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 minutes 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 another, 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 it, to set things right, I began telling a very cultivated anecdote about Piron, how he was not accepted into the French Academy, and to revenge himself wrote his own epitaph:
Ci-git Piron qui ne fut rien, Pas meme academicien,* * Here lies Piron, who was nothing, not even an Academician.
They seized me and thrashed me."
"But what for? What for?"
"For my education.
People can thrash a man for anything," Maximov concluded, briefly and sententiously.
"Eh, that's enough! That's all stupid, I don't want to listen. I thought it would be amusing," Grushenka cut them short, suddenly.
Mitya started, and at once left off laughing.
The tall Pole rose upon his feet, and with the haughty air of a man, bored and out of his element, began pacing from corner to corner of the room, his hands behind his back.
"Ah, he can't sit still," said Grushenka, looking at him contemptuously.
Mitya began to feel anxious. He noticed besides, that the Pole on the sofa was looking at him with an irritable expression.
"Panie!" cried Mitya, "Let's drink! and the other pan, too! Let us drink." In a flash he had pulled three glasses towards him, and filled them with champagne.
"To Poland, Panovie, I drink to your Poland!" cried Mitya.
"I shall be delighted, panie," said the Pole on the sofa, with dignity and affable condescension, and he took his glass.
"And the other pan, what's his name? Drink, most illustrious, take your glass!" Mitya urged.
"Pan Vrublevsky," put in the Pole on the sofa.
Pan Vrublevsky came up to the table, swaying as he walked.
"To Poland, Panovie!" cried Mitya, raisin, his glass. "Hurrah!"
All three drank.
Mitya seized the bottle and again poured out three glasses.
"Now to Russia, Panovie, and let us be brothers!"
"Pour out some for us," said Grushenka; "I'll drink to Russia, too!"
"So will I," said Kalganov.
"And I would, too... to Russia, the old grandmother!" tittered Maximov.
"All! All!" cried Mitya. "Trifon Borissovitch, some more bottles!"
The other three bottles Mitya had brought with him were put on the table.
Mitya filled the glasses.
"To Russia! Hurrah!" he shouted again.
All drank the toast except the Poles, and Grushenka tossed off her whole glass at once.
The Poles did not touch theirs.
"How's this, Panovie?" cried Mitya, "won't you drink it?"
Pan Vrublevsky took the glass, raised it and said with a resonant voice:
"To Russia as she was before 1772."
"Come, that's better!" cried the other Pole, and they both emptied their glasses at once.
"You're fools, you Panovie," broke suddenly from Mitya.
"Panie!" shouted both the Poles, menacingly, setting on Mitya like a couple of cocks.
Pan Vrublevsky was specially furious.
"Can one help loving one's own country?" he shouted.
"Be silent!
Don't quarrel!