there.

By the way, reader, have you observed that a person who is
exceptionally nonchalant with his inferiors, is never nonchalant with
persons of a higher rank? Why is that? But such questions lead to
nothing.

When Konstantin Diomiditch, having at last learnt by heart the _etude_
of Thalberg, went down from his bright and cheerful room to the
drawing-room, he already found the whole household assembled. The
salon was already beginning. The lady of the house was reposing on a
wide couch, her feet gathered up under her, and a new French pamphlet
in her hand; at the window behind a tambour frame, sat on one side the
daughter of Darya Mihailovna, on the other, Mlle. Boncourt, the
governess, a dry old maiden lady of sixty, with a false front of black
curls under a parti-coloured cap and cotton wool in her ears; in the
corner near the door was huddled Bassistoff reading a paper, near him
were Petya and Vanya playing draughts, and leaning by the stove, his
hands clasped behind his back, was a gentleman of low stature, with a
swarthy face covered with bristling grey hair, and fiery black eyes--a
certain African Semenitch Pigasov.

This Pigasov was a strange person. Full of acerbity against everything
and every one--especially against women--he was railing from morning
to night, sometimes very aptly, sometimes rather stupidly, but always
with gusto. His ill-humour almost approached puerility; his laugh, the
sound of his voice, his whole being seemed steeped in venom. Darya
Mihailovna gave Pigasov a cordial reception; he amused her with his
sallies. They were certainly absurd enough. He took delight in
perpetual exaggeration. For example, if he were told of any