Chapter 43 - Page 2

The first of our reunions was held at Zuchin's, who had a small
partition-room in a large building on the Trubni Boulevard. The
opening night I arrived late, and entered when the reading aloud
had already begun. The little apartment was thick with tobacco-
smoke, while on the table stood a bottle of vodka, a decanter,
some bread, some salt, and a shin-bone of mutton. Without rising,
Zuchin asked me to have some vodka and to doff my tunic.

"I expect you are not accustomed to such entertainment," he
added.

Every one was wearing a dirty cotton shirt and a dickey.
Endeavouring not to show my contempt for the company, I took off
my tunic, and lay down in a sociable manner on the sofa. Zuchin
went on reading aloud and correcting himself with the help of
notebooks, while the others occasionally stopped him to ask a
question, which he always answered with ability, correctness, and
precision. I listened for a time with the rest, but, not
understanding much of it, since I had not been present at what
had been read before, soon interpolated a question.

"Hullo, old fellow! It will be no good for you to listen if you
do not know the subject," said Zuchin. "I will lend you my
notebooks, and then you can read it up by to-morrow, and I will
explain it to you."

I felt rather ashamed of my ignorance. Also, I felt the truth of
what he said; so I gave up listening, and amused myself by
observing my new comrades. According to my classification of
humanity, into persons "comme il faut" and persons not "comme il
faut," they evidently belonged to the latter category, and so
aroused in me not only a feeling of contempt, but also a certain
sensation of personal hostility, for the reason that, though not
"comme il faut," they accounted me their equal, and actually
patronised me in a sort of good-humoured fashion. What in
particular excited in me this feeling was their feet, their dirty
nails and fingers, a particularly long talon on Operoff's
obtrusive little finger, their red shirts, their dickeys, the
chaff which they good-naturedly threw at one another, the dirty
room, a habit which Zuchin had of continually snuffling and
pressing a finger to his nose, and, above all, their manner of
speaking--that is to say, their use and intonation of words. For
instance, they said "flat" for fool, "just the ticket" for
exactly, "grandly" for splendidly, and so on--all of which seemed
to me either bookish or disagreeably vulgar. Still more was my
"comme il faut " refinement disturbed by the accents which they
put upon certain Russian--and, still more, upon foreign--words.
Thus they said dieYATelnost for