This was a well-dressed gentleman, obviously from one of the best tailors, in “high-class fashion,” as they say, and yet he had very little of the high-class about him, and that, it seemed, despite a considerable desire to have it. He was not really brash, but somehow naturally insolent, which was in any case less offensive than insolence that rehearsed itself in front of a mirror. His hair, dark blond gone slightly gray, his black eyebrows, big beard, and big eyes, not only did not personalize his character, but seemed precisely to endow it with something general, like everyone else. Such a man laughs, and is ready to laugh, yet for some reason you never feel merry with him. He passes quickly from a laughing to a grave look, from a grave to a playful or winking one, but it is all somehow scattered and pointless . . . However, there’s no sense describing it beforehand. Later I came to know this gentleman much better and more closely, and therefore I have involuntarily presented him now more knowingly than then, when he opened the door and came into the room. Though now, too, I would have difficulty saying anything exact or definite about him, because the main thing in these people is precisely their unfinishedness, scatteredness, and indefiniteness.
He had not yet had time to sit down, when I suddenly fancied that this must be Vasin’s stepfather, a certain Mr. Stebelkov, of whom I had already heard something, but so fleetingly that I could not have said precisely what: I only remembered that it was not something nice. I knew that Vasin had lived for a long time as an orphan under his authority, but that he had long since gotten out from under his influence, that their goals and their interests were different, and that they lived separately in all respects. I also remembered that this Stebelkov had some capital, and that he was even some sort of speculator and trafficker; in short, it may be that I already knew something more specific about him, but I forget. He sized me up at a glance, though without any greeting, placed his top hat on the table in front of the sofa, pushed the table aside peremptorily with his foot, and did not so much sit as sprawl directly on the sofa, on which I had not ventured to sit, so that it let out a creak, dangled his legs, and, lifting up the right toe of his patent leather boot, began to admire it. Of course, he turned to me at once and again sized me up with his big, somewhat immobile eyes.
“I never find him at home!” he nodded his head to me slightly.
I said nothing.
“Unpunctual! His own view of things. From the Petersburg side?”
“You mean that you have come from the Petersburg side?” I returned the question.
“No, I’m asking you.”
“I . . . I came from the Petersburg side, but how did you find out?”
“How? Hm.” He winked, but did not deign to explain.
“That is, I don’t live on the Petersburg side, but I was on the Petersburg side just now and then came here.”
He went on silently smiling some sort of significant smile, which I disliked terribly. There was something stupid in this winking.
“At Mr. Dergachev’s?” he said finally.
“What, at Dergachev’s?” I opened my eyes wide.
He looked at me victoriously.
“I don’t even know him.”
“Hm.”
“As you wish,” I replied. I was beginning to find him repulsive.
“Hm, yes, sir. No, sir, pardon me; you buy something in a shop, in another shop next to it another buyer buys something else, and what do you think it is? Money, sir, from a merchant who is known as a moneylender, sir, because money’s also a thing, and the moneylender is also a merchant . . . Do you follow?”
“Perhaps so.”
“A third buyer walks past and, pointing at one of the shops, says, ‘That’s substantial,’ then, pointing at another of the shops, says, ‘That’s insubstantial.’ What conclusion can I draw about this buyer?”
“How should I know?”
“No, sir, pardon me. I’ll give an example; man lives by good example. I go down Nevsky Prospect and notice that on the other side of the street, walking down the sidewalk, is a gentleman whose character I should like to determine. We reach, on different sides, the same turn onto Morskaya Street, and precisely there, where the English shop is, we notice a third pedestrian who has just been run over by a horse. Now get this: a fourth gentleman passes by and wishes to determine the character of the three of us, including the run-over one, in the sense of practicality and substantiality . . . Do you follow?”
“Excuse me, but with great difficulty.”
“Very well, sir; just as I thought. I’ll change the subject. I’ve been more than once to the spas in Germany, mineral water spas, it makes no difference which. I walk on the waters and see Englishmen. As you know, it’s hard to strike up an acquaintance with an Englishman; but then, after two months, having finished the cure, we’re all in a mountainous region, a whole company, with alpenstocks, going up a mountain, this one or that, it makes no difference. At a turn, that is, at a stopping-place, precisely where the monks make Chartreuse liqueur—note that—I met a native, standing solitarily, gazing silently. I wish to conclude about his substantiality: what do you think, could I turn for a conclusion to the crowd of Englishmen, with whom I was proceeding solely because I was unable to strike up a conversation with them at the spa?”
“How should I know? Excuse me, but I find it very hard to follow you.”
“Hard?”
“Yes, you tire me.”
“Hm.” He winked and made some sort of gesture with his hand, probably meant to signify something very triumphant and victorious; then, quite solidly and calmly, he drew from his pocket a newspaper, obviously just bought, opened it, and began reading the last page, apparently leaving me completely alone. For some five minutes he didn’t look at me.
“The Brest-Graevs49 didn’t go bust, eh? They took off, they keep going! I know many that went
