from the first
glance that Andrey Antonovitch looked worse than he had done in the
morning. He seemed to be plunged into a sort of oblivion and hardly
to know where he was. Sometimes he looked about him with unexpected
severity--at me, for instance, twice. Once he tried to say something;
he began loudly and audibly but did not finish the sentence, throwing
a modest old clerk who happened to be near him almost into a panic. But
even this humble section of the assembly held sullenly and timidly
aloof from Yulia Mihailovna and at the same time turned upon her husband
exceedingly strange glances, open and staring, quite out of keeping with
their habitually submissive demeanour.

"Yes, that struck me, and I suddenly began to guess about Andrey
Antonovitch," Yulia Mihailovna confessed to me afterwards.

Yes, she was to blame again! Probably when after my departure she had
settled with Pyotr Stepanovitch that there should be a ball and that
she should be present she must have gone again to the study where Andrey
Antonovitch was sitting, utterly "shattered" by the matinee; must again
have used all her fascinations to persuade him to come with her. But
what misery she must have been in now! And yet she did not go away.
Whether it was pride or simply she lost her head, I do not know. In
spite of her haughtiness, she attempted with smiles and humiliation
to enter into conversation with some ladies, but they were confused,
confined themselves to distrustful monosyllables, "Yes" and "No," and
evidently avoided her.

The only person of undoubted consequence who was present at the ball was
that distinguished general whom I have described already, the one who
after Stavrogin's duel with Gaganov opened the door to public impatience
at the marshal's wife's. He walked with an air of dignity through the
rooms, looked about, and listened, and tried to appear as though he had
come rather for the sake of observation than for the sake of enjoying
himself.... He ended by establishing himself beside Yulia Mihailovna
and not moving a step away from her, evidently trying to keep up her
spirits, and reassure her. He certainly was a most kind-hearted man,
of very high rank, and so old that even compassion from him was not
wounding. But to admit to herself that this old gossip was venturing to
pity her and almost to protect her, knowing that he was doing her honour
by his presence, was very vexatious. The general stayed by her and never
ceased cha