“Which you will again make a mess of,” said the man who lay on the sofa playing with his watch-key. But the traveller did not listen to him.
“I am sad and yet glad to go,” he continued. “Why I am sad I don’t know.”
And the traveller went on talking about himself, without noticing that this did not interest the others as much as it did him. A man is never such an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At such times it seems to him that there is nothing on earth more splendid and interesting than himself.
“Dmítri Andréich! The coachman won’t wait any longer!” said a young serf, entering the room in a sheepskin coat, with a scarf tied round his head. “The horses have been standing since twelve, and it’s now four o’clock!”
Dmítri Andréich looked at his serf, Vanyúsha. The scarf round Vanyúsha’s head, his felt boots and sleepy face, seemed to be calling his master to a new life of labour, hardship, and activity.
“True enough! Good-bye!” said he, feeling for the unfastened hook and eye on his coat.
In spite of advice to mollify the coachman by another tip, he put on his cap and stood in the middle of the room. The friends kissed once, then again, and after a pause, a third time. The man in the fur-lined coat approached the table and emptied a champagne glass, then took the plain little man’s hand and blushed.
“Ah well, I will speak out all the same ... I must and will be frank with you because I am fond of you ... Of course you love her—I always thought so—don’t you?”
“Yes,” answered his friend, smiling still more gently.
“And perhaps...”