Chapter 15 - Page 2

try to be funny, but
as soon as ever I spoke they either looked at me askance or did
not look at me until I had finished: so that my anecdotes fell
flat. Yet, though Dubkoff always remarked, "Our DIPLOMAT is
lying, brother," I felt so exhilarated with the champagne and the
company of my elders that the remark scarcely touched me. Only
Dimitri, though he drank level with the rest of us, continued in
the same severe, serious frame of mind--a fact which put a
certain check upon the general hilarity.

"Now, look here, gentlemen," said Dubkoff at last. "After dinner
we ought to take the DIPLOMAT in hand. How would it be for him to
go with us to see Auntie? There we could put him through his
paces."

"Ah, but Nechludoff will not go there," objected Woloda.

"O unbearable, insupportable man of quiet habits that you are!"
cried Dubkoff, turning to Dimitri. "Yet come with us, and you
shall see what an excellent lady my dear Auntie is."

"I will neither go myself nor let him go," replied Dimitri.

"Let whom go? The DIPLOMAT? Why, you yourself saw how he
brightened up at the very mention of Auntie."

"It is not so much that I WILL NOT LET HIM go," continued
Dimitri, rising and beginning to pace the room without looking at
me, "as that I neither wish him nor advise him to go. He is not a
child now, and if he must go he can go alone--without you. Surely
you are ashamed of this, Dubkoff?--ashamed of always wanting
others to do all the wrong things that you yourself do?"

"But what is there so very wrong in my inviting you all to come
and take a cup of tea with my Aunt?" said Dubkoff, with a wink at
Woloda. "If you don't like us going, it is your affair; yet we
are going all the same. Are you coming, Woloda?"

"Yes, yes," assented Woloda. "We can go there, and then return to
my rooms and continue our piquet."

"Do you want to go with them or not?" said Dimitri, approaching
me.

"No," I replied, at the same time making room for him to sit down
beside me on the divan. "I did not wish to go in any case, and
since you advise me not to, nothing on earth will make me go now.
Yet," I added a moment later, "I cannot honestly say that I have
NO desire to go. All I say is that I am glad I am not going."

"That is right," he said. "Live your own life, and do not dance
to any one's piping. That is the better way."

This little tiff not only failed to mar our hilarity, but even
increased it. Dimitri suddenly reverted to the kindly mood which
I loved best--so great (as I