Everywhere she was given a joyful, friendly welcome, being assured that she was absolutely wonderful, charming, extra special. Those of her male friends whom she considered ‘celebrated’, great men, treated her as one of themselves, as an equal: with her talent, taste and brains, all unanimously predicted a brilliant future – as long as she didn’t overstretch herself. She sang, played the piano, painted in oils, modelled, acted in amateur dramatics – not anyhow, but with real talent. Whether she made lanterns for illuminations, put on fancy dress or tied someone’s tie, the final effect was always highly artistic, graceful and charming. But nowhere did her talent shine so bright as in her flair for striking up an acquaintance with celebrities and being on intimate terms with them in no time at all. Someone only needed to make some sort of name for himself, however insignificant, or get himself talked about, than she would make sure she was introduced to him right away and she invited him home that very same day.

Every time she made a new acquaintance was a red-letter day for her. She worshipped celebrities, revelled in them and dreamed of them every night. She craved them with a thirst nothing could assuage. Old ones departed the scene and were forgotten, new ones replaced them, but soon she grew used to these too, or was disappointed in them, and eagerly went in search of new and ever newer great men. And when she found them she continued the search. Why did she do this?

At about half past four she would dine at home with her husband. His lack of affectation, common sense and good nature sent her into raptures of delight. She would constantly jump up from the table, impulsively fling her arms around his head and shower it with kisses.

‘You’re such an intelligent man, Dymov, with such high principles, but you have one very serious shortcoming. You’re not in the least bit interested in art. And you reject music and painting too.’

‘I don’t understand them,’ he would say meekly. ‘All my life I’ve been working in natural science and medicine and I’ve never had the time to take an interest in the arts.’

‘But that’s dreadful, Dymov!’

‘How so? Your friends know nothing of the natural sciences and medicine, but you don’t hold it against them, do you? Each to his own. I don’t understand landscape or opera, but I do think that if clever people devote their whole lives to them and other clever people pay vast amounts for them, then they must be important. If I don’t understand, it doesn’t follow that I reject them.’

‘Let me shake your honest hand!’

After dinner Olga would visit friends, then go to the theatre or a concert and return after midnight. And so it went on day after day.

On Wednesdays she was ‘at home’. At these soirées hostess and guests did not play cards or dance, but entertained themselves with all kinds of artistic activity. The actor recited, the opera singer sang, the artists did sketches in albums – of which Olga had countless numbers – the cellist played and the hostess herself sketched, modelled, sang and played accompaniments. In the gaps between the recitation, music and singing they talked and argued about literature, the theatre, painting. Ladies were not invited, since Olga considered all women – actresses and her dressmaker excepted – as vulgar and boring. Not one soirée passed without the hostess giving a start every time the doorbell rang. ‘It’s him!’ she would exclaim triumphantly – and by him she meant some newly invited celebrity. Dymov was never in the drawing-room and no one was even aware of his existence. But at precisely half past eleven the dining-room door would open and Dymov would appear.

‘Supper is served, gentlemen’, he would say, rubbing his hands together.

Everyone would file into the dining-room and would invariably see the same display on the table: a plate of oysters, a joint of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviare, mushrooms, vodka and two carafes of wine.

‘My dear maître d’hôtel!’ Olga would say, throwing up her hands in rapture. ‘You’re so lovely! Just look at that face, gentlemen. Dymov! Turn your profile towards us. Just look, gentlemen – the face of a Bengal tiger, but the kindly, lovable expression of a deer.