Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/124

Rh who are not stupid? And is it necessary there should be? However, I know little enough of women in general. The lady of the house does not like her and she reciprocates. But which of them is in the right I don't know. I should suppose that it's rather the lady who is in the wrong seeing that she's so very polite to her, while the girl's very eyebrows twitch with nervousness when she speaks to her patroness. Yes, she's a very nervous creature; in that, too, she's like me. And she's out of joint like me, though probably not in just the same way.

'When all this is a little clearer I will write to you

'She scarcely ever speaks to me, as I said just now; but in the few words she has addressed to me (always suddenly and unexpectedly) there is a sort of rough frankness. I like it.

'By the way, is your relation still keeping you on short commons? Isn't he beginning to think of his end?

'Have you read the article in the Messenger of Europe on the last pretenders in the province of Orenburg? That happened in 1834, my dear boy! I don't care for that journal, and the author's a Conservative; but it's an interesting thing, and sets one thinking.'