As his mother turned to go, Sanine, who noticed her stony profile and forbidding expression, said to himself, “There’s an old hen for you!” Folding up his letter he followed her out, curious to see what turn matters would take.
With exaggerated politeness Sarudine and Volochine rose to salute the old lady, yet the former showed none of his wonted ease of manner when at the Sanines’. Volochine indeed felt slightly uncomfortable, because he had come expressly to see Lida, and was obliged to conceal his intention.
Despite his simulated ease, Sarudine looked obviously anxious. He felt that he ought not to have come. He dreaded meeting Lida, yet he could on no account let Volochine see this, to whom he wished to pose as a gay Lothario.
“Dear Maria Ivanovna,” began Sarudine, smiling affectedly, “allow me to introduce to you my good friend, Paul Lvovitch Volochine.”
“Charmed!” said Maria Ivanovna, with frigid politeness, and Sarudine observed the hostile look in her eyes, which somewhat unnerved him. “We ought not to have come,” he thought, at last aware of the fact, which in Volochine’s society he had forgotten. Lida might come in at any moment, Lida, the mother of his child; what should he say to her? How should he look her in the face? Perhaps her mother knew all? He fidgeted nervously on his chair; lit a cigarette, shrugged his shoulders, moved his legs, and looked about him right and left.
“Are you making a long stay?” asked Maria Ivanovna of Volochine, in a cold, formal voice.
“Oh! no,” he replied, as he stared complacently at this provincial person, thrusting his cigar into the corner of his mouth so that the smoke rose right into her face.
“It must be rather dull for you, here, after Petersburg.”
“On the contrary, I think it is delightful. There is something so patriarchal about this little town.”
“You ought to visit the environs, which are charming for excursions and picnics. There’s boating and bathing, too.”