him.

Semyonov never sneered at Nikitin. From the first he left him
absolutely alone. The two men simply avoided one another in so far as
was possible in a company so closely confined as ours. From the first
they treated one another with a high and almost extravagant
politeness. As Nikitin spoke but seldom, there was little opportunity
for the manifestation of what Semyonov must have considered "his
childishly romantic mind," and Nikitin, on his side, made on no single
occasion a reply to the challenge of Semyonov's caustic cynicism.

But if Nikitin was an idealist he was also, as was quite evident, a
doctor of absolutely first-rate ability and efficiency. I was present
at the first operation that he conducted with us--an easy amputation.
Semyonov was assisting and I know that he watched eagerly for some
slip or hesitation. It was an operation that any medical student might
have conducted with success, but the first incision of the knife
showed Nikitin a surgeon of genius. Semyonov recognised it.... I
fancied that from that moment I could detect in his attitude to
Nikitin a puzzled wonder that such an artist could be at the same time
such a fool.

I began to feel in Nikitin a very lively interest. I had from the
first been conscious of his presence, his distinction, his attitude of
patient expectation and continuously happy reminiscence; but I felt
now for the first time a closer, more personal interest. From the
first, as I have said on an earlier page, his relationship to Andrey
Vassilievitch had puzzled me. If Nikitin were not of the common race
of men, most assuredly was Andrey Vassilievitch of the most ordinary
in the world. He was a little man of a type in no way distinctively
Russian--a type very common in England, in America, in France, in
Germany. He was, one would have said, of the world worldly, a man who,
with a sharp business brain, had acquired for himself houses, lands,
food, servants, acquaintances. Upon these achievements he would pride
himself, having worked with his own hand to his own advantage, having
beaten other men who had started the race from the same mark as
himself. He would be a man of a kindly disposition, hospitable,
generous at times when needs were put plainly before him, but yet of
little imagination, conventional in all his standards, readily
influenced outside his business by any chance acquaintance, but
nevertheless having his eye on worldly advantage and progress; he
would be t