thing, it did me a bad turn to-day! And you wore a nice one, Vasya, to introduce me while I had my head in a halter… . Though never mind that now. And look here, I undertake all the silver. I am bound to give you some little present, that will be an honour, that will flatter my vanity… . My bonuses won’t fail me, surely; you don’t suppose they would give them to Skorohodov? No fear, they won’t be landed in that person’s pocket. I’ll buy you silver spoons, brother, good knives not silver knives, but thoroughly good ones; and a waistcoat, that is a waistcoat for myself. I shall be best man, of course, Only now, brother, you must keep at it, you must keep at it. I shall stand over you with a stick, brother, to-day and tomorrow and all night; I shall worry you to work. Finish, make haste and finish, brother. And then again to spend the evening, and then again both of us happy; we will go in for loto. We will spend the evening there oh, it’s jolly! Oh, the devil! How, vexing it Is I can’t help you. I should like to take It and write it all for you… . Why is it our handwriting is not alike?”
“Yes,” answered Vasya.” Yes, I must make haste. I think it must be eleven o’clock; we must make haste…. To work!” And saying this, Vasya, who had been all the time alternately smiling and trying to interrupt with some enthusiastic rejoinder the flow of his friend’s feelings, and had, in short, been showing the most cordial response, suddenly subsided, sank into silence, and almost ran along the street. It seemed as though some burdensome idea had suddenly chilled his feverish head; he seemed all at once dispirited.
Arkady Ivanovitch felt quite uneasy; he scarcely got an answer to his hurried questions from Vasya, who confined himself to a word or two, sometimes an irrelevant exclamation.
“Why, what is the matter with you, Vasya!” he cried at last, hardly able to keep up with him.” Can you really be so uneasy?”
“Oh, brother, that’s enough chatter!” Vasya answered, with vexation.
“Don’t be depressed, Vasya come, come,” Arkady interposed. “ Why, I have known you write much more in a shorter time! What’s the matter? You’ve simply a talent for it! You can write quickly in an emergency; they are not going to lithograph your copy. You’ve plenty of time! … The only thing is that you are excited now, and preoccupied, and the work won’t go so easily.”
Vasya made no reply, or muttered something to himself, and they both ran home in genuine anxiety.
Vasya sat down to the papers at once. Arkady Ivanovitch was quiet and silent; he noiselessly undressed and went to bed, keeping his eyes fixed on Vasya. … A sort of panic came over him… . “What is the matter with him?” he thought to himself, looking at Vasya’s face that grew whiter and whiter, at his feverish eyes, at the anxiety that was betrayed in every movement he made, “ why, his hand is shaking … what a stupid! Why did I not advise him to sleep for a couple of hours, till he had slept off his nervous excitement, any way.” Vasya had just finished a page, he raised his eyes, glanced casually at Arkady and at once, looking down, took up his pen again.
“Listen, Vasya,” Arkady Ivanovitch began suddenly, “ wouldn’t it be best to sleep a little now? Look, you are in a regular fever.”
Vasya glanced at Arkady with vexation, almost with anger, and made no answer.
“Listen, Vasya, you’ll make yourself ill.”
Vasya at once changed his mind. “How would it be to have tea, Arkady?” he said.
“How so? Why?”
“It will do me good. I am not sleepy, I’m not going to bed! I am going on writing. But now I should like to rest and have a cup of tea, and the worst moment will be over.”
“First-rate, brother Vasya, delightful! Just so. I was wanting to propose it myself. And I can’t think why it did not occur to me to do so. But I say, Mavra won’t get up, she won’t wake for anything. …”
“True.”
“That’s no matter, though,” cried Arkady Ivanovitch, leaping out of bed. “ I will set the samovar myself. It won’t be the first time.” Arkady Ivanovitch ran to the kitchen and set to work to get the samovar; Vasya meanwhile went on writing. Arkady Ivanovitch, moreover, dressed and ran out to the baker’s, so that Vasya might have something to sustain him for the night. A quarter of an hour later the samovar was on the table. They began drinking tea, but conversation flagged. Vasya still seemed preoccupied.
“Tomorrow,” he said at last, as though he had just thought of it, “I shall have to take my congratulations for the New Year …”
“You need not go at all.”
“Oh yes, brother, I must,” said Vasya.
“Why, I will sign the visitors’ book for you everywhere… . How can you? You work to-rnorrow. You must work tonight, till five o’clock in the morning, as I said, and then get to bed. Or else you will be good for nothing tomorrow. I’ll wake you at eight o’clock, punctually.”
“But will it be all right, your signing for me?” said Vasya, half assenting.
“Why, what could be better? Everyone does it.”
“I am really afraid.”
“Why, why?”
“It’s all right, you know, with other people, but Yulian Mastakovitch … he has been so kind to me, you know, Arkasha, and when he notices it’s not my own signature …”
“Notices! why, what a fellow you are, really, Vasya! How could he notice? … Come, you know I can imitate your signature awfully well, and make just the same flourish to it, upon my word I can. What nonsense! Who would notice?”
Vasya, made no reply, but emptied his glass hurriedly. Then he shook his head doubtfully.
“Vasya, dear boy! Ah, if only we succeed! Vasya, what’s the matter with you, you quite frighten me! Do you know, Vasya, I am not going to bed now, I am not going to sleep! Show me, have you a great deal left?”
Vasya gave Arkady such a look that his heart sank, and his tongue failed him.
“Vasya, what is the matter? What are you thinking? Why do you look like that?”
“Arkady, I really must go tomorrow to wish Yulian Mastakovitch a happy New Year.”
“Well, go then! “ said Arkady, gazing at him open-eyed, in uneasy expectation. “I say, Vasya, do write faster; I am advising you for your good, I really am! How often Yulian Mastakovitch himself has said that what he likes particularly about your writing is its legibility. Why, it is all that Skoroplehin cares for, that writing should bo good and distinct like a copy, so as afterwards to pocket the paper and take it home for his children to copy; he can’t buy copybooks, the blockhead! Yulian Mastakovitch is always saying, always insisting: ‘Legible, legible, legible!’ … What is the matter? Vasya, I really don’t know how to talk to you … it quite frightens me … you crush me with your depression.”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” said Vasya, and he fell back in his chair as though fainting. Arkady was alarmed.
“Will you have some water? Vasya! Vasya!”
“Don’t, don’t,” said Vasya, pressing his hand. “I am all right, I only feel sad, I can’t tell why. Better talk of something else; let me forget it.”
“Calm
