“Your name is Boulatoff, is it not?” asked the host, his square Slavic nose curling up with the joy of his welcome. Then, crouching before the absurdest looking samovar Pavel had ever seen, he explained that his mother had gone to his sister’s for the night, as she did very often to avoid the noise of his gatherings. In the centre of a bare round table lay an enormous loaf of rye bread and a great wedge of sugar, near which stood an empty candy box, apparently used as a sugar bowl. Pavel divined that at least one-half of Orlovsky’s salary was spent on the tea, bread and butter on which his guests regaled themselves while they talked liberty.
“I’m only a private of the revolution,” Orlovsky said, trying to blow two charcoals into flame until his face glowed like the coals and his eyes looked bleared. “But if there is anything I can do command me.” At his instance the two addressed each other in the familiar diminutives of their Christian names—“Pasha” and “Aliosha.” While Aliosha was struggling with his smoking samovar, Pasha set to work cutting up the sugar.
“Wait till you have seen our crowd,” said Aliosha, flicking the open side of an old top-boot at the samovar by way of bellows. “I tell you Miroslav is destined to play a prominent part in the liberation of Russia. We have some tip-top fellows and girls. Of course, we’re mere privates in the ranks of the revolution.”
But Pavel’s mind was on the speaker’s sackcoat of checkered grey, which was so tight on him that his prominent thighs were bulging out and the garment seemed on the point of bursting. The sight of it annoyed Pavel in the same way as Mme. Shubeyko’s smile had done, and he asked Orlovsky why he should not unbutton himself, to which the other answered, half in jest, half in earnest, that he was getting so fat that he was beginning to look “like a veritable bourgeois, deuce take it.”
“But it makes a fellow uncomfortable to look at you,” Pavel shouted, irascibly.
“Ah, but that’s a question of personal liberty, old man,” Orlovsky returned in all seriousness. “What right have you, for instance, to impose upon me rules as to how I am to wear my coat?”
“That right which limits the liberty of one man by the liberty of other men. But this is all foolishness, Aliosha. Upon my word it is. The days of hair-splitting are dead and buried. There is plenty of work to do—living, practical work.”
Orlovsky leaped up from his samovar, a fishy look in his eye, and grasping Pavel’s hand he pressed it hard and long. Pavel felt in the presence of the most provincial Nihilism he had ever come across.
Other members of the Circle came. They all knew the governor’s nephew by sight. Also that he was “a sympathiser,” yet his presence here was a stirring surprise to most of them, although they strove to conceal it. One man, Orlovsky’s immediate superior in office, shook Pavel’s hand with a grimace which seemed to say: “You’re Prince Boulatoff and I am only an ordinary government official, but then all titles and ranks will soon go to smash.” A Jewish gymnasium boy with two bubbling beads for eyes made Pavel’s acquaintance with a preoccupied air, as if in a hurry to get down to more important business. His small, deep-seated eyes spurted either merriment or gloom. Elkin had said there was not enough of them to make one decent-sized eye, and dubbed him “Cyclops,” which had since been the boy’s revolutionary nickname.
Orlovsky’s superior had a vast snow-white forehead that gave his face a luminous, aureole-lit effect, but he was an incurable liar. He was one of the most devoted members of the Circle, however, and recently he had sold all his real estate, turning over the proceeds to the party. As he seated himself a telegraph operator in a dazzling uniform sat down by his side, saying, in a whisper: