imes at his friend.

V

She had herself designed the costume for him which he wore for the rest
of his life. It was elegant and characteristic; a long black frock-coat,
buttoned almost to the top, but stylishly cut; a soft hat (in summer a
straw hat) with a wide brim, a white batiste cravat with a full bow
and hanging ends, a cane with a silver knob; his hair flowed on to his
shoulders. It was dark brown, and only lately had begun to get a little
grey. He was clean-shaven. He was said to have been very handsome in his
youth. And, to my mind, he was still an exceptionally impressive figure
even in old age. Besides, who can talk of old age at fifty-three?
From his special pose as a patriot, however, he did not try to appear
younger, but seemed rather to pride himself on the solidity of his
age, and, dressed as described, tall and thin with flowing hair, he
looked almost like a patriarch, or even more like the portrait of the
poet Kukolnik, engraved in the edition of his works published in 1830 or
thereabouts. This resemblance was especially striking when he sat in the
garden in summertime, on a seat under a bush of flowering lilac, with
both hands propped on his cane and an open book beside him, musing
poetically over the setting sun. In regard to books I may remark that
he came in later years rather to avoid reading. But that was only quite
towards the end. The papers and magazines ordered in great profusion by
Varvara Petrovna he was continually reading. He never lost interest in
the successes of Russian literature either, though he always maintained
a dignified attitude with regard to them. He was at one time engrossed
in the study of our home and foreign politics, but he soon gave up the
undertaking with a gesture of despair. It sometimes happened that he
would take De Tocqueville with him into the garden while he had a Paul
de Kock in his pocket. But these are trivial matters.

I must observe in parenthesis about the portrait of Kukolnik; the
engraving had first come into the hands of Varvara Petrovna when she was
a girl in a high-class boarding-school in Moscow. She fell in love with
the portrait at once, after the habit of all girls at school who fall
in love with anything they come across, as well as with their teachers,
especially the drawing and writing masters. What is interesting in this,
though, is not the characteristics of girls but the fact that even at
fifty Varvara Petrovna kept the engraving among h