There stepped, or rather sprang into the room a fresh-looking, well-built young man of middle height of about twenty-three years of age. He had chestnut hair, a rosy face, grey-blue keen eyes, and a smile which displayed a row of strong teeth. He laid on a chair with his hat a bunch of cornflowers and a packet carefully done up in a handkerchief.
“Good-day, Tatiana Markovna; Good-day, Marfa Vassilievna,” he cried. He kissed the old lady’s hand, and would have raised Marfinka’s to his lips, but she pulled it away, though he found time to snatch a hasty kiss from it.
“You haven’t been to see us for three weeks,” said Tatiana Markovna, reproachfully.
“I could not come. The Governor would not let me off. Orders were given to settle up all the business in the office,” said Vikentev, so hurriedly that he nearly swallowed some of the words.
“That is absurd; don’t listen to him, Granny,” interrupted Marfinka. “He hasn’t any business, as he himself said.”
“I swear I am up to my neck in work. We are now expecting a new chief clerk, and I swear by God we have to sit up into the night.”
“It is not the custom to appeal to God over such trifles. It is a sin,” said Tatiana Markovna severely.
“What do you mean? Is it a trifle when Marfa Vassilievna will not believe me, and I, by God—”
“Again?”
“Is it true, Tatiana Markovna, that you have a visitor? Has Boris Pavlovich arrived? Was it he I met in the corridor? I have come on purpose—”