"She went directly through the room, without looking at the pictures, precisely like some one who had come simply to meet some one else. I went up to her, and, though I cannot endure the haughty creature, I spoke to her: 'Ah, Baronne, how are you?' She replied curtly, looking past me to the right and left, and finally, observing that she could not stay, for she had promised to meet some one,--oh, a lady, of course!--walked quickly away. My time was up. I looked after her, and was leaving, when whom should I encounter in the Galerie d'Apollon but Prince Capito! I suppose any one who knows of his devotion to art can readily imagine why he should be in the Louvre! What do you say to such conduct?"
"Absolutely depraved!" exclaims the Princess.
"We all know whither these 'innocent meetings' in the picture-galleries lead," the Fuhrwesen continues. "The next thing she will pay him a visit in his lodgings."
"Oh, my dear!" the Oblonsky laughs affectedly.
"Bah! I live opposite the Prince in the Rue d'Anjou; I should not be at all surprised if I were to see that young lady walk into No. ---- some fine day."
"If you do you must come and tell us instantly!" exclaims the Princess, taking her visitor's hand. "Oh, how cold you are! Is it possible you are not warm yet? Indeed, you are not sufficiently clothed----"
"My cloak is a little thin, but I cannot help that. Your Highness will readily understand that I am not able to buy a sealskin jacket."
"You---- Anastasia, be kind enough to tell Justine to bring down my two winter cloaks."
Anastasia obligingly brings the cloaks herself, and the Princess requests Fräulein Fuhrwesen to try them on. Although the little pianist is shorter by almost a head and shoulders than the majestic Princess, and consequently the garments trail behind her like coronation-robes, the Oblonsky assures her that they fit her as though they had been made for her, and immediately bestows upon her one of the two, a magnificent wrap of dark-green velvet, trimmed with fur.
The pianist kisses both hands of the donor, and kneels before her; the Princess says, laughing, "Don't be absurd, my dear. You see that giving--making others happy--is a passion with me. Stasy has one of my cloaks, you have another, I keep the simplest for myself. I have always lived for others only."