"Who's hanged himself? What for?" cried Lobov, with wide-open eyes.
"Never mind. I didn't mean anything; go on."
"Foo! damn it all! what funny ideas you have, though. He's not hanged himself at all (why should he hang himself?). On the contrary—he's gone away. I've only just put him into the train and seen him off. Foo! how he drinks, I tell you! We drank three bottles, Predposylov with us but how he drinks, how he drinks! He was singing songs in the train. He remembered you, blew kisses, sent you his greetings. But he is a scoundrel, don't you think so?"
The young man certainly was a little tipsy; his flushed face, his shining eyes and faltering tongue betrayed it unmistakably. Velchaninov laughed loudly.
"So in the end they finished up with Brüderschaft! Ha-ha! They embraced and shed tears! Ah, you Schilleresque poets!"
"Don't call me names, please. Do you know he's given it all up over there? He was there yesterday, and he's been there to-day. He sneaked horribly. They locked Nadya up—she's sitting in a room upstairs. There were tears and lamentations, but we stood firm! But how he does drink, I say, doesn't he drink! And, I say, isn't he mauvais ton, at least not mauvais ton exactly, what shall I call it? . . . He kept talking of you, but there's no comparison between you! You're a gentleman anyway, and really did move in decent society at one time and have only been forced to come down now through poverty or something. . . . Goodness knows what, I couldn't quite understand him."
"Ah, so he spoke to you of me in those terms?"
"He did, he did; don't be angry. To be a good citizen is better than being in aristocratic society. I say that because in Russia, nowadays, one doesn't know whom to respect. You'll agree that it's a serious malady of the age, when people don't know whom to respect, isn't it?"
""It is, it is; what did he say?"
"He? Who? Ah, to be sure! Why did he keep saying 'Velchaninov fifty, but a rake,' why but a rake and not and a rake; he laughed and repeated it a thousand times over. He got into the train, sang a song and burst out crying—it was simply revolting, pitiful, in fact—from drunkenness. Oh! I don't like fools! He fell to throwing money to the beggars for the peace of the soul of Lizaveta—his wife, is that?"
