"Respectable!" echoed the old lady reproachfully.
"And then," continued Maria Dmitrievna, "how devoted he was to my dear husband! Why, he can never think of him without emotion."
"He might well be that, considering that your husband pulled him out of the mud by the ears," growled Marfa Timofeevna, the needles moving quicker than ever under her fingers. "He looks so humble," she began anew after a time. "His head is quite grey, and yet he never opens his mouth but to lie or to slander. And, forsooth, he is a councillor of state! Ah, well, to be sure, he is a priest's son."[A]
[Footnote A: Popovich, or son of a pope; a not over respectful designation in Russia.]
"Who is there who is faultless, aunt? It is true that he has this weakness. Sergius Petrovich has not had a good education, I admit—he cannot speak French—but I beg leave to say that I think him exceedingly agreeable."
"Oh, yes, he fawns on you like a dog. As to his not speaking French, that's no great fault. I am not very strong in the French 'dialect' myself. It would be better if he spoke no language at all; he wouldn't tell lies then. But of course, here he is, in the very nick of time," continued Marfa Timofeevna, looking down the street. "Here comes your agreeable man, striding along. How spindle-shanked he is, to be sure—just like a stork!"
Maria Dmitrievna arranged her curls. Marfa Timofeevna looked at her with a quiet smile.
"Isn't that a grey hair I see, my dear? You should scold Pelagia.
Where can her eyes be?"
"That's just like you, aunt," muttered Maria Dmitrievna, in a tone of vexation, and thrumming with her fingers on the arm of her chair.
"Sergius Petrovich Gedeonovsky!" shrilly announced a rosy-cheeked little Cossack,[A] who suddenly appeared at the door.