VIII.
The sapient reader—I explain myself only to the masculine reader; my lady reader has too much understanding to be bothered with guessing, and therefore I do not explain to her; I say this once and for all. There are also among my masculine readers not a few who are not stupid, and to this class of readers also, I do not need to make any explanation; but the majority of readers—and this number includes almost all literary men, and those who claim to be literary men—are sapient, and it is always agreeable for me to talk with such; and so the sapient reader says: "I understand how the affair is going to turn. A new romance is going to begin in Viéra Pavlovna's life, and in this Kirsánof is going to play a part. I understand even more; Kirsánof fell in love with Viéra Pavlovna long ago, and that was the reason why he ceased to call on the Lopukhófs. Oh, what penetration you have, my sapient readers! As soon as you are told anything, then you say, "I thought so," and you plume yourself on your shrewdness. I bow before you, sapient reader!
And thus in Viéra Pavlovna's life appears a new person, and it would be necessary to describe him, if he had not already been described. When I spoke about Lopukhóf, I had some difficulty in distinguishing between him and his intimate friend, and there was scarcely anything more that I could have said about him that I should not have to repeat about Kirsánof. And, in fact, everything that the (sapient) reader can learn from the following description of Kirsánof's characteristics, will be a repetition of Lopukhóf's characteristics. Lopukhóf was the son of a meshchánin, who was well to do for a man of his rank,—that is, one who very often has meat in his shchi; Kirsánof was the son of a clerk in a provincial court,—that is, a man who often has no meat in his shchi; or, in other words, not very often has meat in his shchi. Lopukhóf, in very early youth, almost from childhood, earned money for his own support; Kirsánof, after he reached the age of twelve, helped his father copy papers, and he gave lessons while he was still in the fourth class in the gymnasium. They both, by their own exertion, without connections, without acquaintances, made their own way. What sort of a man was Lopukhóf?
