with him at his country lodgings. But it was some time before he found
him out; from his former lodging he had moved to another, which it
was not easy to discover; it was in the court at the back of a
squalid stone house, built in the Petersburg style, between Arbaty
Road and Povarsky Street. In vain Bersenyev wandered from one dirty
staircase to another, in vain he called first to a doorkeeper, then to
a passer-by. Porters even in Petersburg try to avoid the eyes of
visitors, and in Moscow much more so; no one answered Bersenyev's
call; only an inquisitive tailor, in his shirt sleeves, with a skein
of grey thread on his shoulder, thrust out from a high casement window
a dirty, dull, unshorn face, with a blackened eye; and a black and
hornless goat, clambering up on to a dung heap, turned round, bleated
plaintively, and went on chewing the cud faster than before. A woman
in an old cloak, and shoes trodden down at heel, took pity at last on
Bersenyev and pointed out Insarov's lodging to him. Bersenyev found
him at home. He had taken a room with the very tailor who had stared
down so indifferently at the perplexity of a wandering stranger; a
large, almost empty room, with dark green walls, three square windows,
a tiny bedstead in one corner, a little leather sofa in another, and a
huge cage hung up to the very ceiling; in this cage there had once
lived a nightingale. Insarov came to meet Bersenyev directly he
crossed the threshold, but he did not exclaim, 'Ah, it's you!' or
'Good Heavens, what happy chance has brought you?' He did not even
say, 'How do you do?' but simply pressed his hand and led him up to
the solitary chair in the room.

'Sit down,' he said, and he seated himself on the edge of the table.

'I am, as you see, still in disorder,' added Insarov, pointing to a
pile of papers and books on the floor, 'I haven't got settled in as I