'Is there anything so specially attractive about me, hey? I shouldn't have thought there was anything. There isn't anything, is there? And here, I've a clandestine appointment for to-morrow.'
Kister sat up, leaned on his elbow, and stared in amazement at Lutchkov.
'For the evening, in a wood...' Avdey Ivanovitch continued serenely. 'Only don't you go and imagine it means much. It's only a bit of fun. It's slow here, don't you know. A pretty little girl,... well, says I, why not? Marriage, of course, I'm not going in for... but there, I like to recall my young days. I don't care for hanging about petticoats—but I may as well humour the baggage. We can listen to the nightingales together. Of course, it's really more in your line; but the wench has no eyes, you see. I should have thought I wasn't worth looking at beside you.'
Lutchkov talked on a long while. But Kister did not hear him. His head was going round. He turned pale and passed his hand over his face. Lutchkov swayed up and down in his low chair, screwed up his eyes, stretched, and putting down Kister's emotion to jealousy, was almost gasping with delight. But it was not jealousy that was torturing Kister; he was wounded, not by the fact itself, but by Avdey's coarse carelessness, his indifferent and contemptuous references to Masha. He was still staring intently at the bully, and it seemed as if for the first time he was thoroughly seeing his face. So this it was he had been scheming for! This for which he had sacrificed his own inclinations! Here it was, the blessed influence of love.
'Avdey... do you mean to say you don't care for her?' he muttered at last.
'O innocence! O Arcadia!' responded Avdey, with a malignant chuckle.
Kister in the goodness of his heart did not give in even then; perhaps, thought he, Avdey is in a bad temper and is 'humbugging' from old habit... he has not yet found a new language to express new feelings. And was there not in himself some other feeling lurking under his indignation? Did not Lutchkov's avowal strike him so unpleasantly simply because it concerned Masha? How could one tell, perhaps Lutchkov really was in love with her.... Oh, no! no! a thousand times no! That man in love?... That man was loathsome with his bilious, yellow face, his nervous, cat-like movements, crowing with conceit... loathsome! No, not in such words would Kister have uttered to a devoted friend the secret of his love.... In overflowing happiness, in dumb rapture, with bright, blissful tears in his eyes would he have flung himself on his bosom....
'Well, old man,' queried Avdey, 'own up now you didn't expect it, and now you feel put out. Eh? jealous? Own up, Fedya. Eh? eh?'
Kister was about to speak out, but he turned with his face to the wall. 'Speak openly... to him? Not for anything!' he whispered to himself. 'He wouldn't understand me... so be it! He supposes none but evil feelings in me—so be it!...'
Avdey got up.