young man of twenty-seven or thereabouts, a little above the
medium height, with rather long, lank, flaxen hair, and with faintly
defined, irregular moustache and beard. He was dressed neatly, and in
the fashion, though not like a dandy. At the first glance he looked
round-shouldered and awkward, but yet he was not round-shouldered, and
his manner was easy. He seemed a queer fish, and yet later on we all
thought his manners good, and his conversation always to the point.

No one would have said that he was ugly, and yet no one would have liked
his face. His head was elongated at the back, and looked flattened at
the sides, so that his face seemed pointed, his forehead was high and
narrow, but his features were small; his eyes were keen, his nose was
small and sharp, his lips were long and thin. The expression of his face
suggested ill-health, but this was misleading. He had a wrinkle on each
cheek which gave him the look of a man who had just recovered from a
serious illness. Yet he was perfectly well and strong, and had never
been ill.

He walked and moved very hurriedly, yet never seemed in a hurry to
be off. It seemed as though nothing could disconcert him; in every
circumstance and in every sort of society he remained the same. He had a
great deal of conceit, but was utterly unaware of it himself.

He talked quickly, hurriedly, but at the same time with assurance, and
was never at a loss for a word. In spite of his hurried manner his ideas
were in perfect order, distinct and definite--and this was particularly
striking. His articulation was wonderfully clear. His words pattered out
like smooth, big grains, always well chosen, and at your service.
At first this attracted one, but afterwards it became repulsive, just
because of this over-distinct articulation, this string of ever-ready
words. One somehow began to imagine that he must have a tongue of
special shape, somehow exceptionally long and thin, extremely red with a
very sharp everlastingly active little tip.

Well, this was the young man who darted now into the drawing-room, and
really, I believe to this day, that he began to talk in the next room,
and came in speaking. He was standing before Varvara Petrovna in a
trice.

"... Only fancy, Varvara Petrovna," he pattered on, "I came in expecting
to find he'd been here for the last quarter of an hour; he arrived an
hour and a half ago; we met at Kirillov's: he set off half an hour ago
meaning to come straig