"They have spread the report that he was handsome, and he is nothing of the kind, he is not handsome at all, and as for his nose—it is the ugliest nose I ever beheld."
"Allow me, but allow me only to tell you, my angelic Anna Grigorievna, suffer me to tell you all about him! It is a whole history, understand me well: I came here to give you a biographical sketch of the man who has created and still creates so great a sensation in Smolensk," her guest spoke with an expression approaching despair, and in a decidedly entreating, supplicating tone of voice.
"What do you know about him?"
"Oh, my darling Anna Grigorievna, if you could only know the awful position in which I have been placed, ever since the dawn of this eventful day; only imagine, this morning, very early indeed, the wife of our Proto-pope, of our worthy Father Kyrilla, arrives at my house, and would you ever have believed it—our much praised and gentlemanly stranger—no, I'm sure you could not believe it!"
"What, has he been making love to the Proto-pope's wife?"
"Alas, Anna Grigorievna, it would have mattered little if he had been only doing that; listen now attentively to what the wife of our worthy Father Kyrilla has told me; she arrived early this morning at my house—as I told you before—she looked frightened and pale as death; she at last could open her lips and begin to speak; good Heavens, and how she spoke! Listen, dear, it is a perfect romance; suddenly, in the midst of a dark night, when all were fast asleep, a knock is heard at the gate, such a frightful knock, as it is only possible to imagine; some one shouts from outside; 'open the gates, open them, or else we shall break them down!' how do you like the beginning? And especially, how do you like after this, our fêted stranger?"
"Well, no doubt the pope's wife is young and handsome!"
"Not at all, she is an old woman!"
"Ha, ha, ha, delightful! It is then with old women that he is flirting. After this, I may compliment our ladies in their choice, they have at last found some one to fall in love with!"
"But my dearest Anna Grigorievna, it is not at all what you fancy. Represent him to yourself as armed from head to foot in the style of Fra Diavolo, demanding; 'Sell me all your souls (serfs) that are dead!' Lady Korobotchka answered very reasonably, indeed, by saying: 'I cannot sell them, because they are dead.' 'No,' says he again, 'they are not dead, it is my business to know whether they are dead or not; they are not dead, they are not dead!' he shouts in a passion; in a word, he has created the greatest scandal imaginable. The whole village was in an uproar, the children crying, all others shouting, nobody could understand anybody, really, it was horror! horror! horror! But you would scarcely believe it, my dear Anna Grigorievna, how all this has upset me, when I came to hear it.