“How handsome she is!” said Lysevitch, fascinated by her.  “My God, how handsome she is!  But why are you angry, my dear?  Perhaps I am wrong; but surely you don’t imagine that if, for the sake of ideas for which I have the deepest respect, you renounce the joys of life and lead a dreary existence, your workmen will be any the better for it?  Not a scrap!  No, frivolity, frivolity!” he said decisively.  “It’s essential for you; it’s your duty to be frivolous and depraved!  Ponder that, my dear, ponder it.”

Anna Akimovna was glad she had spoken out, and her spirits rose.  She was pleased she had spoken so well, and that her ideas were so fine and just, and she was already convinced that if Pimenov, for instance, loved her, she would marry him with pleasure.

Mishenka began to pour out champagne.

“You make me angry, Viktor Nikolaitch,” she said, clinking glasses with the lawyer.  “It seems to me you give advice and know nothing of life yourself.  According to you, if a man be a mechanic or a draughtsman, he is bound to be a peasant and an ignoramus!  But they are the cleverest people!  Extraordinary people!”

“Your uncle and father . . .  I knew them and respected them . . .”  Krylin said, pausing for emphasis (he had been sitting upright as a post, and had been eating steadily the whole time), “were people of considerable intelligence and . . . of lofty spiritual qualities.”

“Oh, to be sure, we know all about their qualities,” the lawyer muttered, and asked permission to smoke.

When dinner was over Krylin was led away for a nap.  Lysevitch finished his cigar, and, staggering from repletion, followed Anna Akimovna into her study.  Cosy corners with photographs and fans on the walls, and the inevitable pink or pale blue lanterns in the middle of the ceiling, he did not like, as the expression of an insipid and unoriginal character; besides, the memory of certain of his love affairs of which he was now ashamed was associated with such lanterns.  Anna Akimovna’s study with its bare walls and tasteless furniture pleased him exceedingly.  It was snug and comfortable for him to sit on a Turkish divan and look at Anna Akimovna, who usually sat on the rug before the fire, clasping her knees and looking into the fire and thinking of something; and at such moments it seemed to him that her peasant Old Believer blood was stirring within her.

Every time after dinner when coffee and liqueurs were handed, he grew livelier and began telling her various bits of literary gossip.  He spoke with eloquence and inspiration, and was carried away by his own stories; and she listened to him and thought every time that for such enjoyment it was worth paying not only twelve thousand, but three times that sum, and forgave him everything she disliked in him.  He sometimes told her the story of some tale or novel he had been reading, and then two or three hours passed unnoticed like a minute.  Now he began rather dolefully in a failing voice with his eyes shut.