“That was an affected look of yours a moment ago.”
“When? What are you talking about?” the man with the sainted forehead asked, colouring.
“You know what. You made a face as if you were not glad to see Boulatoff. You know you were, weren’t you, now?”
“I confess I was.”
“Now I like you, old boy. All that is necessary is to take one’s self in hand. Nothing like self-chastisement.”
“Cyclops” bent over to an army captain with a pair of grandiose side-whiskers and said something in order to hear himself address a Gentile and an army officer in the familiar “thou.” Another young Jew, a red-headed gymnasium boy named Ginsburg, sat close to the lamp, reading a book with near-sighted eyes, the yellow light playing on his short-clipped red hair. His father was a notorious usurer and the chief go-between in the governor’s bribe-taking and money-lending transactions. Young Ginsburg robbed his father industriously, dedicating the spoils to the socialist movement.
The expectation that that hazy, featureless image which had resided in his mind for the past five years would soon stand forth in the flesh and with the mist lifted made Pavel restless. When a girl with short hair and very sparse teeth told him that Clara Yavner was sure to be around in less than fifteen minutes, his heart began to throb. The girl’s name was Olga Alexandrovna Andronova (Andronoff). She was accompanied by her fiancé, a local judge—a middle-aged man with a mass of fluffy hair. The judge was perceptibly near-sighted, like Ginsburg, only when he screwed up his eyes he looked angry, whereas the short-sightedness of the red-headed young man had a beseeching effect. The two girls were great friends, and Olga spoke of her chum in terms of persuasive enthusiasm. That Boulatoff had special reasons to be interested in Clara Yavner she was not aware.
“What has become of her?” she said, looking at the door impatiently.
“You are adding fuel to my curiosity, Olga Alexandrovna,” Pavel said. “I am beginning to feel somewhat as I once did in the opera, when I was waiting to see Patti for the first time.”