a sort of unmistakable sincerity and gravity, 'freedom, more than all and before all. And don't imagine I am boasting of this—there is nothing praiseworthy in it; only it's so and always will be so with me to the day of my death. I suppose it must have been that I saw a great deal of slavery in my childhood and suffered enough from it. Yes, and Monsieur Gaston, my tutor, opened my eyes too. Now you can, perhaps, understand why I married Ippolit Sidoritch: with him I 'm free, perfectly free as air, as the wind.. . . And I knew that before marriage; I knew that with him I should be a free Cossack!'
Maria Nikolaevna paused and flung her fan aside.
'I will tell you one thing more; I have no distaste for reflection . . . it's amusing, and indeed our brains are given us for that; but on the consequences of what I do I never reflect, and if I suffer I don't pity myself—not a little bit; it's not worth it. I have a favourite saying: Cela ne tire pas à conséquence,—I don't know how to say that in Russian. And after all, what does tire à conséquence? I shan't be asked to give an account of myself here, you see—in this world; and up there (she pointed upwards with her finger), well, up there—let them manage as best they can. When they
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