and of the Orthodox
persuasion, and even--I will say that for him--a remarkably handsome man
of about forty..."

"What makes you think he's a handsome man? He has eyes like a sheep's."

"Precisely so. But in this I yield, of course, to the opinion of our
ladies."

"Let's get on, Stepan Trofimovitch, I beg you! By the way, you're
wearing a red neck-tie. Is it long since you've taken to it?"

"I've... I've only put it on to-day."

"And do you take your constitutional? Do you go for a four-mile walk
every day as the doctor told you to?"

"N-not... always."

"I knew you didn't! I felt sure of that when I was in Switzerland!" she
cried irritably. "Now you must go not four but six miles a day! You've
grown terribly slack, terribly, terribly! You're not simply getting old,
you're getting decrepit.... You shocked me when I first saw you just
now, in spite of your red tie, quelle idee rouge! Go on about Von
Lembke if you've really something to tell me, and do finish some time, I
entreat you, I'm tired."

"_En un mot,_ I only wanted to say that he is one of those administrators
who begin to have power at forty, who, till they're forty, have been
stagnating in insignificance and then suddenly come to the front through
suddenly acquiring a wife, or some other equally desperate means... .
That is, he has gone away now... that is, I mean to say, it was at once
whispered in both his ears that I am a corrupter of youth, and a hot-bed
of provincial atheism.... He began making inquiries at once."

"Is that true?"

"I took steps about it, in fact. When he was 'informed' that you 'ruled
the province,' _vous savez,_ he allowed himself to use the expression that
'there shall be nothing of that sort in the future.'"

"Did he say that?"

"That 'there shall be nothing of the sort in future,' and, _avec cette
morgue_.... His wife, Yulia Mihailovna, we shall behold at the end of
August, she's coming straight from Petersburg."

"From abroad. We met there."

_"Vraiment?"_

"In Paris and in Switzerland. She's related to the Drozdovs."

"Related! What an extraordinary coincidence! They say she is ambitious
and... supposed to have great connections."

"Nonsense! Connections indeed! She was an old maid without a farthing
till she was five-and-forty. But now she's hooked her Von Lembke,
and, of course, her whole object is to push him forward. They're both
intriguers."

"And they say she's two years older than he is?"

"Five. H