“And my husband tells me just the same, but I don’t believe it,” said Princess Myakaya. “If our husbands didn’t talk to us, we should see the facts as they are. Alexey Alexandrovitch, to my thinking, is simply a fool. I say it in a whisper⁠ ⁠… but doesn’t it really make everything clear? Before, when I was told to consider him clever, I kept looking for his ability, and thought myself a fool for not seeing it; but directly I said, he’s a fool , though only in a whisper, everything’s explained, isn’t it?”

“How spiteful you are today!”

“Not a bit. I’d no other way out of it. One of the two had to be a fool. And, well, you know one can’t say that of oneself.”

“ ‘No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit.’ ” The attaché repeated the French saying.