“Excuse me, I haven’t the honor of being acquainted, but I couldn’t help hearing your story and it interested me. So, if you have no objections.”
Pavel Semenovich looked at him. He was a cultured man, carefully dressed, with intelligent eyes which looked steadily through a pair of gold glasses which he was constantly adjusting.
“Yes?” said Pavel Semenovich. “I see, you heard this....”
“Yes. It interested me.... Your point of view, I confess, I don’t understand fully....”
“Really, it wasn’t any too clear.... I meant ... that in reality everything is so related.... And this mutual relationship....”
“Presupposes mutual responsibility?”
Pavel Semenovich’s face suddenly beamed with joy.
“There! You understand it?... Yes, general.... Not before Ivan or Petr.... Everything is connected, so to speak.... One man carelessly throws away a brandy cork and another slips on it and breaks his leg.”
The new acquaintance listened attentively. Just then Petr Petrovich came back. He had been mistaken as to the place and with an ironical glance at both, he said, as he hung up his cap: