Notes From The Underground 49

‘I was surprised to hear of your desire to join us,’ he be-gan, lisping and drawling, which was something new. ‘You and I seem to have seen nothing of one another. You fight shy of us. You shouldn’t. We are not such terrible people as you think. Well, anyway, I am glad to renew our acquain-tance.’

And he turned carelessly to put down his hat on the window.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ Trudolyubov inquired.

‘I arrived at five o’clock as you told me yesterday,’ I answered aloud, with an irritability that threatened an ex-plosion.

‘Didn’t you let him know that we had changed the hour?’ said Trudolyubov to Simonov.

‘No, I didn’t. I forgot,’ the latter replied, with no sign of regret, and without even apologising to me he went off to order the HORS D’OEUVRE.

‘So you’ve been here a whole hour? Oh, poor fellow!’ Zverkov cried ironically, for to his notions this was bound to be extremely funny. That rascal Ferfitchkin followed with his nasty little snigger like a puppy yapping. My position struck him, too, as exquisitely ludicrous and embarrassing.

‘It isn’t funny at all!’ I cried to Ferfitchkin, more and more irritated. ‘It wasn’t my fault, but other people’s. They neglected to let me know. It was ... it was ... it was simply absurd.’

‘It’s not only absurd, but something else as well,’ mut-tered Trudolyubov, naively taking my part. ‘You are not hard enough upon it. It was simply rudeness—unintention-al, of course. And how could Simonov ... h’m!’

‘If a trick like that had been played on me,’ observed Fer-fitchkin, ‘I should ...’

‘But you should have ordered something for yourself,’ Zverkov interrupted, ‘or simply asked for dinner without waiting for us.’

‘You will allow that I might have done that without your permission,’ I rapped out. ‘If I waited, it was ...’

‘Let us sit down, gentlemen,’ cried Simonov, coming in. ‘Everything is ready; I can answer for the champagne; it is capitally frozen .... You see, I did not know your address, where was I to look for you?’ he suddenly turned to me, but again he seemed to avoid looking at me. Evidently he had something against me. It must have been what happened yesterday.

to be contd..