"Why doesn't Gedeonovsky come?" continued Marfa Timofeevna, rapidly
plying her knitting needles. (She was making a long worsted scarf.)
"He would have sighed with you. Perhaps he would have uttered some
platitude or other."

"How unkindly you always speak of him! Sergius Petrovich is--a most
respectable man."

"Respectable!" echoed the old lady reproachfully.

"And then," continued Maria Dmitrievna, "how devoted he was to my dear
husband! Why, he can never think of him without emotion."

"He might well be that, considering that your husband pulled him out
of the mud by the ears," growled Marfa Timofeevna, the needles moving
quicker than ever under her fingers. "He looks so humble," she began
anew after a time. "His head is quite grey, and yet he never opens his
mouth but to lie or to slander. And, forsooth, he is a councillor of
state! Ah, well, to be sure, he is a priest's son."[A]

[Footnote A: _Popovich_, or son of a pope; a not over respectful
designation in Russia.]

"Who is there who is faultless, aunt? It is true that he has this
weakness. Sergius Petrovich has not had a good education, I admit--he
cannot speak French--but I beg leave to say that I think him
exceedingly agreeable."

"Oh, yes, he fawns on you like a dog. As to his not speaking French,
that's no great fault. I am not very strong in the French 'dialect'