'I liked them very much,' answered Insarov, 'especially the daughter.
She must be a nice girl. She is excitable, but in her it's a fine kind
of excitability.'

'You must go and see them a little oftener,' observed Bersenyev.

'Yes, I must,' said Insarov; and he said nothing more all the way
home. He at once shut himself up in his room, but his candle was
burning long after midnight.

Bersenyev had had time to read a page of Raumer, when a handful of
fine gravel came rattling on his window-pane. He could not help
starting; opening the window he saw Shubin as white as a sheet.

'What an irrepressible fellow you are, you night moth----' Bersenyev
was beginning.

'Sh--' Shubin cut him short; 'I have come to you in secret, as Max
went to Agatha I absolutely must say a few words to you alone.'

'Come into the room then.'

'No, that's not necessary,' replied Shubin, and he leaned his elbows
on the window-sill, 'it's better fun like this, more as if we were in
Spain. To begin with, I congratulate you, you're at a premium now.
Your belauded, exceptional man has quite missed fire. That I'll
guarantee. And to prove my impartiality, listen--here's the sum and
substance of Mr. Insarov. No talents, none, no poetry, any amount of
capacity for work, an immense memory, an intellect not deep nor
varied, but sound and quick, dry as dust, and force, and even the gift