“Here he is! Here he is!” he exclaimed, getting red with pleasure, and he jumped up from the table. “How good of you to come!”
He ran towards me, seized me in his arms, embraced me and scratched my cheeks several times with his bristly moustache. These kisses were followed by lengthy shaking of my hand and long looks into my eyes.
“You, Sergey, have not changed at all! You're still the same! The same handsome and strong fellow! Thank you for accepting my invitation and coming at once!”
When released from the Count's embrace, I greeted the bailiff, who was an old friend of mine, and sat down at the table.
“Oh, Golubchek!”[4] the Count continued in an excitedly anxious tone. “If you only knew how delighted I am to see your serious countenance again. You are not acquainted? Allow me to introduce you—my good friend, Kaetan Kazimirovich Pshekhotsky. And this,” he continued, introducing me to the fat man, “is my good old friend, Sergey Petrovich Zinov'ev! Our magistrate.”
The stout, dark-browed man rose slightly from his seat and offered me his fat, and terribly sweaty hand.
“Very pleased,” he mumbled, examining me from head to foot. “Very glad!”
Having given vent to his feelings and become calm again, the Count filled a glass with cold, dark brown tea for me and moved a box of biscuits towards my hand.
“Eat.… When passing through Moscow I bought them at Einem's. I'm very angry with you, Serezha, so angry that I wanted to quarrel with you!… Not only have you not written me a line during the whole of the past two years, but you did not even think a single one of my letters worth answering! That's not friendly!”
“I don't know how to write letters,” I said. “Besides, I have no time for letter writing. Can you tell me what could I have written to you about?”