"No, what is it? Zina wrote something or other about it, but we could not make out what she meant."
"She is separated from her husband, and has now disappeared from Petersburg and gone off to Paris, where she changes her lovers as often as her gloves. It's awful! She always did behave like a fool. Just before her husband had to go to sea her conscience began to get uneasy. If it had only kept quiet until he came back! No, she goes to confession and tells everything to the priest, this and that, and says she has committed a sin against her husband. The priest directly says: 'And does your husband know of it? 'No,' she says. 'Well then, don't tell him of it.' And he explained to her why she was to keep silence, that as she had sinned, she must suffer, but that he must not suffer for it."
"They always say that," puts in Aunt Mary thoughtlessly, and meeting Aunt Julia's inquiring gaze, she adds, "I have heard of many such cases where the priests said that."
"Well she comes straight home from confession and says to her husband, 'I went to the priest and told him all about my sin.' 'What sin?' And there it was. What!... Scenes and explanations. He wants to shoot himself and she wants to shoot herself. He wants to kill her, to kill the other man, to kill himself. ... A la fin des fins he goes to sea, and she, after throwing all the children on the old Poltavsteffs' hands, goes off to her beloved and sets about getting a divorce. After two months the other man cannot stand her any longer and runs away from her. She takes poison, the doctors save her life, and then she goes off to Paris. She has been there now already three weeks, and there are very very ugly rumours about her." ...
"Oh, how sorry I am far the old Poltavsteffs!" says mamma: "how dreadful it is for them!"
"I said a long time ago that she was in a dangerous way," says Aunt Julia.
Mimotchka nods her head affirmatively.
"Well, à propos of love affairs," says Aunt Sophy, "is it true that in the Caucasus, at the springs, there is so much flirting going on?"
"Ah, don't mention it!" answers mamma, smiling. "What things we saw and what things we heard! And Variashski, too, just imagine!" ...
"And wasn't there anyone after Mimi? Est-ce qu'il y a eu quelqu'un pour te faire la cour?... Et personne ne t'a donné dans l'œil?" ...