She wore an old gown, she had combed her hair back behind her ears, and was sitting still as a mouse at the window, working at some embroidery in a frame, quietly, demurely, as though she had never done anything else all her life. She said scarcely anything, looked quietly at her work, and her features wore such an ordinary, commonplace expression, that I could not help thinking of our Katias and Mashas at home in Russia. To complete the resemblance she started singing in a low voice, “Little mother, little dove.” I looked at her little face, which was rather yellow and listless, I thought of my dreams of the previous night, and I felt a pang of regret for something.
It was exquisite weather. Gagin announced that he was going to make a sketch to - day from nature; I asked him if he would let me go with him, whether I shouldn’t be in his way.
“On the contrary,” he assured me; “you may give me some good advice.”
He put on a hat à la Vandyck, and a blouse, took a canvas under his arm, and set out; I sauntered after him. Acia stayed at home. Gagin, as he went out, asked her to see that the soup wasn’t too thin; Acia promised to look into the kitchen. Gagin went as far as the valley I knew already, sat down on a stone, and began to sketch a hollow oak with spreading branches. I lay on the grass and took out a book; but I didn’t read two pages, and he simply spoiled a sheet of paper; we did little else but talk, and as far as I am competent to judge, we talked rather cleverly and subtly of the right method of working, of what we must avoid, and what one must cling to, and wherein lay the significance of the artist in our age. Gagin, at last, decided that he was not in the mood to - day, and lay down beside me on the grass. And then our youthful eloquence flowed freely; fervent, pensive, enthusiastic by turns, but consisting almost always of those vague generalities into which a Russian is so ready to expand. When we had talked to our hearts’ content, and were full of a feeling of satisfaction as though we had got something done, achieved some sort of success, we returned home. I found Acia just as I had left her; however assiduously I watched her I could not detect a shade of coquetry, nor a sign of an intentionally assumed rôle in her; this time it was impossible to reproach her for artificiality.
“Aha!” said Gagin; “she has imposed fasting and penance on herself.”
Towards evening she yawned several times with obvious genuineness, and went early to her room. I myself soon said good - bye to Gagin, and as I went home, I had no dreams of any kind; that day was spent in sober sensations. I remember, however, as I lay down to sleep, I involuntarily exclaimed aloud - - “What a chameleon the girl is!” and after a moment’s thought I added; “anyway, she’s not his sister.”