in he would start laughing his former laugh, shrill, punctuated by little shrieks, and from the first there would be his flat jokes and witticisms. I had been preparing myself for them since the previous evening, but I by no means expected such down-the-nose, such excellential benignity. So he now fully considered himself immeasurably superior to me in all respects? If he simply wanted to offend me with this senatorial air, it was not so bad, I thought; I'd be able to get back at him somehow. But what if indeed, without any wish to offend me, the little idea had seriously crept into his sheep's noddle that he was immeasurably superior to me, and could look at me in no other way than patronizingly? The supposition alone left me breathless.
'I learned with surprise of your wish to participate with us,' he began, lisping and simpering and drawing the words out, something that had never happened with him before. 'We somehow keep missing each other. You shy away from us.
More's the pity. We're not so terrible as you think. Well, sir, in any case I'm gla-a-ad to rene-e-ew…'
And he casually turned to place his hat on the windowsill.
'Have you been waiting long?' asked Trudolyubov.
'I arrived at exactly five o'clock, as I was appointed yesterday,' I answered loudly and with an irritation that promised an imminent explosion.
'Didn't you inform him that the time had been changed?' Trudolyubov turned to Simonov.
'I didn't. I forgot,' the latter answered, but without any repentance, and, not even apologizing to me, went to make arrangements for the hors d'oeuvres.
'So you've been here for an hour already, ah, poor fellow!' Zverkov exclaimed derisively, because according to his notions it must indeed have been terribly funny. Following him, the scoundrel Ferfichkin broke up, in his scoundrelly voice, yelping like a little mutt. He, too, thought my situation terribly funny and embarrassing.
'It's not funny in the least!' I cried to Ferfichkin, growing more and more irritated. 'It's other people's fault, not mine. They neglected to inform me. It - it - it's… simply absurd.'
'Not only absurd, but something else as well,' Trudolyubov grumbled, naively interceding for me. 'You're too mild. Sheer discourtesy. Not deliberate, of course. But how is it that Simonov… hm!'
'If that had been played on me,' observed Ferfichkin,
'I'd…'
'But you should have ordered yourself something,' Zverkov interrupted, 'or just asked to have dinner without waiting.'
'You must agree that I could have done so without any permission,' I snapped. 'If I waited, it was…'
'Let's be seated, gentlemen,' cried the entering Simonov, 'everything's ready; I can answer for the champagne, it's perfectly chilled…I didn't know your address, how was one to find you?' he suddenly turned to me, but again somehow without looking at me. He obviously had something against me. He must have changed his mind since yesterday.
Everyone sat down; I, too, sat down. The table was round. Trudolyubov ended up on my left, Simonov on my right. Zverkov sat down across the table, and Ferfichkin next to him, between him and Trudolyubov.
'So-o-o, you're… in the department?' Zverkov continued to occupy himself with me. Seeing that I was embarrassed, he seriously imagined I must be treated benignly and, so to speak, encouraged. 'What, does he want me to throw a bottle at him or something?' I thought, furious. From lack of habit, I was becoming irritated with a somehow unnatural rapidity.
'In the -y office,' I answered curtly, staring at my plate.
'And… you fffind it profffitable? Tell me, ple-e-ease, what wa-a-as it that made you leave your former position?'
'It wa-a-a-as that I felt like leaving my former position,' I drawled three times longer, now losing almost all control of myself. Ferfichkin snorted. Simonov looked at me ironically; Trudolyubov stopped eating and began studying me with curiosity.
Zverkov winced, but declined to notice.
'We-e-ell, and how's your keep?'
'What keep?'
'Your sssalary, that is.'
'Quite the examiner, aren't you!'
However, I told him straight out what my salary was. I was blushing terribly.
'Not a fortune,' Zverkov observed pompously.
'No, sir, can't go dining in cafe-restaurants!' Ferfichkin added impudently.
'In my opinion, it's even downright poor,' Trudolyubov observed seriously.
'And how thin you've grown, how changed… since…' Zverkov added, not without venom now, studying me and my attire with a sort of insolent regret.
'Oh, come, stop embarrassing him,' Ferfichkin exclaimed, tittering.
'My dear sir, I'll have you know that I am not embarrassed,' I finally exploded, 'do you hear, sir! I am having dinner here, in a 'cafe-restaurant,' at my own expense, my own and no one else's, make a note of that, Monsieur Ferfichkin.'
'Wha-a-at? And who here is not dining at his own expense? If you mean to…' Ferfichkin fastened on, turning red as a lobster and staring me furiously in the face.
'We-e-ell,' I replied, feeling that I had gone too far, 'I suppose we'd better occupy ourselves with more intelligent conversation.'
