What’s up?”
“Is Nasanski at home?”
“Of course he’s at home—where else should he be?
Ah! your friend Nasanski cheats me nicely, I can tell you.
For two months I have kept him in food, but, as for his paying for it, as yet I’ve only had grand promises.
When he moved here, I asked him most particularly that, to avoid unpleasantness and misunderstandings, he should——”
“Yes, yes, we know all about that,” interrupted Romashov; “but tell me now how he is.
Will he see me?”
“Yes, certainly, that he will; he does nothing but walk up and down his room.”
Siegerscht stopped and listened for a second.
“You yourself can hear him tramping about.
You see, I said to him, ‘To prevent unpleasantness and misunderstandings, it will be best for——’”
“Excuse me, Adam Ivanich; but we’ll talk of that another time.
I’m in a bit of a hurry,” said Romashov, interrupting him for the second time, and meanwhile continuing his way round the corner. A light was burning in one of Nasanski’s windows; the other was wide open.
Nasanski himself was walking, in his shirt sleeves and without a collar, backwards and forwards with rapid steps.
Romashov crept nearer the wall and called him by name.
“Who’s there?” asked Nasanski in a careless tone, leaning out of the window.
“Oh, it’s you, Georgie Alexievich.
Come in through the window. It’s a long and dark way round through that door.
Hold out your hand and I’ll help you.”
Nasanski’s dwelling was if possible more wretched that Romashov’s.
Along the wall by the window stood a low, narrow, uncomfortable bed, the bulging, broken bottom of which was covered by a coarse cotton coverlet; on the other wall one saw a plain unpainted table with two common chairs without backs.
High up in one corner of the room was a little cupboard fixed to the wall.
A brown leather trunk, plastered all over with address labels and railway numbers, lay in state.
There was not a single thing in the room except these articles and the lamp.
“Good-evening, my friend,” said Nasanski, with a hearty hand-shake and a warm glance from his beautiful, deep blue eyes.
“Please sit down on this bed.
As you’ve already heard, I have handed in my sick-report.”
“Yes, I heard it just now from Nikolaiev.”
Again Romashov called to mind Stepan’s insulting remark, the painful memory of which was reflected in his face.
“Oh, you come from the Nikolaievs,” cried Nasanski and with visible interest.
“Do you often visit them?”
The unusual tone of the question made Romashov uneasy and suspicious, and he instinctively uttered a falsehood. He answered carelessly—
“No, certainly not often.
I just happened to look them up.”
Nasanski, who had been walking up and down the room during the conversation, now stopped before the little cupboard, the door of which he opened.
On one of its shelves stood a bottle of vodka, and beside it lay an apple cut up into thin, even slices.
Standing with his back to his guest, Nasanski poured out for himself a glass, and quickly drained it.
Romashov noticed how Nasanski’s back, under its thin linen shirt, quivered convulsively.
“Would you like anything?” asked Nasanski, with a gesture towards the cupboard.
“My larder is, as you see, poor enough; but if you are hungry one can always try and procure an omelette.
Anyhow, that’s more than our father Adam had to offer.”
“Thanks, not now.
Perhaps later on.”
Nasanski stuck his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room.
After pacing up and down twice he began talking as though resuming an interrupted conversation.
“Yes, I am always walking up and down and thinking.
But I am quite happy.
To-morrow, of course, they will say as usual in the regiment, ‘He’s a drunkard.’
And that is true in a sense, but it is not the whole truth.