As to Marie Ivanovna I think that he never even began to understand her; that he should believe in her was a different matter from his understanding her.

That he should worship her was a tribute both to his inexperience and to his sentiment.

But his relation to her and to this whole adventure of his was confused and complicated by the fact that he was not, I believe, in himself a sentimental man.

What one supposed to be sentiment was a quite honest and naked lack of knowledge of the world.

As experience came to him sentiment fell away from him.