“To St. Petersburg.”
“Márya Pávlovna must miss her, I think. I believe they were great friends.”
“Of course she misses her. That cannot be avoided. But as for friendship, I’ll just tell you, that the friendship of girls is even worse than the friendship of men. So long as they are face to face, it’s all right; but, otherwise, it vanishes.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yes, by Heaven, ’tis so! Take Nadézhda Alexyéevna, for example. She hasn’t written to us since she went away; but how she promised, even vowed that she would! In truth, she’s in no mood for that now.”
“And has she been gone long?”
“Yes; it must be fully six weeks. She hurried off on the very day after the wedding, foreign fashion.”
“I hear that her brother is no longer here, either?”—said Vladímir Sergyéitch, after a brief pause.
“No; he is not. They are city folk, you see; as though they would live long in the country!”
“And does no one know where he has gone?”