'I came to wish you a good journey,' Potugin brought out at last.
'And how did you know I was going to-day?' asked Litvinov.
Potugin looked on the floor around him . . . 'I became aware of it . . . as you see. Our last conversation took in the end such a strange turn . . . I did not want to part from you without expressing my sincere good feeling for you.'
'You have good feeling for me now . . . when I am going away?'
Potugin looked mournfully at Litvinov. 'Ah, Grigory Mihalitch, Grigory Mihalitch,' he began with a short sigh, 'it 's no time for that with us now, no time for delicacy or fencing. You don't, so far as I have been able to perceive, take much interest in our national literature, and so, perhaps, you have no clear conception of Vaska Buslaev?'
'Of whom?'
'Of Vaska Buslaev, the hero of Novgorod . . . in Kirsch-Danilov's collection.'
'What Buslaev?' said Litvinov, somewhat puzzled by the unexpected turn of the conversation. 'I don't know.'
'Well, never mind. I only wanted to draw your attention to something. Vaska Buslaev, after he had taken away his Novgorodians on a
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