But this foolish trifling was the height of "chic." "Remember that the last time we met was at the Granovsky dinner in Moscow, and that twenty-four years have passed since then..." Stepan Trofimovitch began very reasonably (and consequently not at all in the same "chic" style).
_"Ce cher homme,"_ Karmazinov interrupted with shrill familiarity, squeezing his shoulder with exaggerated friendliness.

"Make haste and take us to your room, Yulia Mihailovna; there he'll sit down and tell us everything." "And yet I was never at all intimate with that peevish old woman," Stepan Trofimovitch went on complaining to me that same evening, shaking with anger; "we were almost boys, and I'd begun to detest him even then...

just as he had me, of course." Yulia Mihailovna's drawing-room filled up quickly.

Varvara Petrovna was particularly excited, though she tried to appear indifferent, but I caught her once or twice glancing with hatred at Karmazinov and with wrath at Stepan Trofimovitch--the wrath of anticipation, the wrath of jealousy and love: if Stepan Trofimovitch had blundered this time and had let Karmazinov make him look small before every one, I believe she would have leapt up and beaten him.

I have forgotten to say that Liza too was there, and I had never seen her more radiant, carelessly light-hearted, and happy.