“But it’s so very awkward for me; I’m ashamed. All of them already know where you took me from.”
“Well, that’s nothing, that’s nothing! Why, let ’em know!” warmly contradicted Lichonin. “Why be embarrassed with your past, why try to pass it by in silence? In a year you’ll look bravely and directly in the eyes of every man and you’ll say: ‘He who has never fallen, has never gotten up.’ Come on, come on, Liubochka!”
While the inelaborate appetizers were being served, and each one was ordering the meal, everybody, save Simanovsky, felt ill at ease and somehow constrained. And Simanovsky himself was partly the reason for this; he was a clean-shaven man, with pince-nez and long hair, with head proudly thrown back and with a contemptuous expression on the tight lips, drooping at the corners. He had no intimate, hearty friends among his comrades; but his opinions and judgments had a considerable authoritativeness among them. It is doubtful whether any one of them could explain to himself whence this influence came; whether from his self-assured appearance, his ability to seize and express in general words the dismembered and indistinct things which are dimly sought and desired by the majority, or because he always saved his conclusions for the most appropriate moment. Among any society there are many of this sort of people: some of them act upon their circle through sophistries; others through adamant, unalterable stead-fastness of convictions; a third group with a loud mouth; a fourth, through a malicious sneer; a fifth, simply by silence, which compels the supposition of profound thought behind it; a sixth, through a chattering, outward erudition; others still through a slashing sneer at everything that is said ... many with the terrible Russian word YERUNDA: “Fiddlesticks!”—“Fiddlesticks!” they say contemptuously in reply to the warm, sincere, probably truthful but clumsily put word. “But why fiddlesticks?” “Because it’s twaddle, nonsense,” answer they, shrugging their shoulders; and it is as though they did for a man by hitting him with a stone over the head. There are many more sorts of such people, bearing the bell at the head of the meek, the shy, the nobly modest, and often even the big minds; and to their number did Simanovsky belong.
However, toward the middle of the dinner everybody’s tongue became loosened—except Liubka’s, who kept silent, answered “yes” and “no”, and left her food practically untouched. Lichonin, Soloviev, and Nijeradze talked most of all. The first, in a decisive and business-like manner, trying to hide under the solicitous words something real, inward, prickling and inconvenient. Soloviev, with a puerile delight, with the most sweeping of gestures, hitting the table with his fist. Nijeradze, with a slight doubtfulness and with unfinished phrases, as though he knew that which must be said, but concealed it. The queer fate of the girl, however, had seemingly engrossed, interested them all; and each one, in expressing his opinion, for some reason inevitably turned to Simanovsky. But he kept his counsel for the most part, and looked at each one from under the glasses of his pince-nez, raising his head high to do so.
“So, so, so,” he said at last, drumming with his fingers upon the table. “What Lichonin has done is splendid and brave. And that the prince and Soloviev are going to meet him half-way is also very good. I, for my part, am ready to co-operate with your beginnings with whatever lies in my power. But will it not be better, if we lead our friend along the path of her natural inclinations and abilities, so to speak? Tell me, my dear,” he turned to Liubka, “what do you know, what can you do? Well, now, some kind of work, or something. Sewing, knitting, embroidering or something.”
“I don’t know anything,” said Liubka in a whisper, letting her eyes drop low, all red, squeezing her fingers under the table. “I don’t understand anything of this.”
“And really, now,” interposed Lichonin; “why, we haven’t begun the business from the right end. By talking about her in her presence we merely place her in an awkward position. Just see—even her tongue doesn’t move from confusion. Let’s go, Liubka, I’ll escort you home for just a little while, and return in ten minutes. And in the meanwhile we’ll think over ways and means here, without you. All right?”
“As for me, I don’t mind,” almost inaudibly answered Liubka. “I’ll do just as you like, Vassil Vassilich. Only I wouldn’t like to go home.”
“Why so?”
“It’s awkward for me there alone. I’d best wait for you on the boulevard, at the very entrance, on a bench.”