Nejdanov told Solomin briefly what he knew about her.
“Nejdanov,” he said at last, “you must take great care of her, because ... if ... anything ... were to happen, you would be very much to blame. Goodbye.”
He went out, while Nejdanov stood still for a time in the middle of the room, and muttering, “Oh dear! It’s better not to think!” threw himself face downwards on the bed.
When Mariana returned to her room she found a note on the table containing the following:
“I am sorry for you. You are ruining yourself. Think what you are doing. Into what abysses are you throwing yourself with your eyes shut. For whom and for what?—V.”
There was a peculiarly fine fresh scent in the room; evidently Valentina Mihailovna had only just left it. Mariana took a pen and wrote underneath: “You need not be sorry for me. God knows which of us two is more in need of pity. I only know that I wouldn’t like to be in your place for worlds.—M.” She put the note on the table, not doubting that it would fall into Valentina Mihailovna’s hand.
On the following morning, Solomin, after seeing Nejdanov and definitely declining to undertake the management of Sipiagin’s factory, set out for home. He mused all the way home, a thing that rarely occurred with him; the motion of the carriage usually had a drowsy effect on him. He thought of Mariana and of Nejdanov; it seemed to him that if he had been in love—he, Solomin—he would have had quite a different air, would have looked and spoken differently. “But,” he thought, “such a thing has never happened to me, so I can’t tell what sort of an air I would have.” He recalled an Irish girl whom he had once seen in a shop behind a counter; recalled her wonderful black hair, blue eyes, and thick lashes, and how she had looked at him with a sad, wistful expression, and how he had paced up and down the street before her window for a long time, how excited he had been, and had kept asking himself if he should try and get to know her. He was in London at the time, where he had been sent by his employer with a sum of money to make various purchases. He very nearly decided to remain in London and send back the money, so strong was the impression produced on him by the beautiful Polly. (He had got to know her name, one of the other girls had called her by it.) He had mastered himself, however, and went back to his employer. Polly was more beautiful than Mariana, but Mariana had the same sad, wistful expression in her eyes ... and Mariana was a Russian.
“But what am I doing?” Solomin exclaimed in an undertone, “bothering about other men’s brides!” and he shook back the collar of his coat, as if he wanted to shake off all superfluous thoughts. Just then he drove up to the factory and caught sight of the faithful Pavel in the doorway of his little dwelling.
XXVI
Solomin’s refusal greatly offended Sipiagin; so much so, that he suddenly found that this home-bred Stevenson was not such a wonderful engineer after all, and that though he was not perhaps a complete poser, yet gave himself airs like the plebeian he was. “All these Russians when they imagine they know a thing become insufferable! Au fond Kollomietzev was right!” Under the influence of such hostile and irritable sensations, the statesman—en herbe—was even more unsympathetic and distant in his intercourse with Nejdanov. He told Kolia that he need not take lessons that day and that he must try to be more independent in future. He did not, however, dismiss the tutor himself as the latter had expected, but continued to ignore him. But Valentina Mihailovna did not ignore Mariana. A dreadful scene took place between them.