“I myself understand, Alexei Ivanovich, that it was possible only once, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich grinned.

Hearing this answer, Velchaninov, who was pacing the room, suddenly stopped almost solemnly in front of Pavel Pavlovich:

“Pavel Pavlovich, speak directly! You’re intelligent, I acknowledge it again, but I assure you that you are on a false path! Speak directly, act directly, and, I give you my word of honor—I will answer to anything you like!”

Pavel Pavlovich again grinned his long smile, which alone was enough to enrage Velchaninov.

“Wait!” he cried again, “don’t pretend, I can see through you! I repeat: I give you my word of honor that I am ready to answer to everything, and you will receive every possible satisfaction, that is, every, even the impossible! Oh, how I wish you would understand me!…”

“If you’re so good, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich cautiously moved closer to him, “then, sir, I’m very interested in what you mentioned yesterday about the predatory type, sir!…”

Velchaninov spat and again began pacing the room, still quicker than before.

“No, Alexei Ivanovich, sir, don’t you spit, because I’m very interested and came precisely to verify… My tongue doesn’t quite obey me, but forgive me, sir. Because about this ‘predatory’ type and the ‘placid’ one, sir, I myself read something in a magazine, in the criticism section⁷—I remembered it this morning… I’d simply forgotten it, sir, and, to tell the truth, I didn’t understand it then, either. I precisely wished to clarify: the late Stepan Mikhailovich Bagautov, sir—was he ‘predatory’ or ‘placid’? How to reckon him, sir?”

Velchaninov still kept silent, without ceasing to pace.

“The predatory type is the one,” he suddenly stopped in fury, “is the man who would rather poison Bagautov in a glass, while ‘drinking champagne’ with him in the name of a pleasant encounter with him, as you drank with me yesterday—and would not go accompanying his coffin to the cemetery, as you did today, devil knows out of which of your hidden, underground, nasty strivings and clowning which besmirch only you yourself! You yourself!”

“Exactly right, he wouldn’t go, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich confirmed, “only why is it me, sir, that you’re so…”

“It’s not the man,” Velchaninov, excited, was shouting without listening, “not the man who imagines God knows what to himself, sums up all justice and law, learns his offense by rote, whines, clowns, minces, hangs on people’s necks, and—lo and behold—all his time gets spent on it! Is it true that you wanted to hang yourself? Is it?”

“Maybe I blurted something out when I was drunk—I don’t remember, sir. It’s somehow indecent, Alexei Ivanovich, for us to go pouring poison into glasses. Besides being an official in good standing—I’m not without capital, and I may want to get married again, sir.”

“And you’d be sent to hard labor.”

“Well, yes, there’s also that unpleasantness, sir, though in the courts nowadays they introduce lots of mitigating circumstances. But I wanted to tell you a killingly funny little anecdote, Alexei Ivanovich, I remembered it in the coach earlier, sir. You just said: ‘Hangs on people’s necks.’ Maybe you remember Semyon Petrovich Livtsov, sir, he visited us in T———while you were there; well, he had a younger brother, also considered a Petersburg young man, served in the governor’s office in V——— and also shone with various qualities. He once had an argument with Golubenko, a colonel, at a gathering, in the presence of ladies, including the lady of his heart, and reckoned himself insulted, but he swallowed his offense and concealed it; and Golubenko meanwhile won over the lady of his heart and offered her his hand. And what do you think? This Livtsov—he even sincerely started a friendship with Golubenko, was reconciled with him completely, and moreover, sir—got himself invited to be best man, held the crown,⁸ and once they came back from church, went up to congratulate and kiss Golubenko, and in front of the whole noble company, in front of the governor, in a tailcoat and curled hair himself, sir—he up and stabbed him in the gut with a knife—Golubenko went sprawling! His own best man, it’s such a shame, sir! But that’s not all! The main thing was that after stabbing him with the knife, he turned around: ‘Ah, what have I done! Ah, what is it I’ve done!’—tears flow, he shakes, throws himself on all their necks, even the ladies’, sir: ‘Ah, what have I done! Ah, what is it I’ve done now!’ heh, heh, heh! it’s killing, sir. Only it was too bad about Golubenko; but he recovered from it, sir.”

“I don’t see why you’ve told this to me,” Velchaninov frowned severely.

“But it’s all on account of that, sir that he did stab him with a knife, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich tittered. “You can even see he’s not the type, that he’s a sop of a man, if he forgot decency itself out of fear and threw himself on ladies’ necks in the presence of the governor—and yet he did stab him, sir, he got his own! It’s only for that, sir.”

“Get the hell out of here,” Velchaninov suddenly screamed in a voice not his own, just as if something had come unhinged in him, “get out of here with your underground trash, you’re underground trash yourself—thinks he can scare me—child-tormentor—mean man—scoundrel, scoundrel, scoundrel!” he shouted, forgetting himself and choking on every word.

Pavel Pavlovich cringed all over, the drunkenness even fell from him; his lips trembled.

“Is it me, Alexei Ivanovich, that you’re calling a scoundrel—you calling me, sir?”

But Velchaninov had already recovered himself.

“I’m ready to apologize,” he answered, after pausing briefly in gloomy reflection, “but only in the case that you yourself wish to be direct, and that at once.”

“And in your place I’d apologize anyway, Alexei Ivanovich.”

“Very well, so be it,” Velchaninov again paused briefly, “I apologize to you; but you must agree, Pavel Pavlovich, that after all this I no longer reckon myself as owing to you, that is, I’m speaking with regard to the whole matter, and not only the present case.”

“Never mind, sir, what is there to reckon?” Pavel Pavlovich grinned, looking down, however.

“And if so, all the better, all the better! Finish your wine and lie down, because I’m not letting you go even so…”

“What of the wine, sir…” Pavel Pavlovich, as if a bit embarrassed, nevertheless went up to the table and began to finish his already long filled last glass. Perhaps he had drunk a lot before then, so that his hand shook now and he splashed some of the wine on the floor, on his shirt, and on his waistcoat, but he drank it to the bottom even so, just as if he were unable to leave it undrunk, and, having respectfully placed the empty glass on the table, obediently went over to his bed to undress.

“Wouldn’t it be better… not to spend the night?” he said suddenly, for some reason or other, having taken one boot off already and holding it in his hands.

“No, not better!” Velchaninov replied irately, pacing the room tirelessly, without glancing at him.

The man undressed and lay down. A quarter of an hour later, Velchaninov also lay down and put out the candle.

He had trouble falling asleep. Something new, confusing the matter still more, appearing suddenly from somewhere, alarmed him now, and at the same time he felt that, for some reason, he was ashamed of this alarm. He was dozing off, but some sort of rustling suddenly awakened him. He turned at once to look at Pavel Pavlovich’s bed. The room was dark (the curtains were fully drawn), but it seemed to him that Pavel Pavlovich was not lying down but had gotten up and was sitting on the bed.

“What’s with you?” Velchaninov called.

“A shade, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich uttered, barely audibly, after waiting a little.

“What’s that? What kind of shade?”

“There, in that room, through the doorway, I saw as if a shade, sir.”