Lunev glanced at the pair and answered, with aversion, but coldly:
"Please do go! I am nothing to you, nor you to me."
Both gave one strange lightning glance at him, and then disappeared. He laughed as they went. Then he stood alone in the shop for several minutes, motionless, intoxicated with the bitter sweetness of complete revenge. The angry face of the girl, half astonished, half frightened, was stamped on his memory, and he was pleased with himself.
"But that rascal—he——" a sudden thought buzzed in his brain. Gavrik's behaviour annoyed him and disturbed his self-satisfied mood.
"Another of the conceited lot!" he thought. "Now, if only Tanitshka were to come, I'd talk to her too—now's the time."
He experienced the desire to thrust all mankind away from him, harshly and contemptuously, and felt the strength in him now to do it.
But Tanitshka did not come; he was alone all day, and the time hung very heavily on his hands. When he lay down to sleep he felt isolated, and his sense of injury at his isolation was greater even than at the girl's words. He remembered Olympiada, and thought now that she had been kinder to him than any one. Closing his eyes, he listened in the stillness of the night; but at every sound he started, raised his head from the pillow, and stared into the darkness with eyes wide open. All night he could not get to sleep, because of his terrified expectation of something unknown—a feeling as though he were imprisoned in a cellar, gasping in a damp, close air, full of helpless, disconnected thoughts. He got up with an aching head, tried to get the samovar going, but gave it up. He washed, drank some water, and opened the shop.
About midday Pavel appeared, his forehead wrinkled in anger. Without any greeting, he asked:
"What on earth's the matter with you?"
Ilya understood the drift of the question, and shook his head hopelessly. He was silent awhile, thinking: "He's against me, too."