with the excited expression of her whole face, her wide-open, fixed, and flashing eyes, the thrilling sound of her voice.
'Tell me,' Nezhdanov asked her at last, 'why did you call me unhappy? Is it possible you know about my past?'
Marianna nodded her head.
'Yes.'
'That is . . . how did you know of it? Some one talked to you about me?'
'I know . . . your origin.'
'You know.. . . Who told you?'
'Why, the very Valentina Mihalovna whom you 're so fascinated by! She didn't fail to mention in my presence, passing over it lightly, as her way is, but plainly─not with sympathy, but as a liberal who is superior to all prejudices─that there was, to be sure, a fact of interest in the life of our new tutor! Don't be surprised, please: Valentina Mihalovna, in the same incidental way, and with commiseration, informs almost every visitor that there is, to be sure, in her niece's life a . . . fact of interest: her father was sent to Siberia for taking bribes! She may fancy herself an aristocrat─she's simply backbiting and posing, your Sistine Madonna!'
'Excuse me,' remarked Nezhdanov, 'why is she "mine"?'
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