“Cannot be? Didn’t Mr. Velchaninov give it to you?”
“Ah, devil take you!” thought Velchaninov.
“Indeed,” he said, frowning, “Nadezhda Fedoseevna entrusted me earlier with giving this case to you, Pavel Pavlovich. I didn’t want to take it, but she—insisted… here it is… quite annoying…”
He took out the case and, in embarrassment, placed it in front of the petrified Pavel Pavlovich.
“Why hadn’t you given it to him?” the young man sternly addressed Velchaninov.
“I hadn’t found time, one might think,” the latter frowned.
“That’s odd.”
“Wha-a-at?”
“It’s odd, to say the least, you must agree. However, I agree to allow that it was a misunderstanding.”
Velchaninov would have liked terribly to get up right then and box the boy’s ears, but he could not contain himself and suddenly snorted with laughter; the boy at once laughed himself. Not so Pavel Pavlovich; if Velchaninov could have noticed the terrible look he gave him when he burst out laughing at Lobov—he would have understood that at that moment the man was crossing a certain fatal line… But, though he did not see his look, Velchaninov understood that he had to support Pavel Pavlovich.
“Listen, Mr. Lobov,” he began in a friendly tone, “without going into a consideration of other reasons, which I do not wish to touch upon, I would merely like to point out to you that Pavel Pavlovich, after all, in proposing to Nadezhda Fedoseevna, is bringing to this respectable family—first, full information about himself; second, his excellent and respectable position; and finally, his fortune; and, consequently, he is of course surprised to see a rival such as you—a man of great merits, perhaps, but one still so young that he simply cannot take you as a serious rival… and is therefore right in asking you to finish.”
“What do you mean ‘so young’? I turned nineteen a month ago. Legally, I’ve been able to marry for a long time. There you have it.”
“But what father would venture to give his daughter to you now—though you may be a big future millionaire or some sort of future benefactor of mankind? At the age of nineteen a man can’t even answer for his own self, and you venture to take upon your conscience someone else’s future—that is, the future of a child like yourself! That’s also not entirely noble, do you think? I’ve allowed myself to speak out, because you addressed me earlier as a mediator between yourself and Pavel Pavlovich.”
“Ah, yes, incidentally, his name is Pavel Pavlovich!” the youth remarked. “Why did I keep imagining it was Vassily Petrovich? The thing is this, sir,” he turned to Velchaninov, “you haven’t surprised me in the least; I knew you were all the same! Strange, however, that I was told you were even something of a new man. Anyway, it’s all trifles, and the point is that there is nothing here that is not noble on my part, as you allowed yourself to put it, but even quite the contrary, which I hope to explain to you: we have, first of all, pledged ourselves to each other, and, besides that, I promised her directly, in front of two witnesses, that if she ever falls in love with another, or simply thinks better of having married me, and wants to divorce me, I will immediately give her a certificate of my own adultery—thus supporting, therewith, where necessary, her application for divorce. Moreover, in the event I should go back on my word later and refuse to give her this certificate, then, for her security, on the very day of our wedding I will give her a promissory note for a hundred thousand roubles in my name, so that, in the event I persist in refusing the certificate, she can immediately turn in my promissory note and have me double-trumped! In this way everything is provided for, and I’m not putting anyone’s future at risk. Well, sir, that’s the first thing.”
“I bet it was that one—what’s his name—Predposylov who thought it up for you?” cried Velchaninov.
“Hee, hee, hee!” Pavel Pavlovich tittered venomously.
“Why is this gentleman tittering? You’ve guessed right—it’s Predposylov’s thought; and you must agree it’s clever. The absurd law is completely paralyzed. Naturally, I intend to love her always, and she laughs terribly—but even so it’s adroit, and you must agree that it’s noble, that not everyone would venture on such a thing?”
“In my opinion, it is not only not noble, but even vile.”
The young man heaved his shoulders.
“Once again you don’t surprise me,” he observed after some silence, “all this stopped surprising me long ago. Predposylov would snap out directly that this failure of yours to understand the most natural things comes from the perversion of your most ordinary feelings and notions, first, by a long life of absurdity, and second, by long idleness. However, maybe we still don’t understand each other; after all, you were well spoken of to me… You’re already about fifty, though?”
“Get on with your business, please.”
“Excuse the indiscretion and don’t be annoyed; I didn’t mean anything. To continue: I’m not at all a future big millionaire, as you were pleased to put it (and what an idea to come up with!), I’m all here, as you see me, but of my future I’m absolutely certain. I won’t be a hero or anybody’s benefactor, but I’ll provide for myself and my wife. Of course, right now I have nothing, I was even brought up in their house, ever since childhood…”
“How’s that?”
“It’s because I’m the son of a distant relative of this Zakhlebinin’s wife, and when all my people died and left me at the age of eight, the old man took me into his house and then sent me to school. He’s even a kind man, if you wish to know…”
“I know that, sir…”
“Yes, but much too antiquated a head. Kind, though. Now, of course, I’ve long since left his custody, wishing to earn my own living and be owing only to myself.”
“And when did you leave it?” Velchaninov was curious.
“That would be about four months ago.”
“Ah, well, it’s all clear now: friends from childhood! Do you have a job or something?”
“Yes, a private one, in a notary’s office, twenty-five roubles a month. Of course, that’s only for the time being, but when I made my proposal I didn’t even have that. I was working for the railroad then, for ten roubles, but this is
