Part 77

“I don’t know about that,” Mariana observed. “He never speaks of himself!”

“Not as I do!” Nejdanov thought. “That was what she meant to imply. Solomin... Solomin!” he added after a pause. “Do you know, Mariana, I should not be at all sorry if you had linked your fate forever with a man like Solomin... or with Solomin himself.”

Mariana gave Nejdanov a penetrating glance in her turn. “You had no right to say that,” she observed at last.

“I had no right! In what sense am I to take that? Does it mean that you love me, or that I ought not to touch upon this question generally speaking?”

“You had no right,” Mariana repeated.

Nejdanov lowered his head.

“Mariana!” he exclaimed in a slightly different tone of voice.

“Yes?”

“If I were to ask you now ... now ... you know what.... But no, I will not ask anything of you ... goodbye.”

He got up and went out; Mariana did not detain him. Nejdanov sat down on the couch and covered his face with his hands. He was afraid of his own thoughts and tried to stop thinking. He felt that some sort of dark, underground hand had clutched at the very root of his being and would not let him go. He knew that the dear, sweet creature he had left in the next room would not come out to him and he dared not go to her. What for? What would he say to her?

Firm, rapid footsteps made him open his eyes. Solomin passed through his room, knocked at Mariana’s door, and went in.

“Honour where honour is due!” Nejdanov whispered bitterly.

XXXIV

It was already ten o’clock in the evening; in the drawing-room of the Arjanov house Sipiagin, his wife, and Kollomietzev were sitting over a game at cards when a footman entered and announced that an unknown gentleman, a certain Mr. Paklin, wished to see Boris Andraevitch upon a very urgent business.

“So late!” Valentina Mihailovna exclaimed, surprised.

“What?” Boris Andraevitch asked, screwing up his handsome nose; “what did you say the gentleman’s name was?”

“Mr. Paklin, sir.”

“Paklin!” Kollomietzev exclaimed; “a real country name. Paklin ... Solomin ... De vrais noms ruraux, hein?”

“Did you say,” Boris Andraevitch continued, still turned towards the footman with his nose screwed up, “that the business was an urgent one?”

“The gentleman said so, sir.”

“H’m.... No doubt some beggar or intriguer.”

“Or both,” Kollomietzev chimed in.

“Very likely. Ask him into my study.” Boris Andraevitch got up. “Pardon, ma bonne. Have a game of écarté till I come back, unless you would like to wait for me. I won’t be long.”

“Nous causerons.... Allez!” Kollomietzev said.

When Sipiagin entered his study and caught sight of Paklin’s poor, feeble little figure meekly leaning up against the door between the wall and the fireplace, he was seized by that truly ministerial sensation of haughty compassion and fastidious condescension so characteristic of the St. Petersburg bureaucrat. “Heavens! What a miserable little wretch!” he thought; “and lame too, I believe!”

“Sit down, please,” he said aloud, making use of some of his most benevolent baritone notes and throwing back his head, sat down before his guest did. “You are no doubt tired from the journey. Sit down, please, and tell me about this important matter that has brought you so late.”

“Your excellency,” Paklin began, cautiously dropping into an arm-chair, “I have taken the liberty of coming to you—”

“Just a minute, please,” Sipiagin interrupted him, “I think I’ve seen you before. I never forget faces. But er... er... really... where have I seen you?”