“Ah! Mr. Astákhoff, how do you do?”
Vladímir Sergyéitch made no reply, and stopped short in surprise. He could not comprehend how a gentleman who could bring himself to walk on the Névsky in a foraging-cap could be acquainted with his name.
“You do not recognise me,”—pursued the gentleman in the cap:—“I saw you eight years ago, in the country, in the T*** Government, at the Ipátoffs’. My name is Véretyeff.”
“Akh! Good heavens! excuse me!”—exclaimed Vladímir Sergyéitch.—“But how you have changed since then!...”
“Yes, I have grown old,”—returned Piótr Alexyéitch, passing his hand, which was devoid of a glove, over his face.—“But you have not changed.”
Véretyeff had not so much aged as fallen away and sunk down. Small, delicate wrinkles covered his face; and when he spoke, his lips and cheeks twitched slightly. From all this it was perceptible that the man had been living hard.
“Where have you disappeared to all this time, that you have not been visible?”—Vladímir Sergyéitch asked him.
“I have been wandering about here and there. And you have been in Petersburg all the while?”
“Yes, most of the time.”
“Are you married?”