“Here I am!” Tatiana exclaimed, coming in with a bundle in her hand. She had heard Mariana’s exclamation from behind the door.
“There’s plenty of time. See what I’ve brought you!”
Mariana flew towards her.
“Have you brought it?”
Tatiana patted the bundle.
“Everything is here, quite ready. You have only to put the things on and go out to astonish the world.”
“Come along, come along, Tatiana Osipovna, you are a dear——”
Mariana led her off to her own room.
Left alone, Nejdanov walked up and down the room once or twice with a peculiarly shuffling gait (he imagined that all shopkeepers walked like that), then he carefully sniffed at his sleeves, the inside of his cap, made a grimace, looked at himself in the little looking-glass hanging in between the windows, and shook his head; he certainly did not look very prepossessing. “So much the better,” he thought. Then he took several pamphlets, thrust them into his side pocket, and began to practise speaking like a shopkeeper. “That sounds like it,” he thought, “but after all there is no need of acting, my get-up is convincing enough.” Just then he recollected a German exile, who had to make his escape right across Russia with only a poor knowledge of the language. But thanks to a merchant’s cap which he had bought in a provincial town, he was taken everywhere for a merchant and had successfully made his way across the frontier.
At this moment Solomin entered.