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Updated: May 16, 2025
After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression.
But the time will come when all this will be a memory, and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly trivial. . . ." Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature.
His grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. And his study with pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. "M. Laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into his study.
He went up to Laptev and congratulated him respectfully in a low voice: "I have the honour, sir. . . The Lord has heard your parent's prayer. Thank God." Then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his marriage. They were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly well-bred, educated men.
The driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev laughing: "Ha, ha, ha!" Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was in bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and said sharply: "I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me before other people; you might conceal your feelings."
She fancies that her coming to live with me will make things more orderly, and that under her influence I shall become a great scientist. That's what she fancies. And let her fancy it. In the South they have a saying: 'Fancy makes the fool a rich man. Ha, ha, ha!" Laptev said nothing.
Fyodor, for instance, tried to appear like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the teacher came from the school, of which old Laptev was the patron, to ask Fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one in authority. There was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study.
Laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to think that he was too late for dinner at home. "Ha, ha, ha!" came Yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright buttons. "Ha, ha, ha!" The friends dined together.
"That's not true," cried Laptev. "It's a lie!" "Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you drink yourself," said Fyodor, and he got up. "Our business is hateful to you, yet you make use of the income from it." "Aha! We've spoken our minds," said Laptev, and he laughed, looking angrily at his brother.
Then Laptev lay on the sofa while Yartsev sat near and lighted a cigar. It got dark. "I must be getting old," said Laptev. "Ever since my sister Nina died, I've taken to constantly thinking of death."
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