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He ordered his guests to be shown into his study, where he soon joined them, as he was, in his silk dressing-gown, and not so much as excusing himself for receiving them in such an unofficial costume, shook hands with them heartily. Only Sipiagin and Kollomietzev appeared in the governor's study; Paklin remained in the drawing-room.
He had evidently heard something about him and wanted to show off and get some fun out of this learned scoundrel. "C'est une manifestation, mon cher?" Sipiagin muttered through his teeth. Kollomietzev giggled. "Oui, mon cher, une manifestation necessaire par temps qui court!"
Kollomietzev merely shrugged his shoulders and moved away to the window with a graceful swing of the body. At this moment the adjutant brought in Markelov. The governor had been right; he was unnaturally calm. Even his habitual moroseness had given place to an expression of weary indifference, which did not change when he caught sight of his brother-in-law.
"Well, never mind. Sit down. My husband will be here soon. I have sent the carriage to the station to meet him. If you wait a little, you will be rewarded by seeing him. What time is it? "Half-past two," Kollomietzev replied, taking a large gold enamelled watch out of his waistcoat pocket and showing it to Valentina Mihailovna. "Have you seen this watch?
Petersburg where the chamberlain Sipiagin, now a privy councillor, was beginning to play such an important part; where his wife patronised the arts, gave musical evenings, and founded charitable cook-shops; where Kollomietzev was considered one of the most hopeful members of the ministerial department a little man was limping along one of the streets of the Vassily island, attired in a shabby coat with a catskin collar.
Even your husband but then he is known to be a confirmed liberal!" Valentina Mihailovna sat up straight. "What do I hear? You opposed to the government, Monsieur Kollomietzev? "I not in the least! Never! What an idea! Mais j'ai mon franc parler. I occasionally allow myself to criticise, but am always obedient." "And I, on the contrary, never criticise and am never obedient." "Ah!
What a strange girl!" Thus Nejdanov pondered, while he was being discussed on the terrace below; every word could be heard distinctly. "I have a feeling," Kollomietzev declared, "a feeling, that he's a revolutionist. When I served on a special commission at the governor-general's of Moscow avec Ladisias, I learned to scent these gentlemen as well as nonconformists.
"We are badly in need of such a man as Michael in our province here," he remarked. "Why? Are you dissatisfied with things here?" Kollomietzev made a wry face. "It's this abominable county council! What earthly use is it? Only weakens the government and sets people thinking the wrong way." Petersburg, mais bah! They won't listen to me.
Kollomietzev condemned modern literature, and on this subject, too, Sipiagin showed himself a liberal. He insisted on the utter freedom and independence of literature, pointed out its uses, instanced Chateaubriand, whom the Emperor Alexander Pavlitch had invested with the order of St. Andrew!
Valentina Mihailovna promised to do what he wanted and fulfilled her promise conscientiously. She began by having a tete-a-tete with Kollomietzev. What she said to him remains a secret, but he came to the table with the air of a man who had made up his mind to be discreet and submissive at all costs.
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