“Ah, chère,” said the countess,

“Ah, chère,” said the countess, “in my life, too, everything is not rose-coloured. Do you suppose I don’t see that, in the way we are going on, our fortune can’t last long? And it’s all the club and his good-nature. When we’re in the country we have no rest from it,—it’s nothing but theatricals, hunting parties, and God knows what. But we won’t talk of me. Come, tell me how you managed it all. I often wonder at you, Annette, the way you go racing off alone, at your age, to Moscow, and to Petersburg, to all the ministers, and all the great people, and know how to get round them all too. I admire you, really! Well, how was it arranged? Why, I could never do it.”

“Ah, my dear!” answered Princess Anna Mihalovna, “God grant that you never know what it is to be left a widow, with no one to support you, and a son whom you love to distraction. One learns how to do anything,” she said with some pride. “My lawsuit trained me to it. If I want to see one of these great people, I write a note: ‘Princess so-and-so wishes to see so-and-so,’ and I go myself in a hired cab two or three times—four, if need be—till I get what I want. I don’t mind what they think of me.”

“Well, tell me, then, whom did you interview for Borinka?” asked the countess. “Here’s your boy an officer in the Guards, while my Nikolinka’s going as an ensign. There’s no one to manage things for him. Whose help did you ask?”

“Prince Vassily’s. He was so kind. Agreed to do everything immediately; put the case before the Emperor,” said Princess Anna Mihalovna enthusiastically, entirely forgetting all the humiliation she had been through to attain her object.