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‘Pani, I didn’t oppose it. I didn’t say anything.’
‘All right then. Come, tell us your story,’ Grushenka cried
to Maximov. ‘Why are you all silent?’
‘There’s nothing to tell, it’s all so foolish,’ answered Max-
imov at once, with evident satisfaction, mincing a little.
‘Besides, all that’s by way of allegory in Gogol, for he’s made
all the names have a meaning. Nozdryov was really called
Nosov, and Kuvshinikov had quite a different name, he was
called Shkvornev. Fenardi really was called Fenardi, only
he wasn’t an Italian but a Russian, and Mamsel Fenardi
was a pretty girl with her pretty little legs in tights, and she
had a little short skirt with spangles, and she kept turning
round and round, only not for four hours but for four min-
utes only, and she bewitched everyone..’
‘But what were you beaten for?’ cried Kalganov.
‘For Piron!’ answered Maximov.
‘What Piron?’ cried Mitya.
‘The famous French writer, Piron. We were all drinking
then, a big party of us, in a tavern at that very fair. They’d
invited me, and first of all I began quoting epigrams. ‘Is that
you, Boileau? What a funny get-up!’ and Boileau answers
that he’s going to a masquerade, that is to the baths, he he!
And they took it to themselves, so I made haste to repeat an-
other, very sarcastic, well known to all educated people:
Yes, Sappho and Phaon are we!
But one grief is weighing on me.
You don’t know your way to the sea!
‘They were still more offended and began abusing me in
the most unseemly way for it. And as ill-luck would have

10 The Brothers Karamazov