ssez peu de fond!_'

'Who else have you here?' asked Rudin, after a pause.

Darya Mihailovna knocked off the ash of her cigarette with her little
finger.

'Oh, there is hardly any one else. Madame Lipin, Alexandra Pavlovna,
whom you saw yesterday; she is very sweet--but that is all. Her brother
is also a capital fellow--_un parfait honnete homme_. The Prince Garin
you know. Those are all. There are two or three neighbours besides, but
they are really good for nothing. They either give themselves airs or
are unsociable, or else quite unsuitably free and easy. The ladies, as
you know, I see nothing of. There is one other of our neighbours said
to be a very cultivated, even a learned, man, but a dreadfully queer
creature, a whimsical character. _Alexandrine_, knows him, and I fancy
is not indifferent to him.... Come, you ought to talk to her, Dmitri
Nikolaitch; she's a sweet creature. She only wants developing.'

'I liked her very much,' remarked Rudin.

'A perfect child, Dmitri Nikolaitch, an absolute baby. She has been
married, _mais c'est tout comme_.... If I were a man, I should only fall
in love with women like that.'

'Really?'

'Certainly. Such women are at least fresh, and freshness cannot be put
on.'

'And can everything else?' Rudin asked, and he laughed--a thing which
rarely happened with him. When he laughed his face assumed a strange,
almost aged appearance, his eyes disappeared, his nose was wrinkled up.

'And who is this queer creature, as you call him, to whom Madame Lipin
is not indifferent?' he asked.

'A certain Lezhnyov, Mihailo Mihailitch, a landowner here.'

Rudin seemed astonished; he raised his head.

'Lezhnyov--Mihailo Mihailitch?' he questioned. 'Is he a neighbour of
yours?'

'Yes. Do you know him?'

Rudin did not speak for a minute.

'I used to know him long ago. He is a rich man, I suppose?' he added,
pulling the fringe on his chair.

'Yes, he is rich, though he dresses shockingly, and drives in a racing
droshky like a bailiff. I have been anxious to get him to come here;
he is spoken of as clever; I have some business with him.... You know I
manage my property myself.'

Rudin bowed assent.

'Yes; I manage it myself,' Darya Mihailovna continued. 'I don't
introduce any foreign crazes, but prefer what is our own, what is
Russian, and, as you see, things don't seem to do badly,' she added,
with a wave of her hand.

'I have always been persuaded,' observed Rudin urbanely, '