face no man can see, nor, from behind, his little white neck; his cap is on one ear, while on his feet are boots of morocco, with points as sharp as a cobbler’s awl, and the heels peaked like nails. Round the points an egg can be rolled, and a sparrow can fly under the heels. And the young hero advances with that peculiar mincing gait by means of which our Alcibiades, Tchivilo Plenkovitch, produced such a striking, almost medical, effect on old women and young girls, the same gait which we see in our loose-limbed waiters, that cream, that flower of Russian dandyism, that _ne plus ultra_ of Russian taste. This I maintain without joking; a sack-like gracefulness, that’s an artistic ideal. What do you think, is it a fine type? Does it present many materials for painting, for sculpture? And the beauty who fascinates the young hero, whose “face is as red as the blood of the hare”?... But I think you’re not listening to me?’ Litvinov started. He had not, in fact, heard what Potugin was saying; he kept thinking, persistently thinking of Irina, of his last interview with her.... ‘I beg your pardon, Sozont Ivanitch,’ he began, ‘but I’m going to attack you again with my former question about ... about Madame Ratmirov.’ Potugin folded up his newspaper and put it in his pocket. ‘You want to know again how I came to know her?’ ‘No, not exactly. I should like to hear your opinion ... on the part she played in Petersburg. What was that part, in reality?’ ‘I really don’t know what to say to you, Grigory Mihalitch; I was brought into rather intimate terms with Madame Ratmirov ... but quite accidentally, and not for long. I never got an insight into her world, and what took place in it remained unknown to me. There was some gossip before me, but as you know, it’s not only in democratic circles that slander reigns supreme among us. Besides I was not inquisitive. I see though,’ he added, after a short silence, ‘she interests you.’ ‘Yes; we have twice talked together rather openly. I ask myself, though, is she sincere?’ Potugin looked down. ‘When she is carried away by feeling, she is sincere, like all women of strong passions. Pride too, sometimes prevents her from lying.’ ‘Is she proud? I should rather have supposed she was capricious.’ ‘Proud as the devil; but that’s no harm.’ ‘I fancy she sometimes exaggerates....’ ‘That’s nothing either, she’s sincere all the same. Though after all, how can you expect truth? The best of those society women are rotten to the marrow of their bones.’ ‘But, Sozont Ivanitch, if you remember, you called yourself her friend. Didn’t you drag me almost by force to go and see her?’ ‘What of that? she asked me to get hold of you; and I thought, why not? And I really am her friend. She has her good qualities: she’s very kind, that is to say, generous, that’s to say she gives others what she has no sort of need of herself. But of course you must know her at least as well as I do.’