No one in the house of the retired lieutenant of guards, Stahov, had ever seen him so sour, and at the same time so self-confident and important as on that day. He walked into the drawing-room in his overcoat and hat, with long deliberate stride, stamping with his heels; he approached the looking-glass and took a long look at himself, shaking his head and biting his lips with imperturbable severity. Anna Vassilyevna met him with obvious agitation and secret delight (she never met him otherwise); he did not even take off his hat, nor greet her, and in silence gave Elena his doe-skin glove to kiss. Anna Vassilyevna began questioning him about the progress of his cure; he made her no reply. Uvar Ivanovitch made his appearance; he glanced at him and said, ‘bah!’ He usually behaved coldly and haughtily to Uvar Ivanovitch, though he acknowledged in him ‘traces of the true Stahov blood.’ Almost all Russian families of the nobility are convinced, as is well known, of the existence of exceptional hereditary characteristics, peculiar to them alone; we have more than once heard discussions ‘among ourselves’ of the Podsalaskinsky ‘noses,’ and the ‘Perepreyevsky’ necks. Zoya came in and sat down facing Nikolai Artemyevitch. He grunted, sank into an armchair, asked for coffee, and only then took off his hat. Coffee was brought him; he drank a cup, and looking at everybody in turn, he growled between his teeth, ‘Sortes, s’il vous plait,’ and turning to his wife he added, ‘et vous, madame, restez, je vous prie.’

They all left the room, except Anna Vassilyevna. Her head was trembling with agitation. The solemnity of Nikolai Artemyevitch’s preparations impressed her. She was expecting something extraordinary.

‘What is it?’ she cried, directly the door was closed.

Nikolai Artemyevitch flung an indifferent glance at Anna Vassilyevna.

‘Nothing special; what a way you have of assuming the air of a victim at once!’ he began, quite needlessly dropping the corners of his mouth at every word. ‘I only want to forewarn you that we shall have a new guest dining here to-day.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Kurnatovsky, Yegor Andreyevitch. You don’t know him. The head secretary in the senate.’

‘He is to dine with us to-day?’

‘Yes.’

‘And was it only to tell me this that you made every one go away?’

Nikolai Artemyevitch again flung a glance — this time one of irony — at Anna Vassilyevna.

‘Does that surprise you? Defer your surprise a little.’

He ceased speaking. Anna Vassilyevna too was silent for a little time.

‘I could have wished ——’ she was beginning.

‘I know you have always looked on me as an “immoral” man,’ began Nikolai Artemyevitch suddenly.

‘I!’ muttered Anna Vassilyevna, astounded.

‘And very likely you are right. I don’t wish to deny that I have in fact sometimes given you just grounds for dissatisfaction’ (“my greys!” flashed through Anna Vassilyevna’s head), ‘though you must yourself allow, that in the condition, as you are aware, of your constitution ——’

‘And I make no complaint against you, Nikolai Artemyevitch.’

‘C’est possible. In any case, I have no intention of justifying myself. Time will justify me. But I regard it as my duty to prove to you that I understand my duties, and know how to care for — for the welfare of the family entrusted — entrusted to me.’

‘What’s the meaning of all this?’ Anna Vassilyevna was thinking. (She could not guess that the preceding evening at the English club a discussion had arisen in a corner of the smoking-room as to the incapacity of Russians to make speeches. ‘Which of us can speak? Mention any one!’ one of the disputants had exclaimed. ‘Well, Stahov, for instance,’ had answered the other, pointing to Nikolai Artemyevitch, who stood up on the spot almost squealing with delight.)

‘For instance,’ pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch, ‘my daughter Elena. Don’t you consider that the time has come for her to take a decisive step along the path — to be married, I mean to say. All these intellectual and philanthropic pursuits are all very well, but only up to a certain point, up to a certain age. It’s time for her to drop her mistiness, to get out of the society of all these artists, scholars, and Montenegrins, and do like everybody else.’

‘How am I to understand you?’ asked Anna Vassilyevna.

‘Well, if you will kindly listen,’ answered Nikolai Artemyevitch, still with the same dropping of the corners of his lips, ‘I will tell you plainly, without beating about the bush. I have made acquaintance, I have become intimate with this young man, Mr. Kurnatovsky, in the hope of having him for a son-in-law. I venture to think that when you see him, you will not accuse me of partiality or precipitate judgment.’ (Nikolai Artemyevitch was admiring his own eloquence as he talked.) ‘Of excellent education — educated in the highest legal college — excellent manners, thirty-three years old, and upper-secretary, a councillor, and a Stanislas cross on his neck. You, I hope, will do me the justice to allow that I do not belong to the number of those peres de famille who are mad for position; but you yourself told me that Elena Nikolaevna likes practical business men; Yegor Andreyevitch is in the first place a business man; now on the other side, my daughter has a weakness for generous actions; so let me tell you that Yegor Andreyevitch, directly he had attained the possibility — you understand me — the possibility of living without privation on his salary, at once gave up the yearly income assigned him by his father, for the benefit of his brothers.’

‘Who is his father?’ inquired Anna Vassilyevna.

‘His father? His father is a man well-known in his own line, of the highest m............