“Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovitch is non‐existent as yet.”
“It would be a capital thing if he didn’t turn up. Do you suppose I like all this business, and in your company, too? So we will come to dinner. Thank the Father Superior,” he said to the monk.
“No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder,” answered the monk.
“If so I’ll go straight to the Father Superior—to the Father Superior,” babbled Maximov.
“The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please—” the monk hesitated.
“Impertinent old man!” Miüsov observed aloud, while Maximov ran back to the monastery.
“He’s like von Sohn,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said suddenly.
“Is that all you can think of?... In what way is he like von Sohn? Have you ever seen von Sohn?”
“I’ve seen his portrait. It’s not the features, but something indefinable. He’s a second von Sohn. I can always tell from the physiognomy.”
“Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to behave properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But, if you begin to play the fool I don’t intend to be associated with you here.... You see what a man he is”—he turned to the monk—“I’m afraid to go among decent people with him.” A fine smile, not without a certain slyness, came on to the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he made no reply, and was evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity. Miüsov frowned more than ever.