Litvinov let the Grand Duchess and all her suite get out of sight, and then he too went along the avenue. He could not make up his mind clearly what he was feeling; he was conscious both of shame and dread, while his vanity was flattered.... The unexpected explanation with Irina had taken him utterly by surprise; her rapid burning words had passed over him like a thunder-storm. ‘Queer creatures these society women,’ he thought; ‘there’s no consistency in them ... and how perverted they are by the surroundings in which they go on living, while they’re conscious of its hideousness themselves!’... In reality he was not thinking this at all, but only mechanically repeating these hackneyed phrases, as though he were trying to ward off other more painful thoughts. He felt that he must not think seriously just now, that he would probably have to blame himself, and he moved with lagging steps, almost forcing himself to pay attention to everything that happened to meet him.... He suddenly found himself before a seat, caught sight of some one’s legs in front of it, and looked upwards from them.... The legs belonged to a man, sitting on the seat, and reading a newspaper; this man turned out to be Potugin. Litvinov uttered a faint exclamation. Potugin laid the paper down on his knees, and looked attentively, without a smile, at Litvinov; and Litvinov also attentively, and also without a smile, looked at Potugin. ‘May I sit by you?’ he asked at last. ‘By all means, I shall be delighted. Only I warn you, if you want to have a talk with me, you mustn’t be offended with me--I’m in a most misanthropic humour just now, and I see everything in an exaggeratedly repulsive light.’ ‘That’s no matter, Sozont Ivanitch,’ responded Litvinov, sinking down on the seat, ‘indeed it’s particularly appropriate.... But why has such a mood come over you?’ ‘I ought not by rights to be ill-humoured,’ began Potugin. ‘I’ve just read in the paper a project for judicial reforms in Russia, and I see with genuine pleasure that we’ve got some sense at last, and they’re not as usual on the pretext of independence, nationalism, or originality, proposing to tack a little home-made tag of our own on to the clear straightforward logic of Europe; but are taking what’s good from abroad intact. A single adaptation in its application to the peasants’ sphere is enough.... There’s no doing away with communal ownership!... Certainly, certainly, I ought not to be ill-humoured; but to my misfortune I chanced upon a Russian “rough diamond,” and had a talk with him, and these rough diamonds, these self-educated geniuses, would make me turn in my grave!’ ‘What do you mean by a rough diamond?’ asked Litvinov.