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 bass voice; he was evidently anxious to avoid a useless discussion. “A letter has come from Moscow, from Vassily 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.
“Neither with nor without intention! Miss Mashurina is looking at me with a smile … but I say—”
“I am not smiling!” Mashurina burst out.
“But I say,” Paklin went on, “that you have no tact. You are utterly incapable of recognising your real friends. If a man can laugh, then you think that he can’t be serious—”
“Is it not so?” Mashurina snapped.
“You are in need of money, for instance,” Paklin continued with new force, paying no attention to Mashurina; “Nejdanov hasn’t any. I could get it for you.”
Nejdanov wheeled round from the window.
“No, no. It is not necessary. I can get the money. I will draw some of my allowance in advance. Now I recollect, they owe me something. Let us look at the letter, Ostrodumov.”
Ostrodumov remained motionless for a time, then he looked around, stood up, bent down, turned up one of the legs of his trousers, and carefully pulled a piece of blue paper out of his high boot, blew at it for some reason or another, and handed it to Nejdanov. The latter took the piece of paper, unfolded it, read it carefully, and passed it on to Mashurina. She stood up, also read it, and handed it back to Nejdanov, although Paklin had extended his hand for it. Nejdanov shrugged his shoulders and gave the secret letter to Paklin. The latter scanned the paper in his turn, pressed his lips together significantly, and laid it solemnly on the table. Ostrodumov took it, lit a large match, which exhaled a strong odour of sulphur, lifted the paper high above his head, as if showing it to all present, set fire to it, and, regardless of his fingers, put the ashes into the stove. No one moved or pronounced a word during this proceeding; all had their eyes fixed on the floor. Ostrodumov looked concentrated and business-like, Nejdanov furious, Paklin intense, and Mashurina as if she were present at holy mass.
About two minutes went by in this way, everyone feeling uncomfortable. Paklin was the first to break the silence.
“Well?” he began. “Is my sacrifice to be received on the altar of the fatherland? Am I permitted to bring, if not the whole at any rate, twenty-five or thirty roubles for the common cause?”
Nejdanov flared up. He seemed to be boiling over with annoyance, which was not lessened by the solemn burning of the letter—he was only waiting for an opportunity to burst out.
“I tell you that I don’t want it, don’t want, don’t want it! I’ll not allow it and I’ll not take it! I can get the money. I can get it at once. I am not in need of anyone’s help!
“My dear Alexai,” Paklin remarked, “I see that you are not a democrat in spite of your being a revolutionist!”
“Why not say straight out that I’m an aristocrat?”
“So you are up to a certain point.”
Nejdanov gave a forced laugh.
“I see you are hinting at the fact of my being illegitimate. You can save yourself the trouble, my dear boy. I am not likely to forget it.”
Paklin threw up his arms in despair.
“Aliosha! What is the matter with you? How can you twist my words so? I hardly know you today.”
Nejdanov shrugged his shoulders.
“Basanov’s arrest has upset you, but he was so careless—”
“He did not hide his convictions,” Mashurina put in gloomily. “It is not for us to sit in judgment upon him!”
“Quite so; only he might have had a little more consideration for others, who are likely to be compromised through him now.”
“What makes you think so?” Ostrodumov bawled out in his turn. “Basanov has plenty of character, he will not betray anyone. Besides, not every one can be cautious you know, Mr. Paklin.”
Paklin was offended and was about to say something when Nejdanov interrupted him.
“I vote we leave politics for a time, ladies and gentlemen!” he exclaimed.
A silence ensued.
“I ran across Skoropikin today,” Paklin was the first to begin. “Our great national critic, aesthetic, and enthusiast! What an insufferable creature! He is forever boiling and frothing over like a bottle of sour kvas. A waiter runs with it, his finger stuck in the bottle instead of a cork, a fat raisin in the neck, and when it has done frothing and foaming there is nothing left at the bottom but a few drops of some nasty stuff, which far from quenching any one’s thirst is enough to make one ill. He’s a most dangerous person for young people to come in contact with.”
Paklin’s true and rather apt comparison raised no smile on his listeners’ faces, only Nejdanov remarked that if young people were fools
