to him, too, that this Pole must be the friend of the other, as it were, a “bodyguard,” and no doubt the big Pole was at the disposal of the little Pole with the pipe. But this all seemed to Mitya perfectly right and not to be questioned. In his mood of doglike submissiveness all feeling of rivalry
Grushenka’s mood and the enigmatic tone of some of her words he completely failed to grasp. All he understood, with thrilling heart, was that she was kind to him, that she had forgiven him, and made him sit by her.
He was beside himself with delight, watching her sip her glass of champagne. The silence of the company seemed somehow to strike him, however, and he looked round at everyone with expectant eyes.
“Why are we sitting here though, gentlemen? Why don’t you begin doing something?” his smiling eyes seemed to ask.
“He keeps talking nonsense, and we were all laughing,” Kalganov began suddenly, as though divining his thought, and pointing to Maximov.
Mitya immediately stared at Kalganov and then at Maximov.
“He’s talking nonsense?” he laughed, his short, wooden laugh, seeming suddenly delighted at something—“ha ha!”
“Yes. Would you believe it, he will have it that all our cavalry officers in the twenties married Polish women. That’s awful rot, isn’t it?”
“Polish women?” repeated Mitya, perfectly ecstatic.
Kalganov was well aware of Mitya’s attitude to Grushenka, and he guessed about the Pole, too, but that did not so much interest him, perhaps did not interest him at all; what he was interested in was Maximov. He had come here with Maximov by chance, and he met the Poles here at the inn for