e you alone--if
only for a minute.' He turned to Mlle, Boncourt 'Here,' he said to her,
'this is the article you were looking for,' and again bending towards
Natalya, he added in a whisper, 'Try to be near the terrace in the lilac
arbour about ten o'clock; I will wait for you.'

Pigasov was the hero of the evening. Rudin left him in possession of the
field. He afforded Darya Mihailovna much entertainment; first he told
a story of one of his neighbours who, having been henpecked by his
wife for thirty years, had grown so womanish that one day in crossing a
little puddle when Pigasov was present, he put out his hand and picked
up the skirt of his coat, as women do with their petticoats. Then he
turned to another gentleman who to begin with had been a freemason, then
a hypochondriac, and then wanted to be a banker.

'How were you a freemason, Philip Stepanitch?' Pigasov asked him.

'You know how; I wore the nail of my little finger long.'

But what most diverted Darya Mihailovna was when Pigasov set off on a
dissertation upon love, and maintained that even he had been sighed
for, that one ardent German lady had even given him the nickname of her
'dainty little African' and her 'hoarse little crow.' Darya Mihailovna
laughed, but Pigasov spoke the truth; he really was in a position to
boast of his conquests. He maintained that nothing could be easier than
to make any woman you chose fall in love with you; you only need repeat
to her for ten days in succession that heaven is on her lips and bliss
in her eyes, and that the rest of womankind are all simply rag-bags
beside her; and on the eleventh day she will be ready to say herself
that there is heaven on her lips and bliss in her eyes, and will be
in love with you. Everything comes to pass in the world; so who knows,
perhaps Pigasov was right?

At half-past nine Rudin was already in the arbour. The stars had come
out in the pale, distant depths of the heaven; there was still a red
glow where the sun had set, and there the horizon seemed brighter and
clearer; a semi-circular moon shone golden through the black network
of the weeping birch-tree. The other trees stood like grim giants, with
thousands of chinks looking like eyes, or fell into compact masses of
darkness. Not a leaf was stirring; the topmost branches of the lilacs
and acacias seemed to stretch upwards into the warm air, as though
listening for something. The house was a dark mass now; patches of red
light show