to smile at the civilities of our starving mothers and daughters!… And he sometimes sets up for a wit, but he is only here for a little time; and oh, his witticisms! It’s for all the world like hacking at a ship’s cable with a blunt knife. He can’t bear me…. I’m going to bow to him.’

And Lupihin ran off to meet the prince.

‘And here comes my special enemy,’ he observed, turning all at once to me. ‘Do you see that fat man with the brown face and the bristles on his head, over there, that’s got his cap clutched in his hand, and is creeping along by the wall and glaring in all directions like a wolf? I sold him for 400 roubles a horse worth 1000, and that stupid animal has a perfect right now to despise me; though all the while he is so destitute of all faculty of imagination, especially in the morning before his tea, or after dinner, that if you say «Good morning!» to him, he’ll answer, «Is it?» ‘And here comes the general,’ pursued Lupihin, ‘the civilian general, a retired, destitute general. He has a daughter of beetroot-sugar, and a manufactory with scrofula…. Beg pardon, I’ve got it wrong… but there, you understand. Ah! and the architect’s turned up here! A German, and wears moustaches, and does not understand his business—a natural phenomenon!… though what need for him to understand his business so long as he takes bribes and sticks in pillars everywhere to suit the tastes of our pillars of society!’

Lupihin chuckled again…. But suddenly a wave of excitement passed over the whole house. The grandee had arrived. The host positively rushed into the hall. After him ran a few devoted members of the household and eager guests…. The noisy talk was transformed into a subdued pleasant chat, like the buzzing of bees in spring within their hives. Only the turbulent wasp, Lupihin, and the splendid drone, Kozelsky, did not subdue their voices…. And behold, at last, the queen!—the great dignitary entered. Hearts bounded to meet him, sitting bodies rose; even the gentleman who had bought a horse from Lupihin poked his chin into his chest. The great personage kept up his dignity in an inimitable manner; throwing his head back, as though he were bowing, he uttered a few words of approbation, of which each was prefaced by the syllable _er_, drawled through his nose; with a sort of devouring indignation he looked at Prince Kozelsky’s democratic beard, and gave the destitute general with the factory and the daughter the forefinger of his right hand. After a few minutes, in the course of which the dignitary had had time to observe twice that he was very glad he was not late for dinner, the whole company trooped into the dining-room, the swells first.

There is no need to describe to the reader how they put the great man in the most important place, between the civilian general and the marshal of the province, a man of an independent and dignified expression of face, in perfect keeping with his starched shirt-front, his expanse of waistcoat, and his round snuff-box full of French snuff; how our host bustled about, and ran up and down, fussing and pressing the guests to eat, smiling at the great man’s back in passing, and hurriedly snatching a plate of soup or a bit of bread in a corner like a schoolboy; how the butler brought in a fish more than a yard long, with a nosegay in its mouth; how the surly-looking foot-men in livery sullenly plied every gentleman, now with Malaga, now dry Madeira; and how almost all the gentlemen, particularly the more elderly ones, drank off glass after glass with an air of reluctantly resigning themselves to a sense of duty; and finally, how they began popping champagne bottles and proposing toasts: all that is probably only too well known to the reader. But what struck me as especially noteworthy was the anecdote told us by the great man himself amid a general delighted silence. Someone—I fancy it was the destitute general, a man familiar with modern literature—referred to the influence of women in general, and especially on young men. ‘Yes, yes,’ chimed in the great man, ‘that’s true; but young men ought to be kept in strict subjection, or else, very likely, they’ll go out of their senses over every petticoat.’ (A smile of child-like delight flitted over the faces of all the guests; positive gratitude could be seen in one gentleman’s eyes.) ‘For young men are idiots.’ (The great man, I suppose for the sake of greater impressiveness, sometimes changed the accepted accentuation of words.)

‘My son, Ivan, for instance,’ he went on; ‘the fool’s only just twenty—and all at once he comes to me and says: «Let me be married, father.» I told him he was a fool; told him he must go into the service first…. Well, there was despair—tears… but with me… no nonsense.’ (The words ‘no nonsense’ the great man seemed to enunciate more with his stomach than his lips; he paused and glanced majestically at his neighbour, the general, while he raised his eyebrows higher than any one could have expected. The civilian general nodded agreeably a little on one side, and with extraordinary rapidity winked with the eye turned to the great man.) ‘And what do you think?’ the great man began again: ‘now he writes to me himself, and thanks me for looking after him when he was a fool…. So that’s the way to act.’ All the guests, of course, were in complete agreement with the speaker, and seemed quite cheered up by the pleasure and instruction they derived from him…. After dinner, the whole party rose and moved into the drawing-room with a great deal of noise—decorous, however; and, as it were, licensed for the occasion…. They sat down to cards.

I got through the evening somehow, and charging my coachman to have my carriage ready at five o’clock next morning, I went to my room. But I was destined, in the course of that same day, to make the acquaintance of a remarkable man.

In consequence of the great number of guests staying in the house, no one had a bedroom to himself. In the small, greenish, damp room to which I was conducted by Alexandr Mihalitch’s butler, there was already another guest, quite undressed. On seeing me, he quickly ducked under the bed-clothes, covered himself up to the nose, turned a little on the soft feather-bed, and lay quiet, keeping a sharp look-out from under the round frill of his cotton night-cap. I went up to the other bed (there were only two in the room), undressed, and lay down in the damp sheets. My neighbour turned over in bed…. I wished him good-night.

Half-an-hour went by. In spite of all my efforts, I could not get to sleep: aimless and vague thoughts kept persistently and monotonously dragging one after another on an endless chain, like the buckets of a hydraulic machine.

‘You’re not asleep, I fancy?’ observed my neighbour.

‘No, as you see,’ I answered. ‘And you’re not sleepy either, are you?’

‘I’m never sleepy.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Oh! I go to sleep—I don’t know what for. I lie in bed, and lie in bed, and so get to sleep.’

‘Why do you go to bed before you feel sleepy?’

‘Why, what would you have me do?’

I made no answer to my neighbour’s question.

‘I wonder,’ he went on, after a brief silence, ‘how it is there are no fleas here? Where should there be fleas if not here, one wonders?’

‘You seem to regret them,’ I remarked.

‘No, I don’t regret them; but I like everything to be consecutive.’

‘O-ho!’ thought I; ‘what words he uses.’

My neighbour was silent again.

‘Would you like to make a bet with me?’ he said again, rather loudly.

‘What about?’

I began to be amused by him.

‘Hm… what about? Why, about this: I’m certain you take me for a fool.’

‘Really,’ I muttered, astounded.

‘For an ignoramus, for a rustic of the steppes…. Confess….’

‘I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you,’ I responded. ‘What can make you infer?…’

‘Why, the sound of your voice is enough; you answer me so carelessly…. But I’m not at all what you suppose….’

‘Allow me….’

‘No, you allow me. In the first place, I speak French as well as you, and German even better; secondly, I have spent three years abroad—in Berlin alone I lived eight months. I’ve studied Hegel, honoured sir; I know Goethe by heart: add to that, I was a long while in love with a German professor’s daughter, and was married at home to a consumptive lady, who was bald, but a remarkable personality. So I’m a bird of your feather; I’m not a barbarian of the steppes, as you imagine…. I too have been bitten by reflection, and there’s nothing obvious about me.’

I raised my head and looked with redoubled attention at the queer fellow. By the dim light of the night-lamp I could hardly distinguish his features.

‘There, you’re looking at me now,’ he went on, setting his night-cap straight, ‘and probably you’re asking yourself, «How is it I didn’t notice him to-day?» I’ll tell you why you didn’t notice me: because I didn’t raise my voice; because I get behind other people, hang about doorways, and talk to no one; because, when the butler passes me with a tray, he raises his elbow to the level of my shoulder…. And how is it all that comes about? From two causes: first, I’m poor; and secondly, I’ve grown humble…. Tell the truth, you didn’t notice me, did you?’

‘Certainly, I’ve