“I’ll wait for him!” the actor decided.

It was dark and cold.  A hateful autumn rain was drizzling as though through a sieve.  Podzharov leaned his elbow on a lamp-post and abandoned himself to a feeling of uneasiness.

He was wet through and exhausted.

At two o’clock in the night the guests began coming out of Zybaev’s house.  The landowner from Tula was the last to make his appearance.  He heaved a sigh that could be heard by the whole street and scraped the pavement with his heavy overboots.

“Excuse me!” said the jeune premier, overtaking him.  “One minute.”

Klimov stopped.  The actor gave a smile, hesitated, and began, stammering:  “I . . .  I confess . . .  I told a lie.”

“No, sir, you will please confess that publicly,” said Klimov, and he turned crimson again.  “I can’t leave it like that. . . .”

“But you see I am apologizing!  I beg you . . . don’t you understand?  I beg you because you will admit a duel will make talk, and I am in a position. . . .  My fellow-actors . . . goodness knows what they may think. . . .”

The jeune premier tried to appear unconcerned, to smile, to stand erect, but his body would not obey him, his voice trembled, his eyes blinked guiltily, and his head drooped.  For a good while he went on muttering something.  Klimov listened to him, thought a little, and heaved a sigh.

“Well, so be it,” he said.  “May God forgive you.  Only don’t lie in future, young man.  Nothing degrades a man like lying . . . yes, indeed!  You are a young man, you have had a good education. . . .”

The landowner from Tula, in a benignant, fatherly way, gave him a lecture, while the jeune premier listened and smiled meekly. . . .  When it was over he smirked, bowed, and with a guilty step and a crestfallen air set off for his hotel.

As he went to bed half an hour later he felt that he was out of danger and was already in excellent spirits.  Serene and satisfied that the misunderstanding had ended so satisfactorily, he wrapped himself in the bedclothes, soon fell asleep, and slept soundly till ten o’clock next morning.

A DEFENCELESS CREATURE

IN spite of a violent attack of gout in the night and the nervous exhaustion left by it, Kistunov went in the morning to his office and began punctually seeing the clients of the bank and persons who had come with petitions.  He looked languid and exhausted, and spoke in a faint voice hardly above a whisper, as though he were dying.

“What can I do for you?” he asked a lady in an antediluvian mantle, whose back view was extremely suggestive of a huge dung-beetle.