“Do let him eat,” said Missy, with a smile. The pronoun him she used as a reminder of her intimacy with Nekhlúdoff. Kólosoff went on in a loud voice and lively manner to give the contents of the article against trial by jury which had aroused his indignation. Missy’s cousin, Michael Sergéivitch, endorsed all his statements, and related the contents of another article in the same paper. Missy was, as usual, very distingué, and well, unobtrusively well, dressed.
“You must be terribly tired,” she said, after waiting until Nekhlúdoff had swallowed what was in his mouth.
“Not particularly. And you? Have you been to look at the pictures?” he asked.
“No, we put that off. We have been playing tennis at the Salamátoffs’. It is quite true, Mr. Crooks plays remarkably well.”
Nekhlúdoff had come here in order to distract his thoughts, for he used to like being in this house, both because its refined luxury had a pleasant effect on him and because of the atmosphere of tender flattery that unobtrusively surrounded him. But today everything in the house was repulsive to him—everything: beginning with the doorkeeper, the broad staircase, the flowers, the footman, the table decorations, up to Missy herself, who today seemed unattractive and affected. Kólosoff’s self-assured, trivial tone of liberalism was unpleasant, as was also the sensual, self-satisfied, bull-like appearance of old Korchágin, and the French phrases of Katerína Alexéevna, the Slavophil. The constrained looks of the governess and the student were unpleasant, too, but most unpleasant of all was the pronoun him that Missy had used. Nekhlúdoff had long been wavering between two ways of regarding Missy; sometimes he looked at her as if by moonlight, and could see in her nothing but what was beautiful, fresh, pretty, clever and natural; then suddenly, as if the bright sun shone on her, he saw her defects and could not help seeing them. This was such a day for him. Today he saw all the wrinkles of her face, knew which of her teeth were false, saw the way her hair was crimped, the sharpness of her elbows, and, above all, how large her thumbnail was and how like her father’s.
“Tennis is a dull game,” said Kólosoff; “we used to play laptá when we were children. That was much more amusing.”
“Oh, no, you never tried it; it’s awfully interesting,” said Missy, laying, it seemed to Nekhlúdoff, a very affected stress on the word “awfully.” Then a dispute arose in which Michael Sergéivitch, Katerína Alexéevna and all the others took part, except the governess, the student and the children, who sat silent and wearied.
“Oh, these everlasting disputes!” said old Korchágin, laughing, and he pulled the napkin out of his waistcoat, noisily pushed back his chair, which the footman instantly caught hold of, and left the table.
Everybody rose after him, and went up to another table on which stood glasses of scented water. They rinsed their mouths, then resumed the conversation, interesting to no one.
“Don’t you think so?” said Missy to Nekhlúdoff, calling for a confirmation of the statement that nothing shows up a man’s character like a game. She noticed that preoccupied and, as it seemed to her, dissatisfied look which she feared, and she wanted to find out what had caused it.
“Really, I can’t tell; I have never thought about it,” Nekhlúdoff answered.
“Will you come to mamma?” asked Missy.
“Yes, yes,” he said, in a tone which plainly proved that he did not want to go, and took out a cigarette.
She looked at him in silence, with a questioning look, and he felt ashamed. “To come into a house and give the people the dumps,” he thought about himself; then, trying to be amiable, said that he would go with pleasure if the princess would admit him.
“Oh, yes! Mamma will be pleased. You may smoke there; and Iván Ivánovitch is also there.”
The mistress of the house, Princess Sophia Vasílievna, was a recumbent lady. It was the eighth year that, when visitors were present, she lay in lace and ribbons, surrounded with velvet, gilding, ivory, bronze, lacquer and flowers, never going out, and only, as she put it, receiving intimate friends, i.e., those who according to her idea stood out from the common herd.
Nekhlúdoff was admitted into the number of these friends because he was considered clever, because his mother had been an intimate friend of the family, and because it was desirable that Missy should marry him.
Sophia Vasílievna’s room lay beyond the large and the small drawing-rooms. In the large drawing-room, Missy, who was in front of Nekhlúdoff, stopped resolutely, and taking hold of the back of a small green chair, faced him.
Missy was very anxious to get married, and as he was a suitable match and she also liked him, she had accustomed herself to the thought that he should be hers (not she his). To lose him would be very mortifying. She now began talking to him in order to get him to explain his intentions.
“I see something has happened,” she said. “Tell me, what is the matter with you?”
He remembered the meeting in the law court, and frowned and blushed.
“Yes, something has happened,” he said, wishing to be truthful; “a very unusual and serious event.”
“What is it, then? Can you not tell me what it is?” She was pursuing her aim with that unconscious yet obstinate cunning often observable in the mentally diseased.
“Not now. Please do not ask me to tell you. I have not yet had time fully to consider it,” and he blushed still more.
“And so you will not tell me?” A muscle twitched in her face and she pushed back the chair she was holding. “Well then, come!” She shook her head as if to expel useless thoughts, and, faster than usual, went on in front of him.
He fancied that her mouth was unnaturally compressed in order to keep back the tears. He was ashamed of having hurt her, and yet
