“Mr. von Lembke is making a tour of the province now. En un mot, this Andrey Antonovitch, though he is a russified German and of the Orthodox persuasion, and even—I will say that for him—a remarkably handsome man of about forty …”
“What makes you think he’s a handsome man? He has eyes like a sheep’s.”
“Precisely so. But in this I yield, of course, to the opinion of our ladies.”
“Let’s get on, Stepan Trofimovitch, I beg you! By the way, you’re wearing a red neck-tie. Is it long since you’ve taken to it?”
“I’ve … I’ve only put it on to-day.”
“And do you take your constitutional? Do you go for a four-mile walk every day as the doctor told you to?”
“N-not … always.”
“I knew you didn’t! I felt sure of that when I was in Switzerland!” she cried irritably. “Now you must go not four but six miles a day! You’ve grown terribly slack, terribly, terribly! You’re not simply getting old, you’re getting decrepit.… You shocked me when I first saw you just now, in spite of your red tie, quelle idee rouge! Go on about Von Lembke if you’ve really something to tell me, and do finish some time, I entreat you, I’m tired.”
“En un mot, I only wanted to say that he is one of those administrators who begin to have power at forty, who, till they’re forty, have been stagnating in insignificance and then suddenly come to the front through suddenly acquiring a wife, or some other equally desperate means.… That is, he has gone away now … that is, I mean to say, it was at once whispered in both his ears that I am a corrupter of youth, and a hot-bed of provincial atheism.… He began making inquiries at once.”
“Is that true?”