‘Ma’mselle Cora ... a Parisian ... notoriety.’
‘What? That pug? Why, but she’s hideous!’
‘It seems that’s no hindrance.’
Kapitolina Markovna could only lift her hands in astonishment.
‘Well, this Baden of yours!’ she brought out at last. ‘Can one sit down on a seat here? I’m rather tired.’
‘Of course you can, Kapitolina Markovna.... That’s what the seats are put here for.’
‘Well, really, there’s no knowing! But there in Paris, I’m told, there are seats, too, along the boulevards; but it’s not proper to sit on them.’
Litvinov made no reply to Kapitolina Markovna; only at that moment he realised that two paces away was the very spot where he had had that explanation with Irina, which had decided everything. Then he recalled that he had noticed a small rosy spot on her cheek to-day....
Kapitolina Markovna sank down on to the seat, Tatyana sat down beside her. Litvinov remained on the path; between Tatyana and him—or was it only his fancy?—something seemed to have happened ... unconsciously and gradually.
‘Ah, she’s a wretch, a perfect wretch!’ Kapitolina Markovna declared, shaking her head commiseratingly; ‘why, with the price of her get-up, you could keep not ten, but a hundred families. Did you see under her hat, on her red hair, there were diamonds? Upon my word, diamonds in the day-time!’