a kind of constrained half-laugh, though he did not inspire them with
any serious dread. He never took a book in his hand. He had about a
hundred serfs; his peasants were not badly off.

'Ah! _Constantin_,' said Darya Mihailovna, when Pandalevsky came into
the drawing-room, 'is _Alexandrine_ coming?'

'Alexandra Pavlovna asked me to thank you, and they will be extremely
delighted,' replied Konstantin Diomiditch, bowing affably in all
directions, and running his plump white hand with its triangular cut
nails through his faultlessly arranged hair.

'And is Volintsev coming too?'

'Yes.'

'So, according to you, African Semenitch,' continued Darya Mihailovna,
turning to Pigasov, 'all young ladies are affected?'

Pigasov's mouth twitched, and he plucked nervously at his elbow.

'I say,' he began in a measured voice--in his most violent moods of
exasperation he always spoke slowly and precisely. 'I say that young
ladies, in general--of present company, of course, I say nothing.'

'But that does not prevent your thinking of them,' put in Darya
Mihailovna.

'I say nothing of them,' repeated Pigasov. 'All young ladies, in
general, are affected to the most extreme point--affected in the