Either because I recognized in him a man whom I had met a few years before in a dresscoat in a parlor, or because he was suddenly raised in his own opinion by the fact of being recognized,—­at all events it seemed to me that his face and even his motions completely changed:  they now expressed lively intelligence, a childish self-satisfaction in the consciousness of such intelligence, and a certain contemptuous indifference; so that I confess, notwithstanding the pitiable position in which he found himself, my old acquaintance did not so much excite sympathy in me as it did a sort of unfavorable sentiment.

I now vividly remembered our first meeting.  In 1848, while I was staying at Moscow, I frequently went to the house of Ivashin, who from childhood had been an old friend of mine.  His wife was an agreeable hostess, a charming woman, as everybody said; but she never pleased me. . . .  The winter that I knew her, she often spoke with hardly concealed pride of her brother, who had shortly before completed his course, and promised to be one of the most fashionable and popular young men in the best society of Petersburg.  As I knew by reputation the father of the Guskofs, who was very rich and had a distinguished position, and as I knew also the sister’s ways, I felt some prejudice against meeting the young man.  One evening when I was at Ivashin’s, I saw a short, thoroughly pleasant-looking young man, in a black coat, white vest and necktie.  My host hastened to make me acquainted with him.  The young man, evidently dressed for a ball, with his cap in his hand, was standing before Ivashin, and was eagerly but politely arguing with him about a common friend of ours, who had distinguished himself at the time of the Hungarian campaign.  He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero or a man born for war, as was said of him, but was simply a clever and cultivated man.  I recollect, I took part in the argument against Guskof, and went to the extreme of declaring also that intellect and cultivation always bore an inverse relation to bravery; and I recollect how Guskof pleasantly and cleverly pointed out to me that bravery was necessarily the result of intellect and a decided degree of development,—­a statement which I, who considered myself an intellectual and cultivated man, could not in my heart of hearts agree with.

I recollect that towards the close of our conversation Madame Ivashina introduced me to her brother; and he, with a condescending smile, offered me his little hand on which he had not yet had time to draw his kid gloves, and weakly and irresolutely pressed my hand as he did now.  Though I had been prejudiced against Guskof, I could not help granting that he was in the right, and agreeing with his sister that he was really a clever and agreeable young man, who ought to have great success in society.  He was extraordinarily neat, beautifully dressed, and fresh, and had affectedly modest manners, and a thoroughly