f Bengal, one
is thrilled with ecstasy and at the same time homesick. I dreamed
of mountains, women, music, and, with the curiosity of a child, I
looked into people's faces, listened to their voices. And when I
stood at the door and watched Orlov sipping his coffee, I felt not
a footman, but a man interested in everything in the world, even
in Orlov.

In appearance Orlov was a typical Petersburger, with narrow shoulders,
a long waist, sunken temples, eyes of an indefinite colour, and
scanty, dingy-coloured hair, beard and moustaches. His face had a
stale, unpleasant look, though it was studiously cared for. It was
particularly unpleasant when he was asleep or lost in thought. It
is not worth while describing a quite ordinary appearance; besides,
Petersburg is not Spain, and a man's appearance is not of much
consequence even in love affairs, and is only of value to a handsome
footman or coachman. I have spoken of Orlov's face and hair only
because there was something in his appearance worth mentioning.
When Orlov took a newspaper or book, whatever it might be, or met
people, whoever they be, an ironical smile began to come into his
eyes, and his whole countenance assumed an expression of light
mockery in which there was no malice. Before reading or hearing
anything he always had his irony in readiness, as a savage has his
shield. It was an habitual irony, like some old liquor brewed years
ago, and now it came into his face probably without any participation
of his will, as it were by reflex action. But of that later.

Soon after midday he took his portfolio, full of papers, and drove
to his office. He dined away from home and returned after eight
o'clock. I used to light the lamp and candles in his study, and he
would sit down in a low chair with his legs stretched out on another
chair, and, reclining in that position, would begin reading. Almost
every day he brought in new books with him or received parcels of
them from the shops, and there were heaps of books in three languages,
to say nothing of Russian, which he had read and thrown away, in
the corners of my room and under my bed. He read with extraordinary
rapidity. They say: "Tell me what you read, and I'll tell you who
you are." That may be true, but it was absolutely impossible to
judge of Orlov by what he read. It was a regular hotchpotch.
Philosophy, French novels, political economy, finance, new poets,
and publications of the firm _Posrednik_*--and he read