tepan Trofimovitch communicated by Lyamshin.

The hour of reckoning for Andrey Antonovitch followed at once. Alas! he
felt that from the first glance at his admirable wife. With an open air
and an enchanting smile she went quickly up to Stepan Trofimovitch, held
out her exquisitely gloved hand, and greeted him with a perfect shower
of flattering phrases--as though the only thing she cared about that
morning was to make haste to be charming to Stepan Trofimovitch because
at last she saw him in her house. There was not one hint of the search
that morning; it was as though she knew nothing of it. There was not one
word to her husband, not one glance in his direction--as though he
had not been in the room. What's more, she promptly confiscated Stepan
Trofimovitch and carried him off to the drawing-room--as though he had
had no interview with Lembke, or as though it was not worth prolonging
if he had. I repeat again, I think that in this, Yulia Mihailovna,
in spite of her aristocratic tone, made another great mistake. And
Karmazinov particularly did much to aggravate this. (He had taken part
in the expedition at Yulia Mihailovna's special request, and in that way
had, incidentally, paid his visit to Varvara Petrovna, and she was so
poor-spirited as to be perfectly delighted at it.) On seeing Stepan
Trofimovitch, he called out from the doorway (he came in behind the
rest) and pressed forward to embrace him, even interrupting Yulia
Mihailovna.

"What years, what ages! At last..._excellent ami._"

He made as though to kiss him, offering his cheek, of course, and Stepan
Trofimovitch was so fluttered that he could not avoid saluting it.

_"Cher,"_ he said to me that evening, recalling all the events of that
day, "I wondered at that moment which of us was the most contemptible:
he, embracing me only to humiliate me, or I, despising him and his face
and kissing it on the spot, though I might have turned away.... Foo!"

"Come, tell me about yourself, tell me everything," Karmazinov drawled
and lisped, as though it were possible for him on the spur of the moment
to give an account of twenty-five years of his life. But this foolish
trifling was the height of "chic."

"Remember that the last time we met was at the Granovsky dinner in
Moscow, and that twenty-four years have passed since then..." Stepan
Trofimovitch began very reasonably (and consequently not at all in the
same "chic" style).

_"Ce cher homme,"_ Karmazinov interru