"I did."
"Why were you so long? Did he speak to you? What did he ask?"
Maklakov shivered. His cheeks were blue, his nose red. He seized the lapels of Yevsey's overcoat, and instantly released him, blew on his fingers, as if he had burned them, and began to tramp his feet on the ground. Thus, chilled through and through, and pitiful, he was not awe-inspiring.
"I, too, told him all my life," Yevsey declared aloud. It was pleasant to tell Maklakov about it.
"Well, didn't he ask about me?"
"He asked whether you had gone away."
"What did you say?"
"I said you had."
"Yes. Nothing else?"
"Nothing."