“Well, sit down, sit down both of you,” Solomin began; he had been standing all the while with his head bent a little to one side, gazing at Mariana. “In olden days, if you remember, people always sat down before starting on a journey. And you have both a long and wearisome one before you.”
Mariana, still crimson, sat down, then Nejdanov and Solomin, and last of all Tatiana took her seat on a thick block of wood. Solomin looked at each of them in turn.
“Let us step back a pace,
Let us step back a bit,
To see with what grace
And how nicely we sit,”
he said with a frown. Suddenly he burst out laughing, but so good-naturedly that no one was in the least offended, on the contrary, they all began to feel merry too. Only Nejdanov rose suddenly.
“I must go now,” he said; “this is all very nice, but rather like a farce. Don’t be uneasy,” he added, turning to Solomin. “I shall not interfere with your people. I’ll try my tongue on the folk around about and will tell you all about it when I come back, Mariana, if there is anything to tell. Wish me luck!”
“Why not have a cup of tea first?” Tatiana remarked.
“No thanks. If I want any I can go into an eating-house or into a public house.”
Tatiana shook her head.
“Goodbye, goodbye ... good luck to you!” Nejdanov added, entering upon his role of small shopkeeper. But before he had reached the door Pavel thrust his head in from the passage under his very nose, and handing him a thin, long staff, cut out all the way down like a screw, he said:
“Take this, Alexai Dmitritch, and lean on it as you walk. And the farther you hold it away from yourself the better it will look.”