Nadejda Nicolaievna by Vsevolod Garshin

In the evening I went round to Bezsonow.

I went into the room where he was sitting bent over his writing-table, which was littered with books, manuscripts, and cuttings from papers. His hand was travelling swiftly over the paper. He wrote very quickly, without making erasures, in a small, even, and florid hand. He gave me a rapid glance, and continued writing. A tenacious idea apparently possessed him, and he did not wish to stop his work until he had put it to paper. I sat down on a wide, low, and much-worn sofa (he slept on it), which stood in a dark corner of the room, and for some five minutes looked at him. His regular, cold profile was well known to me; I had often sketched it in my album, and had once painted a study from it. I have not got this study. He sent it to his mother. But this evening -- perhaps because I was sitting out of the light, and a lamp with a green-coloured shade showed him up in brilliant relief, or perhaps because my nerves were unstrung -- his face, for some reason, particularly attracted my attention. I looked at him and took in every detail of his head, and noted the smallest features which had hitherto escaped my notice. His head was indisputably the head of a strong man -- perhaps not very talented, but strong.