'Your father was asking after you yesterday,' observed Fustov.

Viktor spat aside. 'Yes, I heard about it. You were at our den
yesterday. Well, music, eh?'

'As usual.'

'And _she_... with a new visitor' (here he pointed with his head in
my direction) 'she gave herself airs, I'll be bound. Wouldn't play, eh?'

'Of whom are you speaking?' Fustov asked.

'Why, of the most honoured Susanna Ivanovna, of course!'

Viktor lolled still more comfortably, put his arm up round his head,
gazed at his own hand, and cleared his throat hoarsely.

I glanced at Fustov. He merely shrugged his shoulders, as though giving
me to understand that it was no use talking to such a dolt.


XI


Viktor, staring at the ceiling, fell to talking, deliberately and
through his nose, of the theatre, of two actors he knew, of a certain
Serafrina Serafrinovna, who had 'made a fool' of him, of the new
professor, R., whom he called a brute. 'Because, only fancy, what a
monstrous notion! Every lecture he begins with calling over the
students' names, and he's reckoned a liberal too! I'd have all your