Don't talk to me of Kapiton, he's Cupidon!' Then Malania Pavlovna would be all of a flutter and say: 'Alexis, Alexis, it's too bad of you! In your young days you flirted, I've no doubt, with all sorts of misses and madams—and so now you imagine . . .' 'Come, that's enough, that's enough, my dear Malania,' Alexey Sergeitch interrupted with a smile. 'Your gown is white—but whiter still your soul!' 'Yes, Alexis, it is whiter!' 'Ah, what a tongue, what a tongue!' Alexis would repeat, patting her hand.
To speak of 'views' in the case of Malania Pavlovna would be even more inappropriate than in the case of Alexey Sergeitch; yet I once chanced to witness a strange manifestation of my aunt's secret feelings. In the course of conversation I once somehow mentioned the famous chief of police, Sheshkovsky; Malania Pavlovna turned suddenly livid—positively livid, green, in spite of her rouge and paint—and in a thick and perfectly unaffected voice (a very rare thing with her—she usually minced a little, intoned, and lisped) she said: 'Oh, what a name to utter! And towards nightfall, too! Don't utter that name!' I was astonished; what kind of significance could his name have for such a harmless and inoffensive creature, incapable—not merely of doing—even of thinking of anything not permissible? Anything but cheerful reflections were aroused in me by
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