Chapter 41 - Page 2

One night, I went up to Dimitri's room to try and get him to come
down for an evening's talk in his mother's drawing-room, where we
could also listen to Varenika's reading and singing, but
Bezobiedoff had forestalled me there, and Dimitri answered me
curtly that he could not come down, since, as I could see for
myself, he had a visitor with him.

"Besides," he added, "what is the fun of sitting there? We had
much better stay HERE and talk."

I scarcely relished the prospect of spending a couple of hours in
Bezobiedoff's company, yet could not make up my mind to go down
alone; wherefore, cursing my friend's vagaries, I seated myself
in a rocking-chair, and began rocking myself silently to and fro.
I felt vexed with them both for depriving me of the pleasures of
the drawing-room, and my only hope as I listened irritably to
their conversation was that Bezobiedoff would soon take his
departure. "A nice guest indeed to be sitting with!" I thought to
myself when a footman brought in tea and Dimitri had five times
to beg Bezobiedoff to have a cup, for the reason that the bashful
guest thought it incumbent upon him always to refuse it at first
and to say, "No, help yourself." I could see that Dimitri had to
put some restraint upon himself as he resumed the conversation.
He tried to inveigle me also into it, but I remained glum and
silent.

"I do not mean to let my face give any one the suspicion that I
am bored" was my mental remark to Dimitri as I sat quietly
rocking myself to and fro with measured beat. Yet, as the moments
passed, I found myself--not without a certain satisfaction--
growing more and more inwardly hostile to my friend. "What a fool
he is!" I reflected. "He might be spending the evening agreeably
with his charming family, yet he goes on sitting with this
brute!--will go on doing so, too, until it is too late to go down
to the drawing-room!" Here I glanced at him over the back of my
chair, and thought the general look of his attitude and
appearance so offensive and repellant that at the moment I could
gladly have offered him some insult, even a most serious one.

At last Bezobiedoff rose, but Dimitri could not easily let such a
delightful friend depart, and asked him to stay the night.
Fortunately, Bezobiedoff declined the invitation, and departed.
Having seen him off, Dimitri returned, and, smiling a faintly
complacent smile as he did so, and rubbing his hands together (in
all probability partly because he had sustained his character for
eccentricity, and partly because he had got rid of a bore),
started to pace the room, with an occasional glance at myself. I
felt more offended with him than