er mother used to wear out her skirts on my doorsteps in Moscow;
she used to beg for an invitation to our balls as a favour when my
husband was living. And this creature used to sit all night alone in a
corner without dancing, with her turquoise fly on her forehead, so that
simply from pity I used to have to send her her first partner at two
o'clock in the morning. She was five-and-twenty then, and they used to
rig her out in short skirts like a little girl. It was improper to have
them about at last."

"I seem to see that fly."

"I tell you, as soon as I arrived I was in the thick of an intrigue. You
read Madame Drozdov's letter, of course. What could be clearer? What did
I find? That fool Praskovya herself--she always was a fool--looked at
me as much as to ask why I'd come. You can fancy how surprised I was.
I looked round, and there was that Lembke woman at her tricks, and that
cousin of hers--old Drozdov's nephew--it was all clear. You may be sure
I changed all that in a twinkling, and Praskovya is on my side again,
but what an intrigue!"

"In which you came off victor, however. Bismarck!"

"Without being a Bismarck I'm equal to falseness and stupidity wherever
I meet it, falseness, and Praskovya's folly. I don't know when I've met
such a flabby woman, and what's more her legs are swollen, and she's
a good-natured simpleton, too. What can be more foolish than a
good-natured simpleton?"

"A spiteful fool, _ma bonne amie,_ a spiteful fool is still more foolish,"
Stepan Trofimovitch protested magnanimously.

"You're right, perhaps. Do you remember Liza?"

_"Charmante enfant!"_

"But she's not an _enfant_ now, but a woman, and a woman of character.
She's a generous, passionate creature, and what I like about her, she
stands up to that confiding fool, her mother. There was almost a row
over that cousin."

"Bah, and of course he's no relation of Lizaveta Nikolaevna's at
all.... Has he designs on her?"

"You see, he's a young officer, not by any means talkative, modest in
fact. I always want to be just. I fancy he is opposed to the intrigue
himself, and isn't aiming at anything, and it was only the Von Lembke's
tricks. He had a great respect for Nicolas. You understand, it all
depends on Liza. But I left her on the best of terms with Nicolas,
and he promised he would come to us in November. So it's only the Von
Lembke who is intriguing, and Praskovya is a blind woman. She suddenly
tells me that all my suspicio