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 th