Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/260

Rh Golushkin every measure was being taken to provide a 'chic' dinner. A fish-soup, very greasy and very disagreeable, was concocted various pâtes chauds and fricassées were prepared (Golushkin, as a man on the pinnacle of European culture, though an Old Believer, went in for French cookery, and had taken a cook from a club, where he had been discharged for dirtiness); and, what was most important, several bottles of champagne had been got out and put in ice.

The host himself met the young men with the awkward tricks peculiar to him, a hurried manner and much giggling. He was, as Paklin had predicted, overjoyed to see him; he inquired about him: 'I suppose he's one of us?' and without waiting for an answer, cried, 'There, of course he's bound to be!' Then he told them that he had just come from that 'queer fish' of a governor, who was always worrying him on behalf of some─deuce knows what!─benevolent institution. And it was absolutely impossible to say whether Golushkin was more pleased at having been received at the governor's, or at having succeeded in abusing him in the presence of advanced young men. Then he introduced them to the proselyte he had promised. And this proselyte turned out to be none other than the sleek, sickly little