"I should like to see him, because I have an important matter to talk over with him," he said aloud.
"What about?" Ostrodumov asked. "Our affairs?"
"Perhaps yours; that is, our common affairs."
Ostrodumov hummed. He did not believe him. "Who knows? He"s such a busy body," he thought.
"There he is at last!" Mashurina exclaimed suddenly, and her small unattractive eyes, fixed on the door, brightened, as if lit up by an inner ray, making them soft and warm and tender.
The door opened, and this time a young man of twenty-three, with a cap on his head and a bundle of books under his arm, entered the room. It was Nejdanov himself.
II
AT the sight of visitors he stopped in the doorway, took them in at a glance, threw off his cap, dropped the books on to the floor, walked over to the bed, and sat down on the very edge. An expression of annoyance and displeasure pa.s.sed over his pale handsome face, which seemed even paler than it really was, in contrast to his dark-red, wavy hair.
Mashurina turned away and bit her lip; Ostrodumov muttered, "At last!"
Paklin was the first to approach him.
"Why, what is the matter, Alexai Dmitritch, Hamlet of Russia? Has something happened, or are you just simply depressed, without any particular cause?
"Oh, stop! Mephistopheles of Russia!" Nejdanov exclaimed irritably. "I am not in the mood for fencing with blunt witticisms just now."
Paklin laughed.
"That"s not quite correct. If it is wit, then it can"t be blunt. If blunt, then it can"t be wit."
"All right, all right! We know you are clever!
"Your nerves are out of order," Paklin remarked hesitatingly. "Or has something really happened?"
"Oh, nothing in particular, only that it is impossible to show one"s nose in this hateful town without knocking against some vulgarity, stupidity, t.i.ttle-tattle, or some horrible injustice. One can"t live here any longer!"
"Is that why your advertis.e.m.e.nt in the papers says that you want a place and have no objection to leaving St. Petersburg?" Ostrodumov asked.
"Yes. I would go away from here with the greatest of pleasure, if some fool could be found who would offer me a place!"
"You should first fulfill your duties here," Mashurina remarked significantly, her face still turned away.
"What duties?" Nejdanov asked, turning towards her.
Mashurina bit her lip. "Ask Ostrodumov."
Nejdanov turned to Ostrodumov. The latter hummed and hawed, as if to say, "Wait a minute."
"But seriously," Paklin broke in, "have you heard any unpleasant news?"
Nejdanov bounced up from the bed like an india-rubber ball. "What more do you want?" he shouted out suddenly, in a ringing voice. "Half of Russia is dying of hunger! The Moscow News is triumphant! They want to introduce cla.s.sicism, the students" benefit clubs have been closed, spies everywhere, oppression, lies, betrayals, deceit! And it is not enough for him! He wants some new unpleasantness! He thinks that I am joking.... Basanov has been arrested," he added, lowering his voice. "I heard it at the library."
Mashurina and Ostrodumov lifted their heads simultaneously.
"My dear Alexai Dmitritch," Paklin began, "you are upset, and for a very good reason. But have you forgotten in what times and in what country we are living? Amongst us a drowning man must himself create the straw to clutch at. Why be sentimental over it? One must look the devil straight in the face and not get excited like children--"
"Oh, don"t, please!" Nejdanov interrupted him desperately, frowning as if in pain. "We know you are energetic and not afraid of anything--"
"I--not afraid of anything?" Paklin began.
"I wonder who could have betrayed Basanov?" Nejdanov continued. "I simply can"t understand!"
"A friend no doubt. Friends are great at that. One must look alive! I once had a friend, who seemed a good fellow; he was always concerned about me and my reputation. "I say, what dreadful stories are being circulated about you!" he would greet me one day. "They say that you poisoned your uncle and that on one occasion, when you were introduced into a certain house, you sat the whole evening with your back to the hostess and that she was so upset that she cried at the insult! What awful nonsense! What fools could possibly believe such things!" Well, and what do you think? A year after I quarrelled with this same friend, and in his farewell letter to me he wrote, "You who killed your own uncle! You who were not ashamed to insult an honourable lady by sitting with your back to her," and so on and so on. Here are friends for you!"
Ostrodumov and Mashurina exchanged glances.
"Alexai Dmitritch!" Ostrodumov exclaimed in his heavy ba.s.s voice; he was evidently anxious to avoid a useless discussion. "A letter has come from Moscow, from Va.s.sily Nikolaevitch."
Nejdanov trembled slightly and cast down his eyes.
"What does he say?" he asked at last.
"He wants us to go there with her." Ostrodumov indicated to Mashurina with his eyebrows.
"Do they want her too?"
"Yes."
"Well, what"s the difficulty?
"Why, money, of course."
Nejdanov got up from the bed and walked over to the window.
"How much do you want?"
"Not less than fifty roubles."
Nejdanov was silent.
"I have no money just now," he whispered at last, drumming his fingers on the window pane, "but I could get some. Have you got the letter?"
"Yes, it... that is... certainly..."
"Why are you always trying to keep things from me?" Paklin exclaimed.
"Have I not deserved your confidence? Even if I were not fully in sympathy with what you are undertaking, do you think for a moment that I am in a position to turn around or gossip?"
"Without intending to, perhaps," Ostrodumov remarked.