Had he been an Englishman or a German, this
would have been all and yet, because he was a Russian, this was not
even the beginning of the matter.
I had, as I have already said, in earlier days known him only
slightly. I had once stayed for three days in his country-house and it
was here that I had met his wife. Russian houses are open to all the
world and, with such a man as Andrey Vassilievitch, through the doors
crowds of men and women are always coming and going, treating their
host like the platform of a railway station, eating his meals,
sleeping on his beds, making rendezvous with their friends, and yet
almost, on their departure, forgetting his very name.
My visit had been of a date now some five years old. I can only
remember that his wife did not make any very definite impression upon
me, a little quiet woman, of a short figure, with kind, rather sleepy
eyes, a soft voice, and the air of one who knows her housewifely
business to perfection and has joy in her knowledge. "Not
interesting," I would have judged her, but I had during my stay no
personal talk with her.
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