Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 0
‘Yes. Would you believe it, he will have it that all our cav-
alry officers in the twenties married Polish women. That’s
awful rot, isn’t it?’
‘Polish women?’ repeated Mitya, perfectly ecstatic.
Kalgonov was well aware of Mitya’s attitude to Grush-
enka, and he guessed about the Pole, too, but that did not so
much interest him, perhaps did not interest him at all; what
he was interested in was Maximov. He had come here with
Maximov by chance, and he met the Poles here at the inn for
the first time in his life. Grushenka he knew before, and had
once been with someone to see her; but she had not taken to
him. But here she looked at him very affectionately: before
Mitya’s arrival, she had been making much of him, but he
seemed somehow to be unmoved by it. He was a boy, not
over twenty, dressed like a dandy, with a very charming fair-
skinned face, and splendid thick, fair hair. From his fair face
looked out beautiful pale blue eyes, with an intelligent and
sometimes even deep expression, beyond his age indeed, al-
though the young man sometimes looked and talked quite
like a child, and was not at all ashamed of it, even when he
was aware of it himself. As a rule he was very wilful, even
capricious, though always friendly. Sometimes there was
something fixed and obstinate in his expression. He would
look at you and listen, seeming all the while to be persis-
tently dreaming over something else. Often he was listless
and lazy; at other times he would grow excited, sometimes,
apparently, over the most trivial matters.
‘Only imagine, I’ve been taking him about with me for
the last four days,’ he went on, indolently drawling his