Suddenly the door of his study creaked, and the unknown head of a man appeared. Charsky gave a sudden start and frowned.
“Who is there?” he asked with vexation, inwardly cursing his servants, who were never in the ante-room when they were wanted.
The unknown entered. He was of a tall, spare figure, and appeared to be about thirty years of age. The features of his swarthy face were very expressive: his pale, lofty forehead, shaded by dark locks of hair, his black, sparkling eyes, aquiline nose, and thick beard surrounding his sunken, tawny cheeks, indicated him to be a foreigner. He was attired in a black dress-coat, already whitened at the seams, and summer trousers (although the season was well into the autumn); under his tattered black cravat, upon a yellowish shirt-front, glittered a false diamond; his shaggy hat seemed to have seen rain and bad weather. Meeting such a man in a wood, you would have taken him for a robber; in society—for a political conspirator; in an ante-room—for a charlatan, a seller of elixirs and arsenic.
“What do you want?” Charsky asked him in French.
“Signor,” replied the foreigner in Italian, with several profound bows: “Lei voglia perdonar mi, si ...” (Please pardon me, if....)
Charsky did not offer him a chair, and he rose himself: the conversation was continued in Italian.
“I am a Neapolitan artist,” said the unknown: “circumstances compelled me to leave my native land; I have, come to Russia, trusting to my talent.”
Charsky thought that the Italian was preparing to give some violoncello concerts and was disposing of his tickets from house to house. He was just about to give him twenty-five roubles in order to get rid of him as quickly as possible, but the unknown added:
“I hope, signor, that you will give a friendly support to your confrère, and introduce me into the houses to which, you have access.”
It was impossible to offer a greater affront to Charsky’s vanity. He glanced haughtily at the individual who called himself his confrère.