I felt something of that impotence now.  I cursed the Isvostchick, but wherever he went this slow endless stream seemed to impede our way.  Poor Nina!  Such a baby!  What was it that had driven her to this?  She did not love the man, and she knew quite well that she did not.  No, it was an act of defiance.  But defiance to whom—­to Vera? to Lawrence?... and what had Semyonov said to her?

Then, thank Heaven, we crossed the Nevski, and our way was clear.  The old cabman whipped up his horse and, in a minute or two we were outside 16 Gagarinskaya.  I will confess to very real fears and hesitations as I climbed the dark stairs (the lift was, of course, not working).  I was not the kind of man for this kind of job.  In the first place I hated quarrels, and knowing Grogoff’s hot temper I had every reason to expect a tempestuous interview.  Then I was ill, aching in every limb and seeing everything, as I always did when I was unwell, mistily and with uncertainty.  Then I had a very shrewd suspicion that there was considerable truth in what Semyonov had said, that I was interfering in what only remotely concerned me.  At any rate, that was certainly the view that Grogoff would take, and Nina, perhaps also.  I felt, as I rang the bell of No. 3, that unpleasant pain in the pit of the stomach that tells you that you’re going to make a fool of yourself.

Well, it would not be for the first time.

“Boris Nicolaievitch, doma?” I asked the cross-looking old woman who opened the door.

“Doma,” she answered, holding it open to let me pass.

I was shown into a dark, untidy sitting-room.  It seemed at first sight to be littered with papers, newspapers, Revolutionary sheets and proclamations, the Pravda, the Novaya Jezn, the Soldatskaya Mwyssl....  On the dirty wall-paper there were enormous dark photographs, in faded gilt frames, of family groups; on one wall there was a large garishly coloured picture of Grogoff himself in student’s dress.  The stove was unlighted and the room was very cold.  My heart ached for Nina.

A moment after Grogoff came in.  He came forward to me very amiably, holding out his hand.

“Nu, Ivan Andreievitch....  What can I do for you?” he asked, smiling.

And how he had changed!  He was positively swollen with self-satisfaction.  He had never been famous for personal modesty, but he seemed now to be physically twice his normal size.  He was fat, his cheeks puffed, his stomach swelling beneath the belt that bound it.  His fair hair was long, and rolled in large curls on one side of his head and over his forehead.  He spoke in a loud, overbearing voice.

“Nu, Ivan Andreievitch, what can I do for you?” he repeated.

“Can I see Nina?” I asked.

“Nina?...” he repeated as though surprised.  “Certainly—­but what do you want to say to her?”

“I don’t see that that’s your business,” I answered.  “I have a message for her from her family.”