"Ah, you saw me! So perhaps you know more about it all than I do! But I'm only irritating you . . . You see, I arrived here three weeks ago on business of my own. . . . I am Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky, you know; you recognized me yourself. I am here to try to get transferred to another province, and to a post in another department considerably superior. . . . But all that's neither here nor there, though . . . The point is, if you must know, that I have been hanging about here for the last three weeks, and I seem to be spinning out my business on purpose—that is, the business of my transfer—and really, if it comes off I do believe I shan't notice that it has come off and shall stay on in your Petersburg, feeling as I do now. I hang about as though I had lost sight of my object and, as it were, pleased to have lost sight of it—feeling as I do! . . ."
"Feeling how?" Velchaninov asked, frowning.
The visitor raised his eyes to him, lifted his hat and pointed to the crape on it.
"Why, look; that’s how I’m feeling."
Velchaninov gazed blankly first at the crape and then at the countenance of his visitor. Suddenly the colour rushed into his cheeks and he grew terribly agitated.
"Surely not Natalya Vassilyevna?"
"Yes! Natalya Vassilyevna! Last March . . . consumption, and almost suddenly, after two or three months' illness! And I am left—as you see!"
As he said this the visitor, in deep emotion, put out his hands on each side, the hat with the crape on it flapping in his left one, while he made a low bow that displayed his bald head for ten seconds at least.
His air and his gesture seemed to revive Velchaninov; an ironical and even provocative smile hovered on his lips—but only for a moment: the news of the death of this lady (whom he had known so long ago and had long ago succeeded in forgetting) gave him a shock which was a complete surprise to him.
"Is it possible?"—he muttered the first words that came to his tongue; :and why didn't you come straight and tell me?”
"I thank you for your sympathy. I see it and appreciate it, in spite of . . ."
"In spite of?"
"In spite of so many years of separation, you have just shown such sympathy for my sorrow and even for me that I am, of
