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Then, as I paced the room, something made me begin to think that Dubkoff was not altogether a good fellow. "There is nothing very much to admire in his eternal jokes and his nickname of 'DIPLOMAT," I reflected. "All he thinks about is to win money from Woloda and to go and see his 'Auntie. There is nothing very nice in all that.
This reply evidently surprised Dubkoff, but he turned away good-humouredly, and went on talking to Woloda and Dimitri. I tried to edge myself into the conversation, but, since I felt that I could not keep it up, I soon returned to my corner, and remained there until we left.
Woloda and Dubkoff seemed to be afraid of anything like serious consideration or emotion, whereas Nechludoff was beyond all things an enthusiast, and would often, despite their sarcastic remarks, plunge into dissertations on philosophical matters or matters of feeling.
In fact, it was only later still that I began to regard the matter in another light, and both to recall with comic appreciation my passage of arms with Kolpikoff, and to regret the undeserved affront which I had offered my good friend Dubkoff. When, at a later hour on the evening of the dinner, I told Dimitri of my affair with Kolpikoff, whose exterior I described in detail, he was astounded.
"Ah, but Nechludoff will not go there," objected Woloda. "O unbearable, insupportable man of quiet habits that you are!" cried Dubkoff, turning to Dimitri. "Yet come with us, and you shall see what an excellent lady my dear Auntie is." "I will neither go myself nor let him go," replied Dimitri. "Let whom go? The DIPLOMAT? Why, you yourself saw how he brightened up at the very mention of Auntie."
The truth was that we knew one another too well, and to know a person either too well or too little acts as a bar to intimacy. "Is Woloda at home?" came in Dubkoff's voice from the ante-room. "Yes!" shouted Woloda, springing up and throwing aside his book. Dubkoff and Nechludoff entered. "Are you coming to the theatre, Woloda?" "No, I have no time," he replied with a blush. "Oh, never mind that.
"Do you know what that nervousness of yours proceeds from?" said Dubkoff in a protecting sort of tone, "D'un exces d'amour propre, mon cher." "What do you mean by 'exces d'amour propre'?" asked Nechludoff, highly offended. "On the contrary, I am shy just because I have TOO LITTLE amour propre. I always feel as though I were being tiresome and disagreeable, and therefore "
However, his unexpected gaiety had an infectious influence upon myself and my companions, and the more so because each of us had now drunk about half a bottle of champagne. It was in this pleasing frame of mind that I went out into the main salon to smoke a cigarette which Dubkoff had given me.
Dimitri informed me that, though he did not care for champagne, he would nevertheless join us that evening and drink my health, while Dubkoff remarked that I looked almost like a colonel, and Woloda omitted to congratulate me at all, merely saying in an acid way that he supposed we should now i.e. in two days time be off into the country.
Next day, when I met Dubkoff at Woloda's, the quarrel was not raked up, yet he and I still addressed each other as "you," and found it harder than ever to look one another in the face. The remembrance of my scene with Kolpikoff who, by the way, never sent me "de ses nouvelles," either the following day or any day afterwards remained for years a keen and unpleasant memory.
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