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In short, the inhabitants of the place resemble needles and threads with which some rough, clumsy, and impatient hand is for ever trying to darn a ragged cloth which as constantly parts and rends. The chief person of repute in the suburb is my landlord, one Antipa Vologonov a little old man who keeps a shop of "odd wares," and also lends money on pledge.
In fact the landscape reminds me of sundry ancient tales of marvels, as also does Antipa Vologonov, the man who is so strangely conversant with the shortcomings of human life, and so passionately addicted to discussing them.
Until now Antipa had spoken cautiously, and in an undertone, whereas the woman had replied in loud accents of challenge. "Will you come in and have some tea?" he said next as he leant out of the window. "No, I thank you. In passing, what a thing I have heard about you!" "Do not shout so loud. Of what are you speaking?" "Oh, of SUCH a thing!" "Of NOTHING, I imagine." "Yes, of EVERYTHING."
Straightening himself, and glancing at me with dim eyes, Antipa repeated: "What is it that I have been wanting of him?" To the repetition he added with manifest sincerity, though also with a self-depreciatory movement of the head: "To tell the truth, I scarcely know WHAT it is that I have been wanting of him. By God I do not.
Suddenly I caught sight of Antipa standing in the doorway. He was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Presently in a gruff and unsteady voice he said: "It is all very fine for you to weep, good woman, but the present is not the right moment to sing such verses as those they were meant, rather, to be sung in a graveyard at the side of a tomb. Well, tell me everything without reserve.
As I stepped out into the dark, narrow vestibule, Antipa, who was following me, muttered: "Such a lament as hers could come only of genuine grief." We found Felitzata in front of the hut, with her back covering the window.
As for the omniscient Antipa Vologonov, the following was his frequent comment on Nilushka: "Christ also had to walk in terror. Christ also was persecuted. Why so? Because ever He endured in rectitude and strength. Men need to learn what is real and what is unreal.
Also, whenever Antipa sits down the key rattles against the back or the seat of his chair; whereupon he bends his arm with difficulty, and feels to see whether or not the key has come unslung. This I know for the reason that the partition-wall is not so thick but that I can hear his every breath drawn, and divine his every movement.
Only at long last, and with a clearing of his throat, did Antipa say: "Friends, we must suppose that God, of His infinite Mercy, has vouchsafed to us here a special visitation, in that, as all of us have perceived, a lad bereft of wit, the same radiant lad whom all of us have known, has here abided in the closest of communion with the Blessed Dispenser of life on earth."
What "the other one" meant I could never divine. Nor could Antipa. Once, drawing the idiot to him, he said: "Why do you always say 'What about the other one'?" Troubled and nervous, Nilushka merely muttered some unintelligible reply as his fingers turned and turned about the circular object which he was holding. "Nothing," at length he replied. "Nothing of what? "Nothing here."
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