bestir yourself, and have a good dinner ready for us. My hat!'
Sipyagin was far more perturbed than his visitor. Repeating once more, 'But where's my hat?' he, the great dignitary, bustled out of the room like a frolicsome schoolboy. While he was talking to Solomin, Valentina Mihalovna was looking stealthily but intently at this 'new young man.' He was sitting calmly in his easy-chair, with his bare hands (he had not, after all, put on the gloves) lying on his knees, and calmly, though with curiosity, looking about at the furniture and the pictures. 'How is it?' she thought; 'he is a plebeian . . . an unmistakable plebeian . . . but how naturally he behaves!'
Solomin did certainly behave very naturally, and not as some do, who are simple indeed, but with a sort of intensity, as though to say, 'Look at me, understand what sort of a man I am,' but like a man whose feelings and ideas are strong without being complex. Madam Sipyagin wanted to enter into conversation with him, but, to her amazement, could not at once find anything suitable to say.
'Good heavens!' she thought,'can I be impressed by this workman?'
'Boris Andreitch ought to be very grateful
42
