“I stuck to my point, and went on maintaining that convictions are stronger than any talent, though, frankly speaking, I could not have defined exactly what I meant by conviction or what I meant by talent.  Most likely I simply talked for the sake of talking.

“‘Take you, for example,’ said the lawyer.  ’You are convinced at this moment that your fiancee is an angel and that there is not a man in the whole town happier than you.  But I tell you:  ten or twenty minutes would be enough for me to make you sit down to this table and write to your fiancee, breaking off your engagement.

“I laughed.

“‘Don’t laugh, I am speaking seriously,’ said my friend.  ’If I choose, in twenty minutes you will be happy at the thought that you need not get married.  Goodness knows what talent I have, but you are not one of the strong sort.’

“‘Well, try it on!’ said I.

“’No, what for?  I am only telling you this.  You are a good boy and it would be cruel to subject you to such an experiment.  And besides I am not in good form to-day.’

“We sat down to supper.  The wine and the thought of Natasha, my beloved, flooded my whole being with youth and happiness.  My happiness was so boundless that the lawyer sitting opposite to me with his green eyes seemed to me an unhappy man, so small, so grey. . . .

“‘Do try!’ I persisted.  ’Come, I entreat you!

“The lawyer shook his head and frowned.  Evidently I was beginning to bore him.

“‘I know,’ he said, ’after my experiment you will say, thank you, and will call me your saviour; but you see I must think of your fiancee too.  She loves you; your jilting her would make her suffer.  And what a charming creature she is!  I envy you.’

“The lawyer sighed, sipped his wine, and began talking of how charming my Natasha was.  He had an extraordinary gift of description.  He could knock you off a regular string of words about a woman’s eyelashes or her little finger.  I listened to him with relish.

“‘I have seen a great many women in my day,’ he said, ’but I give you my word of honour, I speak as a friend, your Natasha Andreyevna is a pearl, a rare girl.  Of course she has her defects—­many of them, in fact, if you like—­but still she is fascinating.’

“And the lawyer began talking of my fiancee’s defects.  Now I understand very well that he was talking of women in general, of their weak points in general, but at the time it seemed to me that he was talking only of Natasha.  He went into ecstasies over her turn-up nose, her shrieks, her shrill laugh, her airs and graces, precisely all the things I so disliked in her.  All that was, to his thinking, infinitely sweet, graceful, and feminine.

“Without my noticing it, he quickly passed from his enthusiastic tone to one of fatherly admonition, and then to a light and derisive one. . . .  There was no presiding judge and no one to check the diffusiveness of the lawyer.  I had not time to open my mouth, besides, what could I say?  What my friend said was not new, it was what everyone has known for ages, and the whole venom lay not in what he said, but in the damnable form he put it in.  It really was beyond anything!