bought playing-cards. Polya was busy all day getting ready the
tea-things and the dinner service. To tell the truth, this spurt
of activity came as a pleasant change in our idle life, and Thursdays
were for us the most interesting days.

Only three visitors used to come. The most important and perhaps
the most interesting was the one called Pekarsky--a tall, lean
man of five and forty, with a long hooked nose, with a big black
beard, and a bald patch on his head. His eyes were large and
prominent, and his expression was grave and thoughtful like that
of a Greek philosopher. He was on the board of management of some
railway, and also had some post in a bank; he was a consulting
lawyer in some important Government institution, and had business
relations with a large number of private persons as a trustee,
chairman of committees, and so on. He was of quite a low grade in
the service, and modestly spoke of himself as a lawyer, but he had
a vast influence. A note or card from him was enough to make a
celebrated doctor, a director of a railway, or a great dignitary
see any one without waiting; and it was said that through his
protection one might obtain even a post of the Fourth Class, and
get any sort of unpleasant business hushed up. He was looked upon
as a very intelligent man, but his was a strange, peculiar intelligence.
He was able to multiply 213 by 373 in his head instantaneously, or
turn English pounds into German marks without help of pencil or
paper; he understood finance and railway business thoroughly, and
the machinery of Russian administration had no secrets for him; he
was a most skilful pleader in civil suits, and it was not easy to
get the better of him at law. But that exceptional intelligence
could not grasp many things which are understood even by some stupid
people. For instance, he was absolutely unable to understand why