“Yes, everything,” she said.
“Don’t believe her. I know she will tell you all sorts of nonsense—about Monsieur Charles.”
“Who is he?”
“A Frenchman, a teacher, and a colleague of my husband’s. They sit there reading till all hours. How can I help it? Yet God knows what they make out of it in the town, as if I.... Don’t believe it,” she went on, as she saw Raisky was silent. “It is idle talk, there is nothing,” she concluded, with a false smile intended to be allowing.
“What business is it of mine?” returned Raisky, turning away from her. “Shall we go into the garden?”
“Yes, we will have dinner outside,” said Leonti. “Serve what there is, Ulinka. Come, Boris, now we can talk.” Then as an idea struck him, he added, “What shall you have to say to me about the library?”
“About what library? You wrote to me about it, but I did not understand what you were talking about. I think you said some person called Mark, had been tearing the books.”
“You cannot imagine, Boris, how vexed I was about it,” he said as he took down some books with torn backs from the shelves.
Raisky pushed the books away. “What does it matter to me?” he said. “You are like my grandmother; she bothers me about accounts, you about books.”
“But Boris, I don’t know what accounts she bothered you about, but these books are your most precious possession. Look!” he said, pointing with pride to the rows of books which filled the study to the ceiling.