"If you please, if you please." Nikolai Petrovitch turned to Bazarov.
"Before supper," he said, "would you care to go to your room?"
"I thank you, no. But please have my trunk conveyed thither, and also this wrap." And Bazarov divested himself of his cloak.
"Certainly. Prokofitch, take the gentleman's cloak."
The old butler received the garment gingerly, held it well away from him with both hands, and left the room on tiptoe.
"And you, Arkady?" continued Nikolai Petrovitch. "Do you not wish to go to your room?"
"Yes; for a wash I should be thankful," was Arkady's reply as he moved towards the door. At that moment it opened to admit a man of medium height who was dressed in a dark English suit, a fashionably low collar, and a pair of patent leather boots. This was Paul Petrovitch Kirsanov. Although forty-five, he had close-cropped grey hair of the sheen of new silver, and his sallow, unwrinkled face was as clear-cut and regular of outline as though carved with a light, fine chisel. Still retaining traces of remarkable comeliness, his bright, black, oblong eyes had a peculiar attraction, and his every well-bred, refined feature showed that symmetry of youth, that air of superiority to the rest of the world which usually disappears when once the twenties have been passed.
Drawing from his trouser pocket a slender hand the long, pink nails of which looked all the slenderer for the snowy whiteness of the superimposed cuff and large opal sleeve-link, he offered it to his nephew; after which, this prefatory European "handshake" over, he thrice kissed Arkady in the Russian fashion—that is to say, touched his nephew's cheek with his perfumed moustache, and murmured: "I congratulate you."
Next Nikolai Petrovitch presented to him Bazarov. Inclining his supple figure with a faint smile, Paul Petrovitch this time did not offer his hand. On the contrary, he replaced it in his pocket.
"I was beginning to think that you never meant to arrive," he said with an amiable hoist of his shoulders and a display of some beautiful white teeth. "What happened to you?"