When the monologue was over the theatre resounded with the clapping of hands. Mariette rose, and holding up her rustling silk skirt, went into the back of the box and introduced Nekhludoff to her husband.
The General, without ceasing to smile with his eyes, said he was very pleased, and then sat inscrutably silent.
“I ought to have left to-day, had I not promised,” said Nekhludoff to Mariette.
“If you do not care to see me,” said Mariette, in answer to what his words implied, “you will see a wonderful actress. Was she not splendid in the last scene?” she asked, turning to her husband.
The husband bowed his head.
“This sort of thing does not touch me,” said Nekhludoff. “I have seen so much real suffering lately that—”
“Yes, sit down and tell me.”
The husband listened, his eyes smiling more and more ironically. “I have been to see that woman whom they have set free, and who has been kept in prison for so long; she is quite broken down.”
“That is the woman I spoke to you about,” Mariette said to her husband.
“Oh, yes, I was very pleased that she could be set free,” said the husband quietly, nodding and smiling under his moustache with evident irony, so it seemed to Nekhludoff. “I shall go and have a smoke.”