Lutchkov stared at the ceiling and hummed out of tune. Kister looked down and mused.

'But, look here,' Lutchkov brought out in a husky, jarring voice, 'you're a clever fellow, I dare say, you're a cultured fellow, but you're a good bit out in your ideas sometimes for all that, if I may venture to say so.'

'How do you mean?'

'Why, look here. About women, for instance. How you're always cracking them up! You're never tired of singing their praises! To listen to you, they're all angels.... Nice sort of angels!'

'I like and respect women, but------'

'Oh, of course, of course,' Avdey cut him short. 'I am not going to argue with you. That's quite beyond me! I'm a plain man.'

'I was going to say that... But why just to-day... just now,... are you talking about women?'

'Oh, nothing!' Avdey smiled with great meaning. 'Nothing!'

Kister looked searchingly at his friend. He imagined (simple heart!) that Masha had been treating him badly; had been torturing him, perhaps, as only women can....

'You are feeling hurt, my poor Avdey; tell me...'

Lutchkov went off into a chuckle.

'Oh, well, I don't fancy I've much to feel hurt about,' he said, in a drawling tone, complacently stroking his moustaches. 'No, only, look here, Fedya,' he went on with the manner of a preceptor, 'I was only going to point out that you're altogether out of it about women, my lad.

You believe me, Fedya, they 're all alike. One's only got to take a little trouble, hang about them a bit, and you've got things in your own hands. Look at Masha Perekatov now....'

'Oh!'

Lutchkov tapped his foot on the floor and shook his head.

'Is there anything so specially attractive about me, hey? I shouldn't have thought there was anything. There isn't anything, is there? And here, I've a clandestine appointment for to-morrow.'

Kister sat up, leaned on his elbow, and stared in amazement at Lutchkov.

'For the evening, in a wood...' Avdey Ivanovitch continued serenely.

'Only don't you go and imagine it means much. It's only a bit of fun.

It's slow here, don't you know. A pretty little girl,... well, says I, why not? Marriage, of course, I'm not going in for... but there, I like to recall my young days. I don't care for hanging about petticoats--but I may as well humour the baggage. We can listen to the nightingales together. Of course, it's really more in your line; but the wench has no eyes, you see. I should have thought I wasn't worth looking at beside you.'

Lutchkov talked on a long while. But Kister did not hear him. His head was going round. He turned pale and pa.s.sed his hand over his face.

Lutchkov swayed up and down in his low chair, screwed up his eyes, stretched, and putting down Kister's emotion to jealousy, was almost gasping with delight. But it was not jealousy that was torturing Kister; he was wounded, not by the fact itself, but by Avdey's coa.r.s.e carelessness, his indifferent and contemptuous references to Masha. He was still staring intently at the bully, and it seemed as if for the first time he was thoroughly seeing his face. So this it was he had been scheming for! This for which he had sacrificed his own inclinations!

Here it was, the blessed influence of love.

'Avdey... do you mean to say you don't care for her?' he muttered at last.

'O innocence! O Arcadia!' responded Avdey, with a malignant chuckle.

Kister in the goodness of his heart did not give in even then; perhaps, thought he, Avdey is in a bad temper and is 'humbugging' from old habit... he has not yet found a new language to express new feelings.

And was there not in himself some other feeling lurking under his indignation? Did not Lutchkov's avowal strike him so unpleasantly simply because it concerned Masha? How could one tell, perhaps Lutchkov really was in love with her.... Oh, no! no! a thousand times no! That man in love?... That man was loathsome with his bilious, yellow face, his nervous, cat-like movements, crowing with conceit... loathsome! No, not in such words would Kister have uttered to a devoted friend the secret of his love.... In overflowing happiness, in dumb rapture, with bright, blissful tears in his eyes would he have flung himself on his bosom....

'Well, old man,' queried Avdey, 'own up now you didn't expect it, and now you feel put out. Eh? jealous? Own up, Fedya. Eh? eh?'

Kister was about to speak out, but he turned with his face to the wall.

'Speak openly... to him? Not for anything!' he whispered to himself. 'He wouldn't understand me... so be it! He supposes none but evil feelings in me--so be it!...'

Avdey got up.

'I see you're sleepy,' he said with a.s.sumed sympathy: 'I don't want to be in your way. Pleasant dreams, my boy... pleasant dreams!'

And Lutchkov went away, very well satisfied with himself.

Kister could not get to sleep before the morning. With feverish persistence he turned over and over and thought over and over the same single idea--an occupation only too well known to unhappy lovers.

'Even if Lutchkov doesn't care for her,' he mused, 'if she has flung herself at his head, anyway he ought not even with me, with his friend, to speak so disrespectfully, so offensively of her! In what way is she to blame? How could any one have no feeling for a poor, inexperienced girl?

'But can she really have a secret appointment with him? She has--yes, she certainly has. Avdey's not a liar, he never tells a lie. But perhaps it means nothing, a mere freak....

'But she does not know him.... He is capable, I dare say, of insulting her. After to-day, I wouldn't answer for anything.... And wasn't it I myself that praised him up and exalted him? Wasn't it I who excited her curiosity?... But who could have known this? Who could have foreseen it?...

'Foreseen what? Has he so long ceased to be my friend?... But, after all, was he ever my friend? What a disenchantment! What a lesson!'

All the past turned round and round before Kister's eyes. 'Yes, I did like him,' he whispered at last. 'Why has my liking cooled so suddenly?... And do I dislike him? No, why did I ever like him? I alone?'

Kister's loving heart had attached itself to Avdey for the very reason that all the rest avoided him. But the good-hearted youth did not know himself how great his good-heartedness was.

'My duty,' he went on, 'is to warn Marya Sergievna. But how? What right have I to interfere in other people's affairs, in other people's love?

How do I know the nature of that love? Perhaps even in Lutchkov.... No, no!' he said aloud, with irritation, almost with tears, smoothing out his pillow, 'that man's stone....

'It is my own fault... I have lost a friend.... A precious friend, indeed! And she's not worth much either!... What a sickening egoist I am! No, no! from the bottom of my soul I wish them happiness....

Happiness! but he is laughing at her!... And why does he dye his moustaches? I do, really, believe he does.... Ah, how ridiculous I am!'

he repeated, as he fell asleep.

VII

The next morning Kister went to call on the Perekatovs. When they met, Kister noticed a great change in Masha, and Masha, too, found a change in him, but neither spoke of it. The whole morning they both, contrary to their habit, felt uncomfortable. Kister had prepared at home a number of hints and phrases of double meaning and friendly counsels... but all this previous preparation turned out to be quite thrown away. Masha was vaguely aware that Kister was watching her; she fancied that he p.r.o.nounced some words with intentional significance; but she was conscious, too, of her own excitement, and did not trust her own observations. 'If only he doesn't mean to stay till evening!' was what she was thinking incessantly, and she tried to make him realise that he was not wanted. Kister, for his part, took her awkwardness and her uneasiness for obvious signs of love, and the more afraid he was for her the more impossible he found it to speak of Lutchkov; while Masha obstinately refrained from uttering his name. It was a painful experience for poor Fyodor Fedoritch. He began at last to understand his own feelings. Never had Masha seemed to him more charming. She had, to all appearances, not slept the whole night. A faint flush stood in patches on her pale face; her figure was faintly drooping; an unconscious, weary smile never left her lips; now and then a shiver ran over her white shoulders; a soft light glowed suddenly in her eyes, and quickly faded away. Nenila Makarievna came in and sat with them, and possibly with intention mentioned Avdey Ivanovitch. But in her mother's presence Masha was armed _jusqu'aux dents,_ as the French say, and she did not betray herself at all. So pa.s.sed the whole morning.

'You will dine with us?' Nenila Makarievna asked Kister.

Masha turned away.

'No,' Kister said hurriedly, and he glanced towards Masha. 'Excuse me...

duties of the service...'

Nenila Makarievna duly expressed her regret. Mr. Perekatov, following her lead, also expressed something or other. 'I don't want to be in the way,' Kister wanted to say to Masha, as he pa.s.sed her, but he bowed down and whispered instead: 'Be happy... farewell... take care of yourself...' and was gone.

Masha heaved a sigh from the bottom of her heart, and then felt panic-stricken at his departure. What was it fretting her? Love or curiosity? G.o.d knows; but, we repeat, curiosity alone was enough to ruin Eve.

VIII