“At last, sir.” Captain Lebyadkin, for it was he, ran fussily to and fro. “Let me take your umbrella, please. It’s very wet; I’ll open it on the floor here, in the corner. Please walk in. Please walk in.”
The door was open from the passage into a room that was lighted by two candles.
“If it had not been for your promise that you would certainly come, I should have given up expecting you.”
“A quarter to one,” said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, looking at his watch, as he went into the room.
“And in this rain; and such an interesting distance. I’ve no clock … and there are nothing but market-gardens round me … so that you fall behind the times. Not that I murmur exactly; for I dare not, I dare not, but only because I’ve been devoured with impatience all the week … to have things settled at last.”
“How so?”
“To hear my fate, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. Please sit down.”
He bowed, pointing to a seat by the table, before the sofa.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch looked round. The room was tiny and low-pitched. The furniture consisted only of the most essential articles, plain wooden chairs and a sofa, also newly made without covering or cushions. There were two tables of limewood; one by the sofa, and the other in the corner was covered with a table-cloth, laid with things over which a clean table-napkin had been thrown. And, indeed, the whole room was obviously kept extremely clean.
Captain Lebyadkin had not been drunk for eight days. His face looked bloated and yellow. His eyes looked uneasy, inquisitive, and obviously bewildered. It was only too evident that he did not know what tone he could adopt, and what line it would be most advantageous for him to take.