‘All right, I say,’ observed the stout general, wrinkling up his nose; ‘we all know you are aiming at the ministry.’ ‘Not at all ... the ministry indeed! But really one can’t refuse to recognise things.’ Boris plunged his fingers again into his whiskers, and stared into the air. ‘Social life is very important, because in the development of the people, in the destinies, so to speak, of the country----’ ‘_Valérien_,’ interrupted Boris reprovingly, ‘_il y a des dames ici_. I did not expect this of you, or do you want to get on to a committee?’ ‘But they are all closed now, thank God,’ put in the irritable general, and he began humming again ‘_Deux gendarmes un beau dimanche_.’ Ratmirov raised a cambric handkerchief to his nose and gracefully retired from the discussion; the condescending general repeated ‘Rascal! rascal!’ but Boris turned to the lady who ‘grimaced upon the desert air’ and without lowering his voice, or a change in the expression of his face, began to ply her with questions as to when ‘she would reward his devotion,’ as though he were desperately in love with her and suffering tortures on her account. At every moment during this conversation Litvinov felt more and more ill at ease. His pride, his clean plebeian pride, was fairly in revolt. What had he, the son of a petty official, in common with these military aristocrats of Petersburg? He loved everything they hated; he hated everything they loved; he was only too vividly conscious of it, he felt it in every part of his being. Their jokes he thought dull, their tone intolerable, every gesture false; in the very smoothness of their speeches he detected a note of revolting contemptuousness--and yet he was, as it were, abashed before them, before these creatures, these enemies. ‘Ugh! how disgusting! I am in their way, I am ridiculous to them,’ was the thought that kept revolving in his head. ‘Why am I stopping? Let me escape at once, at once.’ Irina’s presence could not retain him; she, too, aroused melancholy emotions in him. He got up from his seat and began to take leave.