"There, she is always like that,"—said Márya Dmítrievna, following her aunt with her eyes:—"Always!"
"It's her age! There's no help for it, ma'am!" remarked Gedeónovsky.—"There now, she permitted herself to say: 'the man who does not use craft.' But who doesn't use craft nowadays? it's the spirit of the age. One of my friends, a very estimable person, and, I must tell you, a man of no mean rank, was wont to say: that 'nowadays, a hen approaches a grain of corn craftily—she keeps watching her chance to get to it from one side.' But when I look at you, my lady, you have a truly angelic disposition; please to favour me with your snow-white little hand."
Márya Dmítrievna smiled faintly, and extended her plump hand, with the little finger standing out apart, to Gedeónovsky. He applied his lips to it, and she moved her arm-chair closer to him, and bending slightly toward him, she asked in a low tone:
"So, you have seen him? Is he really—all right, well, cheerful?"
"He is cheerful, ma'am; all right, ma'am," returned Gedeónovsky, in a whisper.
"And you have not heard where his wife is now?"
"She has recently been in Paris, ma'am; now, I hear, she has removed to the kingdom of Italy."
"It is dreadful, really,—Fédya's position; I do not know how he can endure it. Accidents do happen, with every one, in fact; but he, one may say, has been advertised all over Europe."
Gedeónovsky sighed.
"Yes, ma'am; yes, ma'am. Why, she, they say, has struck up acquaintance with artists, and pianists, and, as they call it in their fashion, with lions and wild beasts. She has lost her shame, completely...."