“It did seem a little strange to me—” Nejdanov began.
“Mr. Markelov,” Mariana interrupted him, “proposed to me ... and I refused him. That is all I wanted to say to you. Goodnight. Think what you like of me.”
She turned away and walked quickly down the corridor.
Nejdanov entered his own room and sat down by the window musing. “What a strange girl—why this wild issue, this uninvited explanation? Is it a desire to be original, or simply affectation—or pride? Pride, no doubt. She can’t endure the idea ... the faintest suspicion, that anyone should have a wrong opinion of her. What a strange girl!”
Thus Nejdanov pondered, while he was being discussed on the terrace below; every word could be heard distinctly.
“I have a feeling,” Kollomietzev declared, “a feeling, that he’s a revolutionist. When I served on a special commission at the governor-general’s of Moscow avec Ladislas, I learned to scent these gentlemen as well as nonconformists. I believe in instinct above everything.” Here Kollomietzev related how he had once caught an old sectarian by the heel somewhere near Moscow, on whom he had looked in, accompanied by the police, and who nearly jumped out of his cottage window. “He was sitting quite quietly on his bench until that moment, the blackguard!”
Kollomietzev forgot to add that this old man, when put into prison, refused to take any food and starved himself to death.
“And your new tutor,” Kollomietzev went on zealously, “is a revolutionist, without a shadow of a doubt! Have you noticed that he is never the first to bow to anyone?”
“Why should he?” Madame Sipiagina asked; “on the contrary, that is what I like about him.”
“I am a guest in the house in which he serves,” Kollomietzev exclaimed, “yes, serves for money, comme un salarié.... Consequently I am his superior.... He ought to bow to me first.”