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He was dressed like a mechanic or a stoker in an old pea-jacket with baggy pockets, with an oil-skin cap on his head, a woollen scarf round his neck, and tarred boots on his feet. He was accompanied by a man of about forty in a peasant coat, who had an extraordinarily lively gipsy-like face, coal-black piercing eyes, with which he scanned Nejdanov as soon as he entered the room.
Edward Garnett has pointed out in an essay on Turgenev, is not Nejdanov and not Solomin; the part is cast in the woman's figure of Mariana who broke the silence of "anonymous Russia." Ivan Turgenev had the understanding that goes beneath the old delimitation of the novelist hide-bound by the law "male and female created he them." He had the same extreme susceptibility to the moods of nature.
There were so many conflicting thoughts and sensations crowding in upon him that he did not attempt to disentangle them, and put them off for another day. Kollomietzev had made one of the guests at dinner. Never before had this worthy shown so much insolence and snobbish contemptuousness as on this occasion, but Nejdanov simply ignored him.
Valentina Mihailovna continued amusing herself with Nejdanov, although her customary affability had become mixed with a certain amount of good-natured sarcasm. Nejdanov had become very intimate with Mariana, and discovered that her temper was even enough and that one could discuss most things with her without hitting against any violent opposition.
A minute later she opened it half-way and, putting her head through, said: "Isn't Solomin nice!" Then she shut the door again and the key turned in the lock. Nejdanov went up to the window and looked out into the garden... One old, very old, apple tree particularly attracted his attention. He shook himself, stretched, opened his portmanteau, but took nothing out of it; he became lost in thought...
Markelov said all this softly, sitting on a low stool, his head bent and arms hanging loose at his sides. Nejdanov stood before him lost in a sort of dreamy attentiveness, and though Markelov had called him a happy man, he neither looked happy nor did he feel himself to be so. "I was deceived in my youth," Markelov went on; "she was a remarkable girl, but she threw me over... and for whom?
"Is that the man who manages a cotton factory?" Nejdanov asked, recalling what Sipiagin had said of him at table. "Yes, that is the man," Markelov replied. "You should get to know him. We have not sounded him as yet, but I believe he is an extremely capable man."
Your devoted friend, P.S. Our people are asleep... But I have a feeling that if anything does wake them, it will not be what we think. After writing the last line, Nejdanov flung down the pen. "Well, now you must try and sleep and forget all this nonsense, scribbler!" he exclaimed, and lay down on the bed. But it was long before he fell asleep.
Had he not already produced a good impression on Nejdanov, the latter would have thought that he was backing out, but such an idea did not occur to him. An hour later, when from every story, every staircase and door of the enormous building, a noisy crowd of workpeople came streaming out, the carriage containing Markelov, Nejdanov, and Solomin drove out of the gates on to the road.
His bailiff, a small, short-sighted young man without a trace of authority or firmness in his bearing, was walking beside him, and merely kept on repeating, "Just so, sir," to Markelov's great disgust, who had expected more independence from him. Nejdanov went up to Markelov, and on looking into his face was struck by the same expression of spiritual weariness he was himself suffering from.
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