ery distinctly uttered a few words, which at
once gave the event a significance exceedingly interesting to the vast
majority. This was how it happened. On the day after the duel, all the
town was assembled at the Marshal of Nobility's in honour of his wife's
nameday. Yulia Mihailovna was present, or, rather, presided, accompanied
by Lizaveta Nikolaevna, radiant with beauty and peculiar gaiety, which
struck many of our ladies at once as particularly suspicious at
this time. And I may mention, by the way, her engagement to Mavriky
Nikolaevitch was by now an established fact. To a playful question from
a retired general of much consequence, of whom we shall have more to
say later, Lizaveta Nikolaevna frankly replied that evening that she was
engaged. And only imagine, not one of our ladies would believe in her
engagement. They all persisted in assuming a romance of some sort, some
fatal family secret, something that had happened in Switzerland, and for
some reason imagined that Yulia Mihailovna must have had some hand in
it. It was difficult to understand why these rumours, or rather fancies,
persisted so obstinately, and why Yulia Mihailovna was so positively
connected with it. As soon as she came in, all turned to her with
strange looks, brimful of expectation. It must be observed that owing to
the freshness of the event, and certain circumstances accompanying
it, at the party people talked of it with some circumspection, in
undertones. Besides, nothing yet was known of the line taken by the
authorities. As far as was known, neither of the combatants had been
troubled by the police. Every one knew, for instance, that Gaganov had
set off home early in the morning to Duhovo, without being hindered.
Meanwhile, of course, all were eager for some one to be the first to
speak of it aloud, and so to open the door to the general impatience.
They rested their hopes on the general above-mentioned, and they were
not disappointed.

This general, a landowner, though not a wealthy one, was one of the most
imposing members of our club, and a man of an absolutely unique turn of
mind. He flirted in the old-fashioned way with the young ladies, and was
particularly fond, in large assemblies, of speaking aloud with all the
weightiness of a general, on subjects to which others were alluding
in discreet whispers. This was, so to say, his special role in local
society. He drawled, too, and spoke with peculiar suavity, probably
having picked up