quien, haciendo una reverencia respetuosa, le miró a la cara y a la bata y sonrió levemente, como si expresara una comprensión respetuosa de la felicidad de su empleador.
«Pero cuántas veces me he sentido orgulloso de ella, orgulloso de su majestad y su tacto social —pensaba—; orgulloso de mi casa, en la que recibía a todo Petersburgo, orgulloso de su inaccesibilidad y su hermosura. ¡Así que de esto era de lo que estaba orgulloso! Entonces creía que no la comprendía. Cuántas veces, al meditar sobre su carácter, me he dicho que la culpa era mía por no comprenderla, por no comprender esa constante serenidad y complacencia y la total ausencia de intereses o deseos, y todo el secreto radica en la terrible verdad de que es una mujer depravada. Ahora que me he pronunciado a mí mismo esa terrible palabra, todo se ha vuelto claro».
“Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss her naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous:
‘Let him do what he pleases,’ she used to say of me.
One day I asked her if she felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said she was not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going to have any children by me .”
Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and the vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to