I flushed crimson, as I did so I remembered that I had owed Simonov fifteen roubles for ages—which I had, indeed, never forgotten, though I had not paid it.
“You will understand, Simonov, that I could have no idea when I came here.... I am very much vexed that I have forgotten....”
“All right, all right, that doesn’t matter. You can pay tomorrow after the dinner. I simply wanted to know.... Please don’t...”
He broke off and began pacing the room still more vexed. As he walked he began to stamp with his heels.
“Am I keeping you?” I asked, after two minutes of silence.
“Oh!” he said, starting, “that is—to be truthful—yes. I have to go and see someone ... not far from here,” he added in an apologetic voice, somewhat abashed.
“My goodness, why didn’t you say so?” I cried, seizing my cap, with an astonishingly free-and-easy air, which was the last thing I should have expected of myself.
“It’s close by ... not two paces away,” Simonov repeated, accompanying me to the front door with a fussy air which did not suit him at all. “So five o’clock, punctually, tomorrow,” he called down the stairs after me. He was very glad to get rid of me. I was in a fury.
“What possessed me, what possessed me to force myself upon them?” I wondered, grinding my teeth as I strode along the street, “for a scoundrel, a pig like that Zverkov! Of course I had better not go; of course, I must just snap my fingers at them. I am not bound in any way. I’ll send Simonov a note by tomorrow’s post....”
But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go, that I should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go.