Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/67

Rh some unknown reason to address me magnificently, "Votre Excellence."

And I am morose. Apparently I embarrass them all and they embarrass me. I never had any intimate acquaintance with class antagonism before, but now something of the kind torments me indeed. I try to find only bad traits in Gnekker. It does not take long and then I am tormented because one of my friends has not taken his place as bridegroom. In another way too his presence has a bad effect upon me. Usually, when I am left alone with myself or when I am in the company of people I love, I never think of my merits; and if I begin to think about them they seem as trivial as though I had become a scholar only yesterday. But in the presence of a man like Gnekker my merits appear to me like an extremely high mountain, whose summit is lost in the clouds, while Gnekkers move about the foot, so small as hardly to be seen.

After dinner I go up to my study and light my little pipe, the only one during the whole day, the sole survivor of my old habit of smoking from morning to night. My wife comes into me while I am smoking and sits down to speak to me. Just as in the morning, I know beforehand what the conversation will be.

"We ought to talk seriously, Nicolai Stiepanovich," she begins. "I mean about Liza. Why won't you attend?"

"Attend to what?"