Part 63

“Everything is here, quite ready. You have only to put the things on and go out to astonish the world.”

“Come along, come along, Tatiana Osipovna, you are a dear——”

Mariana led her off to her own room.

Left alone, Nejdanov walked up and down the room once or twice with a peculiarly shuffling gait (he imagined that all shopkeepers walked like that), then he carefully sniffed at his sleeves, the inside of his cap, made a grimace, looked at himself in the little looking-glass hanging in between the windows, and shook his head; he certainly did not look very prepossessing. “So much the better,” he thought. Then he took several pamphlets, thrust them into his side pocket, and began to practise speaking like a shopkeeper. “That sounds like it,” he thought, “but after all there is no need of acting, my get-up is convincing enough.” Just then he recollected a German exile, who had to make his escape right across Russia with only a poor knowledge of the language. But thanks to a merchant’s cap which he had bought in a provincial town, he was taken everywhere for a merchant and had successfully made his way across the frontier.

At this moment Solomin entered.

“I say!” he exclaimed. “Arrayed in all your war paint? Excuse me, my dear fellow, but in that garb one can hardly speak to you respectfully.”

“Please don’t. I had long meant to ask you—”

“But it’s early as yet. It doesn’t matter if you only want to get used to it, only you must not go out yet. My employer is still here. He’s in bed.”

“I’ll go out later on,” Nejdanov responded. “I’ll explore the neighbourhood a little, until further orders come.”

“Capital! But I tell you what, Alexai.... I may call you Alexai, may I not?”

“Certainly, or Lexy if you like,” Nejdanov added with a smile.

“No; there is no need to overdo things. Listen. Good counsel is better than money, as the saying goes. I see that you have pamphlets. Distribute them wherever you like, only not in the factory on any account!”

“Why not?”

“In the first place, because it won’t be safe for you; in the second, because I promised the owner not to do that sort of thing here. You see the place is his after all, and then something has already been done... a school and so on. You might do more harm than good. Further than that, you may do as you like, I shall not hinder you. But you must not interfere with my workpeople.”

“Caution is always useful,” Nejdanov remarked with a sarcastic smile.

Solomin smiled his characteristic broad smile.

“Yes, my dear Alexai, it’s always useful. But what do I see? Where are we?”

The last words referred to Mariana, who at that moment appeared in the doorway of her room in a print dress that had been washed a great many times, with a yellow kerchief over her shoulders and a red one on her head. Tatiana stood behind her, smiling good-naturedly. Mariana seemed younger and brighter in her simple garment and looked far better than Nejdanov in his long-skirted coat.

“Vassily Fedotitch, don’t laugh, please,” Mariana implored, turning as red as a poppy.

“There’s a nice couple!” Tatiana exclaimed, clapping her hands. “But you, my dear, don’t be angry, you look well enough, but beside my little dove you’re nowhere.”

“And, really, she is charming,” Nejdanov thought; “oh, how I love her!”

“Look now,” Tatiana continued, “she insisted on changing rings with me. She has given me a golden ring and taken my silver one.”

“Girls of the people do not wear gold rings,” Mariana observed.

Tatiana sighed.

“I’ll take good care of it, my dear; don’t be afraid.”

“Well, sit down, sit down both of you,” Solomin began; he had been standing all the while with his head bent a little to one side, gazing at Mariana. “In olden days, if you remember, people always sat down before starting on a journey. And you have both a long and wearisome one before you.”

Mariana, still crimson, sat down, then Nejdanov and Solomin, and last of all Tatiana took her seat on a thick block of wood. Solomin looked at each of them in turn.

“Let us step back a pace, Let us step back a bit, To see with what grace And how nicely we sit,”