e, or even so much as appoint
another day, though he had himself suggested it.

"But ours is a paper-mill, not a spinning-mill," Valentina Mihailovna
remarked.

"It's all the same, my dear, machines are used in both, and he's a
mechanic."

"But supposing he turns out to be a specialist!"

"My dear! In the first place there are no such things as specialists in
Russia; in the second, I've told you that he's a mechanic!"

Valentina Mihailovna smiled.

"Do be careful, my dear. You've been unfortunate once already with young
men; mind you don't make a second mistake."

"Are you referring to Nejdanov? I don't think I've been altogether
mistaken with regard to him. He has been a good tutor to Kolia. And
then you know 'non bis in idem'! Excuse my being pedantic.... It means,
things don't repeat themselves!"

"Don't you think so? Well, I think that everything in the world repeats
itself... especially what's in the nature of things... and particularly
among young people."

"Que voulez-vous dire?" asked Sipiagin, flinging the pamphlet on the
table with a graceful gesture of the hand.

"Ouvrez les yeux, et vous verrez!" Madame Sipiagina replied. They always
spoke to one another in French.

"H'm!" Sipiagin grunted. "Are you referring to that student?"

"Yes, I'm referring to him."

"H'm! Has he got anything on here, eh?" (He passed his hand over his
forehead.)

"Open your eyes!"

"Is it Mariana, eh?" (The second "eh" was pronounced more through the
nose than the first one.)

"Open your eyes, I tell you!"

Sipiagin frowned.

"We must talk about this later on. I should just like to say now that
this Solomin may feel rather uncomfortable... You see, he is not used to
society. We must be nice to him so as to make him feel at his ease. Of
course, I don't mean this for you, you're such a dear, that I think you
could fascinate anyone if you chose. J'en sais quelque chose, madame! I
mean this for the others, if only for--"

He pointed to a fashionable grey hat lying on a shelf. It belonged to
Mr. Kollomietzev, who had been in Arjanov since the morning.

"Il est tres cassant you know. He has far too great a contempt for the
people for my liking. And he has been so frightfully quarrelsome and
irritable of late. Is his little affair there not getting on well?"

Sipiagin nodded his head in some indefinite direction, but his wife
understood him.

"Open your eyes, I tell you again!"

Sipiagin stood up.

"Eh?" (T