Trirodov went to the window. A man of about forty, impressive for his appearance of calm and self-assurance, stepped out of the calash. Trirodov recognized his visitor at the first glance, though he had never met him before in society. He knew him well, but only from portraits he had seen of him, from his literary works, and from the stories of his admirers and articles about him. In his youth Trirodov had had some slight relations with him through friends, but this was interrupted. He had not even met him.
Trirodov suddenly felt both cheerful and sad. He reflected:
“Why has he come to me? What does he want of me? And why should he suddenly think of me? Our roads have diverged so much, we have become such strangers to one another.”
There was his disturbing curiosity:
“I’ll see and hear him for the first time.”
And the mutinous protest:
“His words are a lie! His preachings the ravings of despair. There was no miracle, there is none, and there will not be!”
Kirsha, very agitated, ran out of the room. The sensitive and painful feeling of aloneness seized Trirodov as in a sticky net, entangled his legs, and obstructed his glances with grey.
A quiet boy entered, smiling, and handed him a card, on which, under a princely crown, was the lithographed inscription:
Immanuel Osipovitch Davidov.36
In a voice dark and deep with suppressed excitement Trirodov said to the boy:
“Ask him to come in.”
The provoking and unanswerable question persisted in his mind:
“Why, why has he come? What does he want of me?”
With an avidly curious glance he looked at the door, and did not take his eyes away. He heard the measured, unhastening footsteps, nearer and nearer—as if his fate were approaching.
The door opened, admitting the visitor—Prince Immanuel Osipovitch Davidov, celebrated as author and preacher, a man of a distinguished family and democratic views, a man beloved of many and possessed of the mystery of extraordinary fascination, attracting to him many hearts.
His face was very smooth, quite un-Russian in type. His lips, slightly descending at the corners, were marked with sorrow. His beard was reddish, short, and cut to a point. His red-gold, slightly wavy hair was cut quite short. This astonished Trirodov, who had always seen the Prince in portraits wearing his hair rather long, like the poet Nadson. His eyes were black, flaming and deep. Deeply hidden in his eyes was an expression of great weariness and suffering, which the inattentive observer might have interpreted as an expression of fatigued tranquillity and indifference. Everything about the visitor—his face and his ways—betrayed his habit of speaking in a large company, even in a crowd.
He walked up tranquilly to Trirodov and said, as he stretched out his hand:
“I wanted to see you. I have observed you for some time, and at last have come to you.”
Trirodov, making an effort to control his agitation and his deep irritation, said with an affectedly amiable voice:
“I’m very pleased to greet you in my house. I’ve heard much about you from the Pirozhkovskys. Of course you know that they have a great admiration and affection for you.”
Prince Davidov looked at him piercingly but calmly, perhaps too calmly. It seemed strange that he answered nothing to the remark about the Pirozhkovskys—as if Trirodov’s words passed by him like momentary shadows, without so much as touching anything in his soul. On the other hand, the Pirozhkovskys have always talked about Prince Davidov as of an intimate acquaintance. “Yesterday we dined at the Prince’s”; “The Prince is finishing a new poem”—by simply “the Prince” they gave one to understand that their remark concerned their friend, Prince Davidov. Trirodov recalled that the Prince had many acquaintances, and that there were always large gatherings in his house.
“Permit me to offer you some refreshment,” said Trirodov. “Will you have wine?”
“I’d rather have tea, if you don’t mind,” said Prince Davidov.
Trirodov pressed the button of the electric bell. Prince Davidov continued in his tranquil, too tranquil, voice:
“My fiancée lives in this town. I’ve come to see her, and have taken advantage of this opportunity to have a chat with you. There are many things I should like to discuss with you but I shall not have the time. We must limit ourselves to the more important matters.”
And he began to talk, and did not wait for answers or refutations. His flaming speech poured itself out—about faith, miracles, about the likely and inevitable transfiguration of the world by means of a miracle, about our triumph over the fetters of time and over death itself.
The quiet boy Grisha brought tea and cakes, and with measured movements put them on the table, pausing now and then to look at the visitor with his blue, quiet eyes.
Prince Davidov looked reproachfully at Trirodov. A repressed smile trembled on Trirodov’s lips and an obstinate challenge gleamed in his eyes. The visitor affectionately drew Grisha to him and stroked him gently. The quiet boy stood calmly there—and Trirodov was gloomy. He said to his visitor: “You love children. I can understand that. They are angelic beings, though unbearable sometimes. It is only a pity that they die too often upon this accursed earth. They are born in order to die.”
Prince Davidov, with a tranquil movement, pushed Grisha away from him. He put his hand on the boy’s head as if in blessing, then suddenly became grave and stern, and asked quietly:
“Why do you do this?”
He asked the question with a great exertion of the will, like one who wished to exercise power. Trirodov smiled:
“You do not like it?” he asked. “Well, what of it—you with your extensive connections could easily hinder me.”
The tone in which he uttered his words expressed proud irony. Thus Satan would have spoken, tempting a famished
