you," he said to Orlov, shaking
all over with ingratiating, obsequious laughter. "May you increase
and multiply like the cedars of Lebanon."

The visitors went into the bedroom, and were extremely jocose on
the subject of a pair of feminine slippers, the rug that had been
put down between the two beds, and a grey dressing-jacket that hung
at the foot of the bedstead. They were amused that the obstinate
man who despised all the common place details of love had been
caught in feminine snares in such a simple and ordinary way.

"He who pointed the finger of scorn is bowing the knee in homage,"
Kukushkin repeated several times. He had, I may say in parenthesis,
an unpleasant habit of adorning his conversation with texts in
Church Slavonic. "Sh-sh!" he said as they went from the bedroom
into the room next to the study. "Sh-sh! Here Gretchen is dreaming
of her Faust."

He went off into a peal of laughter as though he had said something
very amusing. I watched Gruzin, expecting that his musical soul
would not endure this laughter, but I was mistaken. His thin,
good-natured face beamed with pleasure. When they sat down to play
cards, he, lisping and choking with laughter, said that all that
"dear _George_" wanted to complete his domestic felicity was a
cherry-wood pipe and a guitar. Pekarsky laughed sedately, but from
his serious expression one could see that Orlov's new love affair
was distasteful to him. He did not understand what had happened
exactly.

"But how about the husband?" he asked in perplexity, after they had
played three rubbers.

"I don't know," answered Orlov.

Pekarsky combed his big beard with his fingers and sank into thought,
and he did not speak again till supper-time. When they were seated
at supper, he began deliberately, drawling every word:

"Altogether, excuse my saying so, I don't understand either of you.
You might love each other and break the seventh commandment to your
heart's content--that I understand. Yes, that's comprehensible.
But why make the husband a party to your secrets? Was there any
need for that?"

"But does it make any difference?"

"Hm! . . . ." Pekarsky mused. "Well, then, let me tell you this,
my friend," he went on, evidently thinking hard: "if I ever marry
again and you take it into your head to seduce my wife, please do
it so that I don't notice it. It's much more honest to deceive a
man than to break up his family life and injure his reputation. I
understand. You