ch here will remember it--I had to
deliver that address. It was hot, stifling, my uniform cut me under the
arms--it was deadly! I read for half an hour, for an hour, for an hour
and a half, for two hours.... 'Come,' I thought; 'thank God, there are
only ten pages left!' And at the end there were four pages that there
was no need to read, and I reckoned to leave them out. 'So there are
only six really,' I thought; 'that is, only six pages left to read.'
But, only fancy, I chanced to glance before me, and, sitting in the
front row, side by side, were a general with a ribbon on his breast and
a bishop. The poor beggars were numb with boredom; they were staring
with their eyes wide open to keep awake, and yet they were trying to put
on an expression of attention and to pretend that they understood what I
was saying and liked it. 'Well,' I thought, 'since you like it you shall
have it! I'll pay you out;' so I just gave them those four pages too."

As is usual with ironical people, when he talks nothing in his face
smiles but his eyes and eyebrows. At such times there is no trace
of hatred or spite in his eyes, but a great deal of humour, and that
peculiar fox-like slyness which is only to be noticed in very observant
people. Since I am speaking about his eyes, I notice another peculiarity
in them. When he takes a glass from Katya, or listens to her speaking,
or looks after her as she goes out of the room for a moment, I notice in
his eyes something gentle, beseeching, pure....

The maid-servant takes away the samovar and puts on the table a large
piece of cheese, some fruit, and a bottle of Crimean champagne--a
rather poor wine of which Katya had grown fond in the Crimea. Mihail
Fyodorovitch takes two packs of cards off the whatnot and begins to play
patience. According to him, some varieties of patience require great
concentration and attention, yet while he lays out the cards he does not
leave off distracting his attention with talk. Katya watches his cards
attentively, and more by gesture than by words helps him in his play.
She drinks no more than a couple of wine-glasses of wine the whole
evening; I drink four glasses, and the rest of the bottle falls to the
share of Mihail Fyodorovitch, who can drink a great deal and never get
drunk.

Over our patience we settle various questions, principally of the
higher order, and what we care for most of all--that is, science and
learning--is more roughly handled than anything.