among students and young people, who liked him for his cynical
wit, his harmless, though biting, self-confident speeches, his
one-sided, unpedantic, though genuine, learning, but occasionally
they sat on him severely. Once, on arriving late at a political
meeting, he hastily began excusing himself. "Paklin was afraid!"
some one sang out from a corner of the room, and everyone
laughed. Paklin laughed with them, although it was like a stab in
his heart. "He is right, the blackguard!" he thought to himself.
Nejdanov he had come across in a little Greek restaurant, where
he was in the habit of taking his dinner, and where he sat airing
his rather free and audacious views. He assured everyone that
the main cause of his democratic turn of mind was the bad Greek
cooking, which upset his liver.

"I wonder where our host has got to? " he repeated. "He has been
out of sorts lately. Heaven forbid that he should be in love!

Mashurina scowled.

"He has gone to the library for books. As for falling in love, he
has neither the time nor the opportunity."

"Why not with you?" almost escaped Paklin's lips.

"I should like to see him, because I have an important matter to
talk over with him," he said aloud.

"What about?" Ostrodumov asked. "Our affairs?"

"Perhaps yours; that is, our common affairs."