At the end of a week the whole Department knew that the civil servant, Kotel’nikov, was very fond of negresses. By the end of a month the porters of the neighbouring houses, the petitioners, and the policeman on duty at the corner, knew it too. The ladies who worked the typewriters took to looking at Semyon Vasilyevich from the adjoining rooms; but he sat quiet and modest, and still was not sure whether he would be praised or thrashed. Already he had been at an evening party at Anton Ivanovich’s, had drunk tea with cherry jam upon a new damask table-cloth, and had explained that about negresses there was something exotic. The ladies looked confused, but the hostess’s daughter Nastenka, who had read novels, blinked her shortsighted eyes, and, adjusting her curls, asked:
“But, why?”
And all were very much pleased; but when the interesting guest had departed they spoke of him with the greatest compassion, and Nastenka him the victim of a pernicious passion.
Semyon Vasilyevich had been taken with Nastenka; but since he loved only negresses, he determined not to show his liking, and was cold and stand-offish, though strictly polite. And all the way home he thought of negresses, how black and greasy and objectionable they were, and at the thought of kissing one of them, he felt a sort of heart-burn, and was inclined to weep quietly and to write to his mother in the country to come to him. But in the night he overcame this attack of pusillanimity, and when he appeared at the office in the morning, by his whole appearance, by his red tie, and by the mysterious expression of his face, it was abundantly clear that this man was very fond indeed of negresses.
Soon after this, Anton Ivanovich, who took an interest in his fate, introduced him to a theatrical reporter; the reporter took him and treated him at a café-chantant, where he presented him to the Manager, Monsieur Jacques Ducquelau.
“Here is a gentleman,” said the reporter, as he brought forward the modestly bowing Semyon Vasilyevich, “here is a gentleman who is much enamoured of negresses; no one but negresses. He is an extraordinary original. Give him encouragement, Jacques Ivanovich, for of such people be not encouraged, who should be? This, Jacques Ivanovich, is a public matter.”
The reporter slapped Semyon Vasilyevich patronizingly on his narrow back, in its creaseless, tightly-fitting coat, and the Manager, a Frenchman, with a fierce black moustache, cast his eyes up to the sky, as though looking for something there, made a gesture of decision, and transfixing the still bowing civil servant with his black eyes, said:
“Negresses! Excellent! I have here at present three beautiful negresses.”
Semyon Vasilyevich blanched slightly, but M. Jacques was very fond of his own establishment, and took no notice. The reporter requested: “Give him a free ticket, Jacques Ivanovich; a season.”
From that evening Semyon Vasilyevich began to pay court to a negress, Miss Korraito, the whites of whose eyes were like saucers, with pupils no larger than sloes. And when she turned on all this battery and made eyes at him, his feet turned cold, and, as he bowed hastily, his well-pomatumed head glistened under the electric light, and he thought with grief of his poor mother who lived in the country.