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RUDIN came here by chance. I was looking for a friend. But I am very glad ’

‘Where are you going to dine?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. At some restaurant. I must go away from here to-day.’

‘You must.’

Rudin smiled significantly.

‘Yes, I must. They are sending me off to my own place, to my home.’

‘Dine with me.’

Rudin for the first time looked Lezhnyov straight in the face.

‘You invite me to dine with you?’ he said.

‘Yes, Rudin, for the sake of old times and old comradeship. Will you? I did not expect to meet you, and God only knows when we shall see each other again. I cannot part from you like this!’

‘Very well, I agree!’

Lezhnyov pressed Rudin’s hand, and calling his servant, ordered dinner, and told him to have a bottle of champagne put in ice.

In the course of dinner, Lezhnyov and Rudin, as though by agreement, kept talking of their student days, recalling many things and 234