egeneration of all humanity, ideas
of eternal beauty, of the Sistine Madonna, light interspersed with
darkness, but there are spots even on the sun! Oh, my friend, my noble,
faithful friend! In heart I am with you and am yours; with you alone,
always, _en tout pays_, even in _le pays de Makar et de ses veaux_, of
which we often used to talk in agitation in Petersburg, do you remember,
before we came away. I think of it with a smile. Crossing the frontier I
felt myself in safety, a sensation, strange and new, for the first time
after so many years"--and so on and so on.

"Come, it's all nonsense!" Varvara Petrovna commented, folding up that
letter too. "If he's up till daybreak with his Athenian nights, he isn't
at his books for twelve hours a day. Was he drunk when he wrote it?
That Dundasov woman dares to send me greetings! But there, let him amuse
himself!"

The phrase "_dans le pays de Makar et de ses veaux_" meant: "wherever
Makar may drive his calves." Stepan Trofimovitch sometimes purposely
translated Russian proverbs and traditional sayings into French in the
most stupid way, though no doubt he was able to understand and translate
them better. But he did it from a feeling that it was chic, and thought
it witty.

But he did not amuse himself for long. He could not hold out for four
months, and was soon flying back to Skvoreshniki. His last letters
consisted of nothing but outpourings of the most sentimental love for
his absent friend, and were literally wet with tears. There are natures
extremely attached to home like lap-dogs. The meeting of the friends was
enthusiastic. Within two days everything was as before and even duller
than before. "My friend," Stepan Trofimovitch said to me a fortnight
after, in dead secret, "I have discovered something awful for me...
something new: _je suis un simple_ dependent, _et rien de plus! Mais
r-r-rien de plus._"

VIII

After this we had a period of stagnation which lasted nine years.
The hysterical outbreaks and sobbings on my shoulder that recurred at
regular intervals did not in the least mar our prosperity. I wonder that
Stepan Trofimovitch did not grow stout during this period. His nose was
a little redder, and his manner had gained in urbanity, that was all. By
degrees a circle of friends had formed around him, although it was never
a very large one. Though Varvara Petrovna had little to do with the
circle, yet we all recognised her as our patroness. After the les