He pointed to a fashionable grey hat lying on a shelf. It belonged to Mr. Kollomietzev, who had been in Arjanov since the morning.
“Il est très cassant you know. He has far too great a contempt for the people for my liking. And he has been so frightfully quarrelsome and irritable of late. Is his little affair there not getting on well?”
Sipiagin nodded his head in some indefinite direction, but his wife understood him.
“Open your eyes, I tell you again!”
Sipiagin stood up.
“Eh?” (This “eh” was pronounced in a quite different tone, much lower.) “Is that how the land lies? They had better take care I don’t open them too wide!”
“That is your own affair, my dear. But as for that new young man of yours, you may be quite easy about him. I will see that everything is all right. Every precaution will be taken.”
It turned out that no precautions were necessary, however. Solomin was not in the least alarmed or embarrassed.
As soon as he was announced Sipiagin jumped up, exclaiming in a voice loud enough to be heard in the hall, “Show him in, of course show him in!” He then went up to the drawing-room door and stood waiting. No sooner had Solomin crossed the threshold, almost knocking against Sipiagin, when the latter extended both his hands, saying with an amiable smile and a friendly shake of the head, “How very nice of you to come.... I can hardly thank you enough.” Then he led him up to Valentina Mihailovna.
“Allow me to introduce you to my wife,” he said, gently pressing his hand against Solomin’s back, pushing him towards her as it were. “My dear, here is our best local engineer and manufacturer, Vassily ... Fedosaitch Solomin.”