"Yes, I do express myself strangely . . ."
"And you're. . . not joking?"
"Joking!" exclaimed Pavel Pavlovitch in pained surprise, "and at the moment when I am announcing the sad . . ."
"Ach, don't speak of that, I entreat you!"
Velchaninov got up and began pacing the room again.
So passed five minutes. The visitor seemed about to get up too, but Velchaninov shouted: "Sit still, sit still!" and Pavel Pavlovitch obediently sank back into his armchair at once.
"But, how you have changed though," Velchaninov began again, suddenly stopping before him as though all at once struck by the thought. "You're dreadfully changed! Extraordinarily! Quite a different person."
"That's not strange: nine years."
"No, no, no, it's not a question of years! It's incredible how you've changed in appearance; you've become a different man!"
"That, too, may well be, in nine years."
"Or is it since March!"
"He—he!" Pavel Pavlovitch sniggered slily. "That's a funny idea of yours. . . . But if I may venture—what is the change exactly?"
"You ask what! The Pavel Pavlovitch I used to know was such a solid, decorous person, that Pavel Pavlovitch was such a clever chap, and now—this Pavel Pavlovitch is a regular vaurien!"
He was at that stage of irritability in which even reserved people say more than they ought.
"Vaurien! you think so? And not a clever chap now—not clever?" Pavel Pavlovitch chuckled with relish.
"Clever chap be damned! now I daresay you really are too clever."
"I'm insolent, but this low fellow's more so and . . . and what is his object?" Velchaninov was thinking all the while.
"Ach, dearest, most precious friend!" cried the visitor suddenly, growing extremely agitated and turning round in his chair. "What are we saying? We are not in the world now, we're not in the society of the great and the worldly! We're two old friends, very old friends! And we've come together in the fullest sincerity to recall to one another the priceless bond of friendship of which the dear departed was the precious link!"
