a moment, gave a lurch, and coming up to me with unsteady steps, he flung himself into a swaggering attitude and lightly touching the strings, chanted in measured tones with a faint tap of his boot:
Round face! fair face!
Like a tomtit in the meadow
Hear my darling’s voice!
When she wears a dress of satin
With some most becoming trimming,
Oh, she does look nice!
This song seemed the last straw for Bulkin; he gesticulated, and addressing the company in general he shouted:
“He keeps telling lies, lads, he keeps telling lies! Not a word of truth in it, it is all a lie!”
“Respects to old Alexandr Petrovitch!” said Varlamov. He peeped into my face with a sly laugh, and was on the point of kissing me. He was very drunk. The expression “old” So-and-so is used among the people all over Siberia even in addressing a lad of twenty. The word “old” suggests respect, veneration, something flattering, in fact.
“Well, Varlamov, how are you getting on!”
“Oh, I am jogging along. If one’s glad it’s Christmas, one gets drunk early; you must excuse me!” Varlamov talked in rather a drawl.
“That’s all lying, all lying again!” shouted Bulkin, thumping on the bed in a sort of despair. But Varlamov seemed determined to take no notice of him, and there was something very comic about it, because Bulkin had attached himself to Varlamov from early morning for no reason whatever, simply because Varlamov kept “lying,” as he somehow imagined. He followed him about like a shadow, found fault with every word he said, wrung his hands, banged them against the walls and the bed till they almost bled, and was distressed, evidently distressed, by the conviction that Varlamov “was lying.” If he had had any hair on his head, I believe he would have pulled it out in his mortification. It was as though he felt responsible for Varlamov’s conduct, as though all Varlamov’s failings were on his conscience. But what made it comic was that Varlamov never even looked at him.
“He keeps lying, nothing but lying and lying! There’s not a word of sense in all he says!” shouted Bulkin.
