“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Sipiagin interposed hastily, trying to catch someone’s eye, “please, please ... Kallomeitzeff, je vous prie de vous calmer. I suppose dinner will soon be ready. Come along, gentlemen!”
“Valentina Mihailovna!” Kollomietzev cried out five minutes later, rushing into her boudoir. “I really don’t know what your husband is doing! He has brought us one nihilist and now he’s bringing us another! Only this one is much worse!”
“But why?”
“He is advocating the most awful things, and what do you think? He has been talking to your husband for a whole hour, and not once, not once, did he address him as Your Excellency! Le vagabond!”
XXIV
Just before dinner Sipiagin called his wife into the library. He wanted to have a talk with her alone. He seemed worried. He told her that the factory was really in a bad way, that Solomin struck him as a capable man, although a little stiff, and thought it was necessary to continue being aux petits soins with him.
“How I should like to get hold of him!” he repeated once or twice. Sipiagin was very much annoyed at Kollomietzev’s being there. “Devil take the man! He sees nihilists everywhere and is always wanting to suppress them! Let him do it at his own house I He simply can’t hold his tongue!”
Valentina Mihailovna said that she would be delighted to be aux petits soins with the new visitor, but it seemed to her that he had no need of these petits soins and took no notice of them; not rudely in any way, but he was quite indifferent; very remarkable in a man du commun.
“Never mind.... Be nice to him just the same!” Sipiagin begged of her.
Valentina Mihailovna promised to do what he wanted and fulfilled her promise conscientiously. She began by having a tête-à-tête with Kollomietzev. What she said to him remains a secret, but he came to the table with the air of a man who had made up his mind to be discreet and submissive at all costs. This “resignation” gave his whole bearing a slight touch of melancholy; and what dignity ... oh, what dignity there was in every one of his movements! Valentina Mihailovna introduced Solomin to everybody (he looked more attentively at Mariana than at any of the others), and made him sit beside her on her right at table. Kollomietzev sat on her left, and as he unfolded his serviette screwed up his face and smiled, as much as to say, “Well, now let us begin our little comedy!” Sipiagin sat on the opposite side and watched him with some anxiety. By a new arrangement of Madame Sipiagina, Nejdanov was not put next to Mariana as usual, but between Anna Zaharovna and Sipiagin. Mariana found her card (as the dinner was a stately one) on her serviette between Kollomietzev and Kolia. The dinner was excellently served; there was even a “menu”—a painted card lay before each person.