“Very queer questions.⁠ ⁠… They ask, can jealousy exist where there is no love.⁠ ⁠… What?” he asked, turning round and glancing at us all.

“Dear me!” said Bolhov, with a smile.

“Yes, you know, it is nice in Russia,” continued the Major, just as if his sentences flowed naturally from one another. “When I was in Tambov in ’52, they received me everywhere as if I had been some emperor’s aide-de-camp. Will you believe it, that at a ball at the Governor’s, when I came in, you know⁠ ⁠… well, they received me very well. The General’s wife herself, you know, talked to me, and asked me about the Caucasus, and everybody was⁠ ⁠… so that I hardly knew.⁠ ⁠… They examined my gold sabre as if it were some curiosity; they asked for what I had received the sabre, for what the Ann, for what the Vladimir⁠ ⁠… so I just told them.⁠ ⁠… What? That’s what the Caucasus is good for, Nicholas Fedorovich!” he continued, without waiting for any reply:⁠—“There they think very well of us Caucasians. You know a young man that’s a staff-officer and has an Ann and a Vladimir⁠ ⁠… that counts for a good deal in Russia.⁠ ⁠… What?”