man. Whenever I took off his
fur coat he tittered and asked me: "Stepan, are you married?" and
then unseemly vulgarities followed--by way of showing me special
attention. Kukushkin flattered Orlov's weaknesses, humoured his
corrupted and blase ways; to please him he affected malicious
raillery and atheism, in his company criticised persons before whom
in other places he would slavishly grovel. When at supper they
talked of love and women, he pretended to be a subtle and perverse
voluptuary. As a rule, one may say, Petersburg rakes are fond of
talking of their abnormal tastes. Some young actual civil councillor
is perfectly satisfied with the embraces of his cook or of some
unhappy street-walker on the Nevsky Prospect, but to listen to him
you would think he was contaminated by all the vices of East and
West combined, that he was an honourary member of a dozen iniquitous
secret societies and was already marked by the police. Kukushkin
lied about himself in an unconscionable way, and they did not exactly
disbelieve him, but paid little heed to his incredible stories.

The third guest was Gruzin, the son of a worthy and learned general;
a man of Orlov's age, with long hair, short-sighted eyes, and gold
spectacles. I remember his long white fingers, that looked like a
pianist's; and, indeed, there was something of a musician, of a
virtuoso, about his whole figure. The first violins in orchestras
look just like that. He used to cough, suffered from migraine, and
seemed invalidish and delicate. Probably at home he was dressed and
undressed like a baby. He had finished at the College of Jurisprudence,
and had at first served in the Department of Justice, then he was
transferred to the Senate; he left that, and through patronage had
received a post in the Department of Crown Estates, and had soon
afterwards given that up. In my time he was serving in Orlov's
department; he was his head-clerk, but he said that he should soon
exchange into the Department of Justice again. He took his duties
and his shifting about from one post to another with exceptional
levity, and when people talked before him seriously of grades in
the service, decorations, salaries, he smiled good-naturedly and
repeated Prutkov's aphorism: "It's only in the Government service
you learn the truth." He had a little wife with a wrinkled face,
who was very jealous of him, and five weedy-looking children. He
was unfaithful to his wife, he was only fond of his ch