tall, smiling man with an earth-colored face, in a cut-away coat with
silk facings and a white tie. This was an author. He knew Nekhludoff
by sight.

"Anatal," she said, opening the door, "come here. Semion Ivanovitch
promised to read to us his poem, and you must read something from
Garshin."

Nekhludoff was preparing to go, but the lawyer's wife whispered
something to her husband and turned to him:

"I know you, Prince, and consider an introduction unnecessary. Won't
you please attend our literary breakfast? It will be very interesting.
Anatal is an excellent reader."

"You see what variety of duties I have," said Anatal, smiling and
pointing at his wife, thereby expressing the impossibility of
resisting that bewitching person.

With a sad and grave face and with the greatest politeness, Nekhludoff
thanked the lawyer's wife for the invitation, pleaded other
engagements and went into the reception-room.

"What faces he makes!" the lawyer's wife said of him, when he had left
the room.

In the reception-room the clerk handed him the petition, and in answer
to Nekhludoff's question about the honorarium, said that Anatal
Semionovitch set his fee at a thousand rubles; that he really does not
take such cases, but does it for Nekhludoff.