in ill humor, and could not be drawn into
pleasant and clear conversation, Sophia Vasilievna turned to Kolosoff
for his opinion of the new drama, with an air as if Kolosoff's opinion
would dispel all doubt and every word of his was destined to become
immortalized. Kolosoff condemned the drama and took occasion to state
his views on art. The correctness of his views seemed to impress her;
she attempted to defend the author of the drama, but immediately
yielded, or found a middle ground. Nekhludoff looked and listened and
yet saw and heard but little.

Listening now to Sophia Vasilievna, now to Kolosoff, Nekhludoff saw,
first, that neither of them cared either for the drama or for each
other, and that they were talking merely to satisfy a physiological
craving to exercise, after dinner, the muscles of the tongue and
throat. Secondly, he saw that Kolosoff, who had drunk brandy, wine and
liquors, was somewhat tipsy--not as drunk as a drinking peasant, but
like a man to whom wine-drinking has become a habit. He did not reel,
nor did he talk nonsense, but was in an abnormal, excited and
contented condition. Thirdly, Nekhludoff saw that Princess Sophia
Vasilievna, during the conversation, now and again anxiously glanced
at the window, through which a slanting ray of the sun was creeping
toward her, threatening to throw too much light on her aged face.

"How true it is," she said of some remark of Kolosoff, and pressed a
button on the wall near the couch.

At this moment the doctor rose with as little ceremony as one of the
family, and walked out of the room. Sophia Vasilievna followed him
with her eyes.

"Please, Phillip, let down that curtain," she said to the
fine-looking servant who responded to the bell, her eyes pointing to
the window.

"Say what you will, but there is something mystical about him, and
without mysticism there is no poetry," she said, with one black eye
angrily following the movements of the servant who was lowering the
curtain.

"Mysticism without poetry is superstition, and poetry without
mysticism is prose," she continued, smiling sadly, still keeping her
eye on the servant, who was smoothing down the curtain.

"Not that curtain, Phillip--the one at the large window," she said in
a sad voice, evidently pitying herself for the efforts she was
compelled to make to say these words, and to calm herself, with her
ring-bedecked hand, she lifted to her lips the fragrant, smoking
cigarette.

The br