Sitting on a low stool she told us of her life in Petersburg, and
mimicked some celebrated singers, imitating their voice and manner
of singing. She made a sketch of the doctor in her album, then of
me; she did not draw well, but both the portraits were like us. She
laughed, and was full of mischief and charming grimaces, and this
suited her better than talking about the mammon of unrighteousness,
and it seemed to me that she had been talking just before about
wealth and luxury, not in earnest, but in imitation of someone. She
was a superb comic actress. I mentally compared her with our young
ladies, and even the handsome, dignified Anyuta Blagovo could not
stand comparison with her; the difference was immense, like the
difference between a beautiful, cultivated rose and a wild briar.

We had supper together, the three of us. The doctor and Mariya
Viktorovna drank red wine, champagne, and coffee with brandy in it;
they clinked glasses and drank to friendship, to enlightenment, to
progress, to liberty, and they did not get drunk but only flushed,
and were continually, for no reason, laughing till they cried. So
as not to be tiresome I drank claret too.

"Talented, richly endowed natures," said Miss Dolzhikov, "know how
to live, and go their own way; mediocre people, like myself for
instance, know nothing and can do nothing of themselves; there is
nothing left for them but to discern some deep social movement, and
to float where they are carried by it."

"How can one discern what doesn't exist?" asked the doctor.

"We think so because we don't see it."