“I saw you by chance.⁠ ⁠… I kept fancying there is something about you like me.⁠ ⁠… But don’t be uneasy. I am not intrusive; I used to get on all right with cardsharpers, and I never bored Prince Svirbey, a great personage who is a distant relation of mine, and I could write about Raphael’s Madonna in Madam Prilukov’s album, and I never left Marfa Petrovna’s side for seven years, and I used to stay the night at Viazemsky’s house in the Hay Market in the old days, and I may go up in a balloon with Berg, perhaps.”

“Oh, all right. Are you starting soon on your travels, may I ask?”

“What travels?”

“Why, on that ‘journey’; you spoke of it yourself.”

“A journey? Oh, yes. I did speak of a journey. Well, that’s a wide subject⁠ ⁠… if only you knew what you are asking,” he added, and gave a sudden, loud, short laugh. “Perhaps I’ll get married instead of the journey. They’re making a match for me.”