something about him before or
affected to have done so, but paid little attention to him at tea.
Stepan Trofimovitch of course was incapable of making a social blunder,
and his manners were most elegant. Though I believe he was by no means
of exalted origin, yet it happened that he had from earliest childhood
been brought up in a Moscow household--of high rank, and consequently
was well bred. He spoke French like a Parisian. Thus the baron was to
have seen from the first glance the sort of people with whom Varvara
Petrovna surrounded herself, even in provincial seclusion. But things
did not fall out like this. When the baron positively asserted the
absolute truth of the rumours of the great reform, which were then
only just beginning to be heard, Stepan Trofimovitch could not contain
himself, and suddenly shouted "Hurrah!" and even made some gesticulation
indicative of delight. His ejaculation was not over-loud and quite
polite, his delight was even perhaps premeditated, and his gesture
purposely studied before the looking-glass half an hour before tea. But
something must have been amiss with it, for the baron permitted himself
a faint smile, though he, at once, with extraordinary courtesy, put in
a phrase concerning the universal and befitting emotion of all Russian
hearts in view of the great event. Shortly afterwards he took his
leave and at parting did not forget to hold out two fingers to Stepan
Trofimovitch. On returning to the drawing-room Varvara Petrovna was
at first silent for two or three minutes, and seemed to be looking for
something on the table. Then she turned to Stepan Trofimovitch, and with
pale face and flashing eyes she hissed in a whisper:

"I shall never forgive you for that!"

Next day she met her friend as though nothing had happened, she never
referred to the incident, but thirteen years afterwards, at a tragic
moment, she recalled it and reproached him with it, and she turned pale,
just as she had done thirteen years before. Only twice in the course of
her life did she say to him:

"I shall never forgive you for that!"

The incident with the baron was the second time, but the first incident
was so characteristic and had so much influence on the fate of Stepan
Trofimovitch that I venture to refer to that too.

It was in 1855, in spring-time, in May, just after the news had reached
Skvoreshniki of the death of Lieutenant-General Stavrogin, a frivolous
old gentleman who died of a stomach ailm