hly,
fluently, without hesitation, and only occasionally, for the sake
of effect, permitted himself to hesitate and snap his fingers as
if picking up a word. He had long ceased to believe in anything he
had to say in the law courts, or perhaps he did believe in it, but
attached no kind of significance to it; it had all so long been
familiar, stale, ordinary. . . . He believed in nothing but what
was original and unusual. A copy-book moral in an original form
would move him to tears. Both his notebooks were filled with
extraordinary expressions which he had read in various authors; and
when he needed to look up any expression, he would search nervously
in both books, and usually failed to find it. Anna Akimovna's father
had in a good-humoured moment ostentatiously appointed him legal
adviser in matters concerning the factory, and had assigned him a
salary of twelve thousand roubles. The legal business of the factory
had been confined to two or three trivial actions for recovering
debts, which Lysevitch handed to his assistants.

Anna Akimovna knew that he had nothing to do at the factory, but
she could not dismiss him--she had not the moral courage; and
besides, she was used to him. He used to call himself her legal
adviser, and his salary, which he invariably sent for on the first
of the month punctually, he used to call "stern prose." Anna Akimovna
knew that when, after her father's death, the timber of her forest
was sold for railway sleepers, Lysevitch had made more than fifteen
thousand out of the transaction, and had shared it with Nazaritch.
When first she found out they had cheated her she had wept bitterly,
but afterwards she had grown used to it.

Wishing her a happy Christmas, and kissing both her hands, he looked
her up and down, and frowned.

"You mustn't," he said with genuine disappointment. "I have told
you, my dear, you mustn't!"

"What do you mean, Viktor Nikolaitch?"

"I have told you you mustn't get fat. All your family have an
unfortunate tendency to grow fat. You mustn't," he repeated in an
imploring voice, and kissed her hand. "You are so handsome! You are
so splendid! Here, your Excellency, let me introduce the one woman
in the world whom I have ever seriously loved."

"There is nothing surprising in that. To know Anna Akimovna at your
age and not to be in love with her, that would be impossible."

"I adore her," the lawyer continued with perfect sincerity, but
with his usual indolent gr