Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume IV).djvu/245

 est? I administered opium, and for another I extracted a tooth. I proposed an anæsthetic to her ... but she would not consent. All that I do gratis—anamatyer (en amateur). I'm used to it, though; you see, I'm a plebeian, homo novus—not one of the old stock, not like my spouse.... Wouldn't you like to come this way into the shade, to breathe the morning freshness a little before tea?'

Arkady went out to him.

'Welcome once again,' said Vassily Ivanovitch, raising his hand in a military salute to the greasy skull-cap which covered his head. 'You, I know, are accustomed to luxury, to amusements, but even the great ones of this world do not disdain to spend a brief space under a cottage roof.'

'Good heavens,' protested Arkady, 'as though I were one of the great ones of this world! And I'm not accustomed to luxury.'

'Pardon me, pardon me,' rejoined Vassily Ivanovitch with a polite simper. 'Though I am laid on the shelf now, I have knocked about the world too—I can tell a bird by its flight. I am something of a psychologist too in my own way, and a physiognomist. If I had not, I will venture to say, been endowed with that gift, I should have come to grief long ago; I should have stood no chance, a poor man like