"What is it, Paul?"
"I want you to let me introduce one of my friends to you, and to allow me to bring him to the ball on Friday."
"Bring him direct to the ball and introduce him to me there. Were you at B——'s yesterday?"
"Yes; everything went off very pleasantly, and dancing was kept up until five o'clock. How charming Eletskaia was!"
"But, my dear, what is there charming about her? Isn't she like her grandmother, the Princess Daria Petrovna? By the way, she must be very old, the Princess Daria Petrovna?"
"How do you mean, old?" cried Tomsky, thoughtlessly, "she died seven years ago."
The young lady raised her head, and made a sign to the young officer.
He then remembered that the old Countess was never to be informed of
the death of her contemporaries, and he bit his lips. But the old
Countess heard the news with the greatest indifference.
"Dead!" said she, "and I did not know it. We were appointed maids of honor at the same time, and when we were presented to the Empress—"
And the Countess for the hundredth time related to her grandson one of her anecdotes.
"Come, Paul," said she, when she had finished her story, "help me to get up. Lizanka,[2] where is my snuffbox?"