⁠—I remember it as though it were today⁠—and she was a Neapolitan maid, oh, so charming! Whenever he came to Moscow, he used to ask, ‘ que fait la belle Napolitaine ?’ And suddenly this woman, in such a condition (she bore a child on the way), did not stop for a moment to think, without preparing anything, without collecting her things, just as she was, when they took him, followed him a distance of five thousand versts.”

“Oh, what a remarkable woman!” said the hostess.

“Both he and she were remarkable people,” said another lady. “I have been told⁠—I don’t know whether it is true⁠—that wherever they worked in the mines in Siberia, or whatever it is called, the convicts, who were with them, improved in their presence.”

“But she has never worked in the mines,” Pákhtin corrected her.