danced avec tous les meilleurs cavaliers; they kept bringing them up to me. . . . I positively lost count of them. Would you believe it, they were all flocking about us in crowds; in the mazurka they did nothing but seek her out. One foreign diplomatist, hearing she was a Moscow girl, said to the Tsar: 'Sire', he said, 'décidément c'est Moscou qui est le centre de voire empire!' and another diplomatist added: 'С' est une vraie révolution, Sire—révélation or révolution . . . something of that sort. Yes, yes, it was. I tell you it was something extraordinary.'
'Well, and Irina Pavlovna herself?' inquired Litvinov, whose hands and feet had grown cold hearing the prince's speech, 'did she enjoy herself, did she seem pleased?'
'Of course she enjoyed herself; how could she fail to be pleased? But, as you know, she 's not to be seen through at a glance! Every one was saying to me yesterday: it is really surprising! jamais on ne dirait que mademoiselle votre fille est à son premier bal. Count Reisenbach among the rest . . . you know him most likely.'
'No, I don't know him at all, and have never heard of him.'
'My wife's cousin.'
'I don't know him.'
85
