“Atanday,”70 one of them shouted at me.
“Please wait to ring,” the other young man said in a ringing and gentle little voice, drawing the words out somewhat. “We’ll finish this, and then we can all ring together if you like.”
I stopped. They were both still very young men, about twenty or twenty-two years old; they were doing something strange there by the door, and in surprise I tried to grasp what it was. The one who had shouted atanday was a very tall fellow, about six foot six, not less, gaunt and haggard, but very muscular, with a very small head for his height, and a strange, sort of comically gloomy expression on his somewhat pockmarked but not at all stupid and even pleasant face. His eyes looked with a somehow excessive intentness, and even a sort of unnecessary and superfluous resolution. He was quite vilely dressed, in an old quilted cotton overcoat with a small, shabby raccoon collar, too short for his height—obviously from someone else’s back—and vile, almost peasant boots, and with a terribly crumpled, discolored top hat on his head. In all he was clearly a sloven: his gloveless hands were dirty, and his long nails were in mourning. His comrade, on the contrary, was foppishly dressed, judging by his light polecat coat, his elegant hat, and the light, fresh gloves on his slender fingers; he was the same height as I, but with an extremely sweet expression on his fresh and young little face.
The long fellow was pulling off his necktie—a completely tattered and greasy ribbon or almost tape—and the pretty boy, having taken from his pocket another new, black tie, just purchased, was tying it around the neck of the long fellow, who obediently and with a terribly serious face, was stretching out his very long neck, throwing his overcoat back from his shoulders.
“No, it’s impossible if the shirt’s so dirty,” the young man thus occupied said. “There not only won’t be any effect, but it will seem still dirtier. I told you to put on a collar . . . I can’t do it . . . Maybe you can?” he suddenly turned to me.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Here, you know, tie his necktie. You see, it has to be done in some way so that his dirty shirt doesn’t show, otherwise there’ll be no effect, no matter what. I just bought him a necktie from Filipp, the barber, for a rouble.”
“Was it that rouble?” the long one murmured.
“Yes, that one; now I don’t even have a kopeck. So you can’t do it? In that case we’ll have to ask Alphonsinka.”
“To see Lambert?” the long one suddenly asked me abruptly.
“To see Lambert,” I replied with no less resolution, looking him in the eye.
“Dolgorowky?” 19 he repeated in the same tone and the same voice.
“No, not Korovkin,” I replied just as abruptly, having misheard.
“Dolgorowky?! ” the long one almost shouted, repeating himself, and coming at me almost menacingly. His comrade burst out laughing.
“He’s saying Dolgorowky, not Korovkin,” he clarified. “You know how the French in the Journal des débats often distort Russian last names . . .”
“In the Indépendance,” 20 the long one grunted.
“. . . Well, in the Indépendance, too, it makes no difference. Dolgoruky, for instance, is written Dolgorowky, I’ve read it myself, and V—v is always Comte Wallonie f.”
“Doboyny! ” cried the long one.
“Yes, there’s also some Doboyny. I read it myself and we both laughed: some Russian Mme. Doboyny, abroad . . . only, you see, why mention them all?” he suddenly turned to the long one.
“Excuse me, are you Mr. Dolgoruky?”
“Yes, I’m Dolgoruky, but how do you know?”
The long one suddenly whispered something to the pretty boy, who frowned and made a negative gesture; but the long one suddenly turned to me:
“Monsieur le prince, vous n’avez pas de rouble d’argent pour nous, pas deux, mais un seul, voulez-vous?”71
“Ah, how vile you are!” cried the boy.
“Nous vous rendons,”72 the long one concluded, pronouncing the French words crudely and awkwardly.
“He’s a cynic, you know,” the boy smiled to me. “And do you think he doesn’t know how to speak French? He speaks like a Parisian, and he’s only mocking those Russians who want to speak French aloud among themselves in society, but don’t know how . . .”
“Dans les wagons,”73 the long one clarified.
“Well, yes, in railway carriages, too—ah, what a bore you are, there’s nothing to clarify! A nice fancy to pretend you’re a fool.”
Meanwhile I took out a rouble and offered it to the long one.
“Nous vous rendons,” the man said, pocketing the rouble, and, suddenly turning to the door, with a perfectly immobile and serious face he began banging on it with the toe of his enormous, crude boot and, above all, without the slightest irritation.
“Ah, you’re going to have a fight with Lambert again!” the boy observed uneasily. “You’d better ring!”
I rang, but the long one still went on banging with his boot.
“Ah, sacré . . .”74; Lambert’s voice suddenly came from behind the door, and he quickly opened it.
“Dites donc, voulez-vous que je vous casse la tête, mon ami!” he shouted at the long one.
“Mon ami, voilà Dolgorowky, l’autre mon ami,” 75 the long one pronounced importantly and seriously, looking point-blank at Lambert, who had turned red with anger. As soon as he saw me, he was as if all transformed at once.
“It’s you, Arkady! At last! So you’re well now, you’re well at last?”
He seized me by the hands, pressing them hard; in short, he was so sincerely delighted that I instantly felt terribly pleased, and even began to like him.
“You’re the first one I’m calling on!”
“Alphonsine!” cried Lambert.
The woman instantly leaped out from behind the screen.
“Le voilà!”76
“C’est lui!”77 exclaimed Alphonsine, clasping her hands, and, spreading them wide again, she rushed to embrace me, but Lambert came to my defense.
“No, no, no, down!” he shouted at her as if she were a puppy. “You see, Arkady, a few of us fellows have arranged to have dinner at the Tartar’s today. I won’t let you off, come with us. We’ll have dinner; I’ll chase these boys out at once—and then we can talk as much as we like. But do come in! We’re leaving right away, just stay for a little minute . . .”
I went in and stood in the middle of that room, looking around and remembering. Lambert was hastily changing his clothes behind the screen. The long one and his comrade also came in with us, despite Lambert’s words. We all remained standing.
“Mlle. Alphonsine, voulez-vous me baiser?”78 the long one grunted.
“Mlle. Alphonsine,” the younger one made a movement, pointing to the little tie, but she fell fiercely on them both.
“Ah, le petit vilain! ” she cried to the younger one. “Ne m’approcher pas, ne me salissez pas, et vous, le grand dadais, je vous flanque à la porte tous les deux, savez-vous cela!” 79;
The younger one, in spite of her waving him away scornfully and squeamishly, as if she really was afraid to dirty herself by touching him (which I couldn’t understand, because he was so pretty and turned out to be so well dressed when he threw off his fur coat)—the younger one began begging her insistently to tie the necktie on his long friend, after first tying one of Lambert’s clean collars on him. She almost started beating them, she was so indignant at this suggestion, but Lambert, having heard it, cried to her from behind the screen that she shouldn’t hamper them and should do as she was asked, “otherwise they won’t leave you alone,” he added, and Alphonsine instantly seized the collar and began tying it on the long one, now without the slightest squeamishness. Just as on the stairs, the man stretched his neck out for her while she tied it.
“Mlle. Alphonsine, avez-vous vendu votre bologne?”80 he asked.
“Qu’est-ce que ça, ma bologne?”81
The younger one explained that ma bologne signified her little Bolognese lap dog.
“Tiens, quel est ce baragouin?”82
“Je parle comme une dame russe sur les eaux minérales,”83; observed le grand dadais, his neck still stretched out.
“Qu’est-ce que ça qu’une dame russe sure les eaux minérales et . . . où est donc votre jolie montre, que Lambert vous a donné?” she suddenly turned to the younger one.
“What, no watch again?” Lambert echoed irritably from behind the screen.
“We ate it up!” le grand dadais grunted.
“I sold it for eight roubles. It was gilded silver, and you told me it was gold. Ones like that, in a shop now, cost only sixteen roubles,” the younger one replied to Lambert, justifying himself with reluctance.
“We must put an end to this!” Lambert went on still more irritably. “I don’t buy you clothes, my young friend, and give you beautiful things, so that you
