“No, don’t. The good man of wise counsel? He was simply the goodman of Tatiana Yurevna. Come to dinner. Life is for the living. Dimitri Pavlovitch, your arm.”
The dinner was, as on the day before, superb, and the meal was a very lively one. Maria Nikolaevna knew how to tell a story … a rare gift in a woman, and especially in a Russian one! She did not restrict herself in her expressions; her countrywomen received particularly severe treatment at her hands. Sanin was more than once set laughing by some bold and well-directed word. Above all, Maria Nikolaevna had no patience with hypocrisy, cant, and humbug. She discovered it almost everywhere. She, as it were, plumed herself on and boasted of the humble surroundings in which she had begun life. She told rather queer anecdotes of her relations in the days of her childhood, spoke of herself as quite as much of a clodhopper as Natalya Kirilovna Narishkin. It became apparent to Sanin that she had been through a great deal more in her time than the majority of women of her age.
Polozov ate meditatively, drank attentively, and only occasionally cast first on his wife, then on Sanin, his lightish, dim-looking, but, in reality, very keen eyes.
“What a clever darling you are!” cried Maria Nikolaevna, turning to him; “how well you carried out all my commissions in Frankfort! I could give you a kiss on your forehead for it, but you’re not very keen after kisses.”
“I’m not,” responded Polozov, and he cut a pine-apple with a silver knife.
Maria Nikolaevna looked at him and drummed with her fingers on the table. “So our bet’s on, isn’t it?” she said significantly.
“Yes, it’s on.”
“All right. You’ll lose it.”
Polozov stuck out his chin. “Well, this time you mustn’t be too sanguine, Maria Nikolaevna, maybe you will lose.”
“What is the bet? May I know?” asked Sanin.