“And this man doesn’t even exist and never did, it’s all a dream, so what am I whining about?”

With bitterness and as if all his cares converged in this, he began to think that he was decidedly becoming sick, a “sick person.”

It had always been hard for him to admit that he was getting old or feeble, and out of spite, in his bad moments, he exaggerated both the one and the other, on purpose, to taunt himself.

“Old age! I’m getting quite old,” he muttered, pacing, “I’m losing my memory, seeing phantoms, dreams, bells ringing… Devil take it! I know from experience that such dreams have always been a sign of fever in me… I’m sure this whole ‘story’ with this crape is also perhaps a dream. I decidedly thought right yesterday: it’s I, I who keep bothering him, and not he me! I made up a poem out of him, and hid under the table from fear myself. And why do I call him a rascal? He may be quite a decent man. True, his face is disagreeable, though nothing especially unattractive; he’s dressed like everybody else. Only his look is somehow… I’m at it again! about him again! and what the devil do I care about his look? What, can’t I live without this… gallowsbird?”

Among other thoughts that popped into his head, one also wounded him painfully: he suddenly became as if convinced that this gentleman with the crape had once been acquainted with him in a friendly way and now, meeting him, was making fun of him, because he knew some big former secret of his, and saw him now in such humiliating circumstances. Mechanically, he went up to the window to open it and breathe the night air, and—all at once gave a great start: it seemed to him that something unheard-of and extraordinary suddenly occurred before him.

He had not yet had time to open the window, but hastened to slip behind the corner of the window niche and hide himself: on the deserted sidewalk opposite he had suddenly seen, right in front of the house, the gentleman with crape on his hat. The gentleman was standing on the sidewalk facing his windows, but evidently without noticing him, and was examining the house with curiosity, as if trying to figure something out. It seemed he was pondering something and as if making up his mind to do it; he raised his hand and as if put a finger to his forehead. Finally, he made up his mind: he looked furtively around and, on tiptoe, stealthily, began hurriedly to cross the street. That was it: he went to their gate, through the door (which in summer sometimes stayed unbolted till three in the morning). “He’s coming to me,” quickly flashed in Velchaninov, and suddenly, headlong and also on tiptoe, he rushed to the door and—stopped in front of it, stock-still in expectation, lightly resting his twitching right hand on the door hook he had fastened earlier and listening as hard as he could for the rustle of the expected footsteps on the stairs.

His heart was pounding so that he was afraid he might not hear the stranger tiptoeing up the stairs. He did not understand the fact, but he felt everything with some tenfold fullness. As if his earlier dream had merged with reality. Velchaninov was brave by nature. He liked sometimes to carry his fearlessness in the face of danger to the point of a certain swagger—even if no one was watching him, just so as to admire himself. But now there was something else there as well. The recent hypochondriac and insecure whiner was completely transformed; this was now a totally different man. Nervous, inaudible laughter was bursting from his breast. From behind the closed door he could guess the stranger’s every move.

“Ah! there he is coming up, he’s here, he’s looking around; listening down the stairs; barely breathing, sneaking… ah! he’s taken hold of the handle, he’s pulling, trying! he was counting on finding my place unlocked! That means he knows I sometimes forget to lock it! He’s pulling the handle again; what, does he think the hook will pop out? He’s sorry to go away! Sorry to leave with nothing?”

And, indeed, everything must certainly have been happening as he pictured it: someone was indeed standing outside the door and kept gently, inaudibly trying the lock and pulling at the handle and—“so, naturally, had some purpose.” But Velchaninov already had the solution of the problem ready, and, with a sort of ecstasy, was waiting for the right moment, calculating and taking aim; he had an invincible desire to suddenly lift the hook, suddenly fling the door open and find himself face-to-face with the “bogey.” To say, “And what are you doing here, my dear sir?”

And so it happened; seizing the moment, he suddenly lifted the hook, pushed the door, and—nearly bumped into the gentleman with crape on his hat.

III

PAVEL PAVLOVICH TRUSOTSKY

The man as if froze on the spot. The two stood opposite each other on the threshold, and looked fixedly into each other’s eyes. Several moments passed in this way, and suddenly—Velchaninov recognized his visitor!

At the same time, the visitor evidently also guessed that Velchaninov recognized him perfectly: it flashed in his eyes. In one instant his whole face as if melted into the sweetest smile.

“I surely have the pleasure of speaking with Alexei Ivanovich?” he nearly sang out in the tenderest voice, comically unsuited to the circumstances.

“But can it be that you are Pavel Pavlovich Trusotsky?” Velchaninov, too, finally managed to say with a puzzled look.

“You and I were acquainted some nine years ago in T———, and—if you will permit me to recall—were friendly acquaintances.”

“Yes, sir… maybe so, sir… but it’s now three o’clock, and you spent a whole ten minutes trying to see if my door was locked or not…”

“Three o’clock!” the visitor cried, taking out his watch and even being ruefully surprised. “Exactly right: three! Excuse me, Alexei Ivanovich, I ought to have realized it when I came in; I’m even ashamed. I’ll stop by and have a talk with you one of these days, but now…”

“Ah, no! if we’re to have a talk, let’s have it right now, please!” Velchaninov recollected himself. “Kindly come this way, across the threshold; to my rooms, sir. You yourself, of course, were intending to come in, and not just to pass by at night to check the locks…”

He was agitated and at the same time as if taken aback, and felt unable to collect himself. He was even ashamed: no mystery, no danger—nothing remained of the whole phantasmagoria; there turned up only the stupid figure of some Pavel Pavlovich. But, nevertheless, he by no means believed it was as simple as that; he had a vague and fearful presentiment of something. Seating the visitor in an armchair, he impatiently sat down on his bed, a step away from the armchair, leaned forward, his palms resting on his knees, and waited irritably for the man to speak. He greedily examined and recalled him. But, strangely, the man was silent and seemed not to understand at all that he was “obliged” to speak immediately; on the contrary, he himself looked at his host with eyes that were as if expecting something. It might have been that he was simply timid, feeling some initial awkwardness, like a mouse in a mousetrap; but Velchaninov got angry.

“What’s with you!” he cried. “I don’t suppose you’re a fantasy or a dream! Have you shown up here to play the dead man? Explain yourself, my dear!”

The visitor stirred, smiled, and began warily: “As far as I can see, you find it, first of all, even striking that I came at such an hour and—under such particular circumstances, sir… So that, remembering all past things and how we parted, sir—I find it strange even now, sir… However, I did not even have any intention of calling on you, and if it has turned out this way, it was—accidentally, sir…”

“How, accidentally! I saw you from the window, running across the street on tiptoe!”

“Ah, you saw!—well, then perhaps you now know more about it all than I do, sir! But I’m only vexing you… Here’s the thing, sir: I came here three weeks ago, on my own business… I am Pavel Pavlovich Trusotsky, you recognized me yourself, sir. My business is that I’m soliciting to be transferred to another province and to another job, sir, to a post with a considerable promotion… But, anyhow, all that is also not it, sir!… The main thing, if you wish, is that it’s the third week I’ve been hanging around here, and it seems I’ve been putting my business off on purpose—that is, about the transfer, sir—and, really, even if it does come off, for all I know I may forget that it came off, sir, and not move out of your Petersburg in the mood I’m in. I’m hanging around as if I’d lost my purpose, and as if I were even glad I’d lost it—in the mood I’m in, sir…”