Listening now to Sophia Vasilievna, now to Kolosoff, Nekhludoff
noticed that neither he nor she cared anything about the play or
each other, and that if they talked it was only to gratify the
physical desire to move the muscles of the throat and tongue
after having eaten; and that Kolosoff, having drunk vodka, wine
and liqueur, was a little tipsy. Not tipsy like the peasants who
drink seldom, but like people to whom drinking wine has become a
habit. He did not reel about or talk nonsense, but he was in a
state that was not normal; excited and self-satisfied.
Nekhludoff also noticed that during the conversation Princess
Sophia Vasilievna kept glancing uneasily at the window, through
which a slanting ray of sunshine, which might vividly light up
her aged face, was beginning to creep up.
"How true," she said in reference to some remark of Kolosoff's,
touching the button of an electric bell by the side of her couch.
The doctor rose, and, like one who is at home, left the room
without saying anything. Sophia Vasilievna followed him with her
eyes and continued the conversation.
"Please, Philip, draw these curtains," she said, pointing to the
window, when the handsome footman came in answer to the bell.
"No; whatever you may say, there is some mysticism in him;
without mysticism there can be no poetry," she said, with one of
her black eyes angrily following the footman's movements as he
was drawing the curtains. "Without poetry, mysticism is
superstition; without mysticism, poetry is--prose," she
continued, with a sorrowful smile, still not losing sight of the
footman and the curtains. "Philip, not that curtain; the one on
the large window," she exclaimed, in a suffering tone. Sophia
Vasilievna was evidently pitying herself for having to make the
effort of saying these words; and, to soothe her feelings, she
raised to her lips a scented, smoking cigarette with her jewel-
bedecked fingers.
The broad-chested, muscular, handsome Philip bowed slightly, as
if begging pardon; and stepping lightly across the carpet with
his broad-calved, strong, legs, obediently and silently went to
the other window, and, looking at the princess, carefully began
to arrange the curtain so that not a single ray dared fall on
her. But again he did not satisfy her, and again she had to
interrupt the conversation about mysticism, and correct in a
martyred tone the unintelligent Philip, who was tormenting her so
pitilessly. For a moment a light flashed in Philip's eyes.
"'The devil take you! What do you want?' was probably what he
said to himself," thought Nekhludoff, who had been observing all
this scene. But the strong, handsome Philip at once managed to
conceal the signs of his impatience, and went on quietly carrying
out the orders of the worn, weak, false Sophia Vasilievna.