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Trudolyubov was on my left, Simonov on my right, Zverkov was sitting opposite, Ferfitchkin next to him, between him and Trudolyubov. "Tell me, are you ... in a government office?" Zverkov went on attending to me. Seeing that I was embarrassed he seriously thought that he ought to be friendly to me, and, so to speak, cheer me up. "Does he want me to throw a bottle at his head?"
With despair I pictured to myself how coldly and disdainfully that "scoundrel" Zverkov would meet me; with what dull-witted, invincible contempt the blockhead Trudolyubov would look at me; with what impudent rudeness the insect Ferfitchkin would snigger at me in order to curry favour with Zverkov; how completely Simonov would take it all in, and how he would despise me for the abjectness of my vanity and lack of spirit and, worst of all, how paltry, UNLITERARY, commonplace it would all be.
"You never were on good terms with Zverkov," Trudolyubov added, frowning. But I had already clutched at the idea and would not give it up. "It seems to me that no one has a right to form an opinion upon that," I retorted in a shaking voice, as though something tremendous had happened. "Perhaps that is just my reason for wishing it now, that I have not always been on good terms with him."
He was one of those worshippers of Zverkov who made up to the latter from interested motives, and often borrowed money from him. Simonov's other visitor, Trudolyubov, was a person in no way remarkable a tall young fellow, in the army, with a cold face, fairly honest, though he worshipped success of every sort, and was only capable of thinking of promotion.
"Friends," cried Zverkov getting up from the sofa, "let us all be off now, THERE!" "Of course, of course," the others assented. I turned sharply to Zverkov. I was so harassed, so exhausted, that I would have cut my throat to put an end to it. I was in a fever; my hair, soaked with perspiration, stuck to my forehead and temples. "Zverkov, I beg your pardon," I said abruptly and resolutely.
"So you've been here a whole hour? Oh, poor fellow!" Zverkov cried ironically, for to his notions this was bound to be extremely funny. That rascal Ferfitchkin followed with his nasty little snigger like a puppy yapping. My position struck him, too, as exquisitely ludicrous and embarrassing. "It isn't funny at all!" I cried to Ferfitchkin, more and more irritated.
"If a trick like that had been played on me," observed Ferfitchkin, "I should ..." "But you should have ordered something for yourself," Zverkov interrupted, "or simply asked for dinner without waiting for us." "You will allow that I might have done that without your permission," I rapped out. "If I waited, it was ..." "Let us sit down, gentlemen," cried Simonov, coming in.
I begged Simonov's pardon especially; I asked him to convey my explanations to all the others, especially to Zverkov, whom "I seemed to remember as though in a dream" I had insulted. I added that I would have called upon all of them myself, but my head ached, and besides I had not the face to. "On a young hero's past no censure is cast!" "There is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it!"
I drew myself up in my chair and feverishly seized my glass, prepared for something extraordinary, though I did not know myself precisely what I was going to say. "SILENCE!" cried Ferfitchkin. "Now for a display of wit!" Zverkov waited very gravely, knowing what was coming. "Mr.
"Either they shall all go down on their knees to beg for my friendship, or I will give Zverkov a slap in the face!" "So this is it, this is it at last contact with real life," I muttered as I ran headlong downstairs. "This is very different from the Pope's leaving Rome and going to Brazil, very different from the ball on Lake Como!"
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