Chapter 22

INTIMATE CONVERSATION WITH MY FRIEND

THIS conversation of ours took place in a phaeton on the way to
Kuntsevo. Dimitri had invited me in the morning to go with him to
his mother's, and had called for me after luncheon; the idea
being that I should spend the evening, and perhaps also pass the
night, at the country-house where his family lived. Only when we
had left the city and exchanged its grimy streets and the
unbearably deafening clatter of its pavements for the open vista
of fields and the subdued grinding of carriage-wheels on a dusty
high road (while the sweet spring air and prospect enveloped us
on every side) did I awake from the new impressions and
sensations of freedom into which the past two days had plunged
me. Dimitri was in his kind and sociable mood. That is to say, he
was neither frowning nor blinking nervously nor straightening his
neck in his collar. For my own part, I was congratulating myself
on those noble sentiments which I have expressed above, in the
belief that they had led him to overlook my shameful encounter
with Kolpikoff, and to refrain from despising me for it. Thus we
talked together on many an intimate subject which even a friend
seldom mentions to a friend. He told me about his family whose
acquaintance I had not yet made--about his mother, his aunt, and
his sister, as also about her whom Woloda and Dubkoff believed to
be his "flame," and always spoke of as "the lady with the
chestnut locks." Of his mother he spoke with a certain cold and
formal commendation, as though to forestall any further mention
of her; his aunt he extolled enthusiastically, though with a
touch of condescension in his tone; his sister he scarcely
mentioned at all, as though averse to doing so in my presence;
but on the subject of "the lady with the chestnut locks" (whose
real name was Lubov Sergievna, and who was a grown-up young lady
living on a family footing with the Nechludoffs) he discoursed
with animation.

"Yes, she is a wonderful woman," he said with a conscious
reddening of the face, yet looking me in the eyes with dogged
temerity. "True, she is no longer young, and even rather elderly,
as well as by no means good-looking; but as for loving a mere
featherhead, a mere beauty--well, I never could understand that,
for it is such a silly thing to do." (Dimitri said this as though
he had just discovered a most novel and extraordinary truth.) "I
am certain, too, that such a soul, such a heart and principles,
as are hers are not to be found elsewhere in the world of the
present day." (I do not know whence he had derived the habit of
saying that few good things were discoverable in the world of the
present day, but at