students of all sorts. Yes, there’s a great deal I didn’t notice when I was here eight years ago, kicking up my heels... My only hope now is in anatomy, by Jove, it is!”

“Anatomy?”

“But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed, maybe — well, all that can go on without me,” he went on, again without noticing the question. “Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?”

“Why, have you been a card-sharper then?”

“How could I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the best society, eight years ago; we had a fine time. And all men of breeding, you know, poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our Russian society the best manners are found among those who’ve