'It's clear you have never seen any grisettes,' my father observed to her.
'Thank God, I haven't!'
'Thank God, to be sure ... only how can you form an opinion of them, then?'
To me Zinaïda had paid no attention whatever. Soon after dinner the princess got up to go.
'I shall rely on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr Vassilitch,' she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father. 'I've no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am, an excellency, and a poor honour it is with nothing to eat!'
My father made her a respectful bow and escorted her to the door of the hall. I was standing there in my short jacket, staring at the floor, like a man under sentence of death. Zinaïda's treatment of me had crushed me utterly. What was my astonishment, when, as she passed me, she whispered quickly with her former kind expression in her eyes: 'Come to see us at eight, do you hear, be sure....' I simply threw up my hands, but already she was gone, flinging a white scarf over her head.