Later in the morning I met Princess Kouragine.
She asked me how Rudd's novel was getting on. I said I had not seen him, and had had no talk with him about it. I told her I had made the acquaintance of Kranitski.
"I too," she said. "I like him. I never knew him before, but I know a little of his history. He has been in love a very long time with someone I knew—and still know, I won't say her name. I don't want to rake up old scandals, but she was Russian, and she lived, a long time ago, in Rome, and she was unhappy with her husband, whom I always liked, and thought extremely comme il faut, but they were not suited."
"Why didn't she divorce him?" I asked.
"The children," she said; "three children, two boys and a girl, and she adored them, so did the father, and he would never have let them go, nor would she have left them for anyone in the world."
"If she lived at Rome, I may have met her," I said.
"It is quite possible," said the Princess. "My friend was a charming person, a little vague, very gentle, very graceful, very musical, very attractive."
"Is the husband still alive?" I asked.
"Yes, he is alive. They do not live at Rome any more, but in the Caucasus, and at Paris in the winter. I saw them both in Paris this winter."
I asked if the Kranitski episode was still going on.