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"Oh, please, don't let us talk about Nilsson! No one can possibly

say anything new about her," said a fat, red-faced, flaxen-headed

lady, without eyebrows and chignon, wearing an old silk dress.

This was Princess Myakaya, noted for her simplicity and the

roughness of her manners, and nicknamed enfant terrible. Princess

Myakaya, sitting in the middle between the two groups, and

listening to both, took part in the conversation first of one and

then of the other. "Three people have used that very phrase about

Kaulbach to me today already, just as though they had made a

compact about it. And I can't see why they liked that remark so."

The conversation was cut short by this observation, and a new

subject had to be thought of again.

"Do tell me something amusing but not spiteful," said the

ambassador's wife, a great proficient in the art of that elegant

conversation called by the English small talk. She addressed the

attache, who was at a loss now what to begin upon.