Pyotr Mihalitch listened to Vlassitch and wondered in perplexity what it was in this man that had so charmed his sister.  He was not young—­he was forty-one—­lean and lanky, narrow-chested, with a long nose, and grey hairs in his beard.  He talked in a droning voice, had a sickly smile, and waved his hands awkwardly as he talked.  He had neither health, nor pleasant, manly manners, nor savoir-faire, nor gaiety, and in all his exterior there was something colourless and indefinite.  He dressed without taste, his surroundings were depressing, he did not care for poetry or painting because “they have no answer to give to the questions of the day” —­that is, he did not understand them; music did not touch him.  He was a poor farmer.

His estate was in a wretched condition and was mortgaged; he was paying twelve percent on the second mortgage and owed ten thousand on personal securities as well.  When the time came to pay the interest on the mortgage or to send money to his wife, he asked every one to lend him money with as much agitation as though his house were on fire, and, at the same time losing his head, he would sell the whole of his winter store of fuel for five roubles and a stack of straw for three roubles, and then have his garden fence or old cucumber-frames chopped up to heat his stoves.  His meadows were ruined by pigs, the peasants’ cattle strayed in the undergrowth in his woods, and every year the old trees were fewer and fewer:  beehives and rusty pails lay about in his garden and kitchen-garden.  He had neither talents nor abilities, nor even ordinary capacity for living like other people.  In practical life he was a weak, naive man, easy to deceive and to cheat, and the peasants with good reason called him “simple.”

He was a Liberal, and in the district was regarded as a “Red,” but even his progressiveness was a bore.  There was no originality nor moving power about his independent views:  he was revolted, indignant, and delighted always on the same note; it was always spiritless and ineffective.  Even in moments of strong enthusiasm he never raised his head or stood upright.  But the most tiresome thing of all was that he managed to express even his best and finest ideas so that they seemed in him commonplace and out of date.  It reminded one of something old one had read long ago, when slowly and with an air of profundity he would begin discoursing of his noble, lofty moments, of his best years; or when he went into raptures over the younger generation, which has always been, and still is, in advance of society; or abused Russians for donning their dressing-gowns at thirty and forgetting the principles of their alma mater.  If you stayed the night with him, he would put Pissarev or Darwin on your bedroom table; if you said you had read it, he would go and bring Dobrolubov.