There was nothing else to do in the club, and he went to an evening party. It was not a special entertainment, but a salon where guests were received any evening. There were there eight ladies, and one old colonel, and all found it terribly dull. Pákhtin’s firm gait alone and his smiling face cheered the ladies and maidens. And the news was the more appropriate, since the old Countess Fuks and her daughter were present in the salon. When Pákhtin told nearly word for word what he had heard in the intellectual room, Madame Fuks, shaking her head and marvelling at her old age, began to recall how she used to go out together with Natásha Krínski, the present Princess Labázov.