“What an ardent man you are,” he muttered with some especially nasty smile.

“You, however, are somehow wicked today,” Velchaninov observed vexedly.

“And why shouldn’t I be wicked, sir, like everybody else?” Pavel Pavlovich suddenly heaved himself up, as if pouncing from around a corner; even as if he had just been waiting to pounce.

“That’s entirely as you will,” Velchaninov grinned. “I thought something might have happened to you?”

“And so it did happen, sir!” the man exclaimed, as if boasting that it had happened.

“What is it?”

Pavel Pavlovich waited a little before answering:

“Well, you see, sir, it’s all our Stepan Mikhailovich at his whimsies… Bagautov, a most elegant Petersburg young man, of the highest society, sir.”

“He didn’t receive you again, or what?”

“No-no, this time I precisely was received, I was admitted for the first time, sir, and looked upon the countenance… only it was already a dead man’s!…”

“What-a-at! Bagautov died?” Velchaninov was terribly surprised, though it would seem there was nothing for him to be so surprised at.

“Himself, sir! An unfailing friend of six years! He died yesterday around noon, and I didn’t know! Maybe it was at the very moment when I came to inquire about his health. The funeral and burial are tomorrow, he’s already lying in his little coffin, sir. The coffin’s lined with damson velvet, trimmed with gold braid… he died of nervous fever, sir. I was admitted, admitted, I looked upon his countenance! I told them at the front door that I was considered a true friend, so I was admitted. What has he been pleased to do to me now, this true friend of six years—I ask you? Maybe I came to Petersburg just for his sake alone!”

“But why are you angry with him,” Velchaninov laughed, “he didn’t die on purpose!”

“But I’m saying it in pity; such a precious friend; this is what he meant to me, sir.”

And Pavel Pavlovich suddenly, quite unexpectedly, put two fingers like horns over his bald forehead and went off into a long and quiet titter. He spent a whole half minute sitting like that, with horns and tittering, looking into Velchaninov’s eyes as if reveling in his most sarcastic impudence. The latter was stupefied as if he were seeing some sort of ghost. But his stupefaction lasted no more than a tiny moment; a mocking smile, calm to the point of impudence, slowly came to his lips.

“And what might that signify?” he asked carelessly, drawing out his words.

“That signifies horns, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich snapped, finally taking his fingers from his forehead. “That is… your horns?”

“My very own splendid acquisition!” Pavel Pavlovich again made a terribly nasty grimace. They both fell silent.

“You’re a brave man, anyhow!” said Velchaninov.

“Because I showed you the horns? You know what, Alexei Ivanovich, you’d do better to treat me to something! I treated you in T———for a whole year, sir, every blessed day… Send for a little bottle, my throat’s dry.”

“With pleasure; you should have said so long ago. What’ll you have?”

“Why you? make it we—we’ll drink together, won’t we?” Pavel Pavlovich peered into his eyes defiantly and at the same time with some strange uneasiness.

“Champagne?”

“What else? It’s not vodka’s turn yet, sir…”

Velchaninov rose unhurriedly, rang for Mavra downstairs, and gave the order.

“For the joy of a happy reunion, sir, after nine years of separation,” Pavel Pavlovich tittered along needlessly and inappropriately. “Now you and you alone are left me as a true friend, sir! Stepan Mikhailovich Bagautov is no more! It’s as the poet said:

The great Patroclus is no more,

Vile Thersites is living still!”⁶

And at the word “Thersites” he jabbed his finger at his own breast.

“You swine, why don’t you explain yourself quicker, I don’t like hints,” Velchaninov thought to himself. Anger seethed in him, for a long time he had barely contained himself.

“Tell me this,” he began vexedly, “if you accuse Stepan Mikhailovich so directly” (now he no longer called him simply Bagautov), “then it seems you should rejoice that your offender is dead; so why are you angry?”

“Why rejoice, sir? What’s there to rejoice at?”

“I’m judging by your feelings.”

“Heh, heh, you’re mistaken about my feelings on that account, sir, as in the wise man’s saying: ‘A dead enemy is good, but a live one is even better,’ hee, hee!”

“But you saw him alive every day for five years, I think, didn’t you have enough of looking?” Velchaninov observed spitefully and impudently.

“But did I… did I know it then, sir?” Pavel Pavlovich suddenly heaved himself up, again as if pouncing from around a corner, even as if with a certain glee at having finally been asked a long-awaited question. “What do you take me for, Alexei Ivanovich?”

And some completely new and unexpected look suddenly flashed in his eyes, which as if completely transformed his spiteful and until then only vilely grimacing face.

“So you really knew nothing!” Velchaninov, perplexed, said with the most sudden amazement.

“So you think I knew, sir? You think I knew! Oh, what a breed—our Jupiters! With you a man is the same as a dog, and you judge everyone by your own paltry nature! There’s for you, sir! Swallow that!” And he banged his fist on the table in rage, but at once got scared at his own banging and looked up timorously.

Velchaninov assumed a dignified air.

“Listen, Pavel Pavlovich, it decidedly makes no difference to me, you must agree, whether you knew or not. If you didn’t know, it does you honor in any case, though… anyhow, I don’t even understand why you’ve chosen me as your confidant…”

“I didn’t mean you… don’t be angry, I didn’t mean you…” Pavel Pavlovich muttered, dropping his eyes.

Mavra came in with the champagne.

“Here it is!” Pavel Pavlovich cried, obviously glad of a way out, “and the glasses, dearie, the glasses—wonderful! Nothing more is required of you, my sweet. Already opened? Honor and glory to you, dear creature! Well, off you go!”

And, cheered up again, he once more looked boldly at Velchaninov.

“And confess,” he suddenly tittered, “that you’re terribly curious about all this, sir, and it by no means ‘decidedly makes no difference,’ as you were pleased to declare, so that you’d even be upset if I got up and left this very moment, sir, without explaining anything.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t be.”

“Oh, you liar!” Pavel Pavlovich’s smile said.

“Well, sir, let’s begin!” and he poured wine in the glasses.

“Let’s drink a toast,” he pronounced, raising his glass, “to the health of our friend, the resting-in-peace Stepan Mikhailovich!”

He raised his glass and drank.

“I won’t drink such a toast,” Velchaninov put his glass down.

“Why’s that? A nice little toast!”

“Listen here: when you came now, you weren’t drunk?”

“I’d had a little. What of it, sir?”

“Nothing special, but I had the impression that yesterday, and especially this morning, you sincerely regretted the late Natalia Vassilievna.”

“And who told you that I don’t sincerely regret her now as well?” Pavel Pavlovich again pounced, as if he had again been jerked by a spring.

“That’s not what I mean; but you must agree that you could be mistaken about Stepan Mikhailovich, and it’s a serious matter.”

Pavel Pavlovich smiled slyly and winked.

“And you’d like so much to find out how I myself found out about Stepan Mikhailovich!”

Velchaninov turned red:

“I repeat to you again that it makes no difference to me.” And in rage he thought, “Why don’t I throw him out right now, along with his bottle?” and turned redder still.

“Never mind, sir!” Pavel Pavlovich said, as if encouraging him, and poured himself another glass.