“A student or professor, they all come from the university just the same. You only want to argue. But the Swiss one had moustaches and a beard.”
“It’s the son of Stepan Trofimovitch that maman always calls the professor,” said Liza, and she took Shatov away to the sofa at the other end of the drawing-room.
“When her legs swell, she’s always like this, you understand she’s ill,” she whispered to Shatov, still with the same marked curiosity, scrutinising him, especially his shock of hair.
“Are you an officer?” the old lady inquired of me. Liza had mercilessly abandoned me to her.
“N-no.—I’m in the service.…”
“Mr. G——v is a great friend of Stepan Trofimovitch’s,” Liza chimed in immediately.
“Are you in Stepan Trofimovitch’s service? Yes, and he’s a professor, too, isn’t he?”
“Ah, maman, you must dream at night of professors,” cried Liza with annoyance.
“I see too many when I’m awake. But you always will contradict your mother. Were you here four years ago when Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was in the neighbourhood?”
I answered that I was.