for those three years, though privately they did not consider themselves
on an equal footing with him, I am convinced of that.
Of Simonov's two visitors, one was Ferfitchkin, a Russianised German
--a little fellow with the face of a monkey, a blockhead who was always
deriding everyone, a very bitter enemy of mine from our days in the lower
forms--a vulgar, impudent, swaggering fellow, who affected a most sensitive
feeling of personal honour, though, of course, he was a wretched
little coward at heart. He was one of those worshippers of Zverkov who
made up to the latter from interested motives, and often borrowed money
from him. Simonov's other visitor, Trudolyubov, was a person in no way
remarkable--a tall young fellow, in the army, with a cold face, fairly
honest, though he worshipped success of every sort, and was only capable
of thinking of promotion. He was some sort of distant relation of
Zverkov's, and this, foolish as it seems, gave him a certain importance
among us. He always thought me of no consequence whatever; his
behaviour to me, though not quite courteous, was tolerable.
"Well, with seven roubles each," said Trudolyubov, "twenty-one
roubles between the three of us, we ought to be able to get a good dinner.
Zverkov, of course, won't pay."
"Of course not, since we are inviting him," Simonov decided.
"Can you imagine," Ferfitchkin interrupted hotly and conceitedly, like
some insolent flunkey boasting of his master the General's decorations,
"can you imagine that Zverkov will let us pay alone? He will accept from
delicacy, but he will order half a dozen bottles of champagne."
"Do we want half a dozen for the four of us?" observed Trudolyubov,
taking notice only of the half dozen.
"So the three of us, with Zverkov for the fourth, twenty-one roubles, at
the Hotel de Paris at five o'clock tomorrow," Simonov, who had been
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