ace. "I love her, but not because I am a
man and she is a woman. When I am with her I always feel as though
she belongs to some third sex, and I to a fourth, and we float away
together into the domain of the subtlest shades, and there we blend
into the spectrum. Leconte de Lisle defines such relations better
than any one. He has a superb passage, a marvellous passage. . . ."

Lysevitch rummaged in one notebook, then in the other, and, not
finding the quotation, subsided. They began talking of the weather,
of the opera, of the arrival, expected shortly, of Duse. Anna
Akimovna remembered that the year before Lysevitch and, she fancied,
Krylin had dined with her, and now when they were getting ready to
go away, she began with perfect sincerity pointing out to them in
an imploring voice that as they had no more visits to pay, they
ought to remain to dinner with her. After some hesitation the
visitors agreed.

In addition to the family dinner, consisting of cabbage soup, sucking
pig, goose with apples, and so on, a so-called "French" or "chef's"
dinner used to be prepared in the kitchen on great holidays, in
case any visitor in the upper story wanted a meal. When they heard
the clatter of crockery in the dining-room, Lysevitch began to
betray a noticeable excitement; he rubbed his hands, shrugged his
shoulders, screwed up his eyes, and described with feeling what
dinners her father and uncle used to give at one time, and a
marvellous _matelote_ of turbots the cook here could make: it was
not a _matelote_, but a veritable revelation! He was already gloating
over the dinner, already eating it in imagination and enjoying it.
When Anna Akimovna took his arm and led him to the dining-room, he
tossed off a glass of vodka and put a piece of salmon in his mouth;
he positively purred with pleasure. He munched loudly, disgustingly,
emitting sounds from his nose, while his eyes grew oily and rapacious.

The _hors d'oeuvres_ were superb; among other things, there were
fresh white mushrooms stewed in cream, and sauce _provencale_ made
of fried oysters and crayfish, strongly flavoured with some bitter
pickles. The dinner, consisting of elaborate holiday dishes, was
excellent, and so were the wines. Mishenka waited at table with
enthusiasm. When he laid some new dish on the table and lifted the
shining cover, or poured out the wine, he did it with the solemnity
of a professor of black magic, and, looking at his face and his
movements s