h such a distracted air, that I felt sure
I had somehow put my foot in it. However, the half-bottle came, and we
drank it with great gusto. After that, things went on merrily. Dubkoff
continued his unending fairy tales, while Woloda also told funny
stories--and told them well, too--in a way I should never have credited
him: so that our laughter rang long and loud. Their best efforts lay in
imitation, and in variants of a certain well-known saw. "Have you ever
been abroad?" one would say to the other, for instance. "No," the
one interrogated would reply, "but my brother plays the fiddle." Such
perfection had the pair attained in this species of comic absurdity
that they could answer any question by its means, while they would also
endeavour to unite two absolutely unconnected matters without a previous
question having been asked at all, yet say everything with a perfectly
serious face and produce a most comic effect. I too began to try to be
funny, but as soon as ever I spoke they either looked at me askance or
did not look at me until I had finished: so that my anecdotes fell flat.
Yet, though Dubkoff always remarked, "Our DIPLOMAT is lying, brother," I
felt so exhilarated with the champagne and the company of my elders that
the remark scarcely touched me. Only Dimitri, though he drank level with
the rest of us, continued in the same severe, serious frame of mind--a
fact which put a certain check upon the general hilarity.

"Now, look here, gentlemen," said Dubkoff at last. "After dinner we
ought to take the DIPLOMAT in hand. How would it be for him to go with
us to see Auntie? There we could put him through his paces."

"Ah, but Nechludoff will not go there," objected Woloda.

"O unbearable, insupportable man of quiet habits that you are!" cried
Dubkoff, turning to Dimitri. "Yet come with us, and you shall see what
an excellent lady my dear Auntie is."

"I will neither go myself nor let him go," replied Dimitri.

"Let whom go? The DIPLOMAT? Why, you yourself saw how he brightened up
at the very mention of Auntie."

"It is not so much that I WILL NOT LET HIM go," continued Dimitri,
rising and beginning to pace the room without looking at me, "as that I
neither wish him nor advise him to go. He is not a child now, and if he
must go he can go alone--without you. Surely you are ashamed of this,
Dubkoff?--ashamed of always wanting others to do all the wrong things
that you yourself do?"

"But what is there so very wr