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Updated: May 2, 2025
But then it was a beautiful evening, very peaceful, still and warm and there was Nikitin. In any case there were those two figures whom I must consider Semyonov and myself. That brief conversation last night had brought us quite sharply face to face.
When we, all of us, Marie Ivanovna, Semyonov, Nikitin and the rest, were ready we should move out into the forest, would stand, a vast company, with our dogs and horses.... Why, it was Trenchard's dream that I was seeing! I was merely repeating to myself his own imaginations and with that I had suddenly, as though some one had hypnotised me, fallen back into a heavy dreamless sleep.
Since Nikitin had been in love with Masha, everything at the Shelestovs' pleased him: the house, the garden, and the evening tea, and the wickerwork chairs, and the old nurse, and even the word "loutishness," which the old man was fond of using. The only thing he did not like was the number of cats and dogs and the Egyptian pigeons, who moaned disconsolately in a big cage in the verandah.
One of the nests rocked; out of it peeped Shebaldin, shouting loudly: "You have not read Lessing!" Nikitin shuddered all over and opened his eyes. Ippolit Ippolititch was standing before the sofa, and throwing back his head, was putting on his cravat. "Get up; it's time for school," he said. "You shouldn't sleep in your clothes; it spoils your clothes. You should sleep in your bed, undressed."
I was present at the first operation that he conducted with us an easy amputation. Semyonov was assisting and I know that he watched eagerly for some slip or hesitation. It was an operation that any medical student might have conducted with success, but the first incision of the knife showed Nikitin a surgeon of genius.
What happened to myself during the succeeding months is of no matter. But two warnings may be offered. The first is that it must not be supposed that the experiences of myself, of Trenchard, of Nikitin in this business found their parallel in any other single human being alive.
What is there to be frightened of?... Why then, you know, I don't believe I should be frightened any more!" I remember that he then explained to me that he wished Nikitin had been sent instead of Semyonov. Nikitin was much more sympathetic. "You seem very fond of Nikitin," I said. "We are friends ... we have been friends for many years. My wife was very fond of him.
It was pathetic to see the flaming pleasure in the man's eyes when Nikitin permitted him to wait upon him, and how ironically, upon such an occasion, would Semyonov watch them both! In spite of Nikitin's passivity he did, I fancied, more than merely suffer this unequal alliance. It seemed to me that there was behind his silence some active wish that the affair should continue.
I myself was assured that he allowed us to see him only with the most casual superficiality. As he rode up to me I wondered how he and Nikitin would fare. These were two personalities worthy of attention. Also, what would he think of Trenchard? His opinion of any one had great weight amongst us.
I heard the frogs, looked back at the flickering fires amongst our wagons, then walked down the bank...." Nikitin must for some time have been watching him, because at that moment he stepped forward, took Trenchard's arm, and drew him back. Nikitin has himself told me that he was walking up and down the road that night because he could not sleep.
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