Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/264

Rh observed sympathetically—(he had just been whispering to Nezhdanov, 'What makes him keep moving his arms about, as if his coat were too tight in the armholes?')─'Most honoured Kapiton Andreitch, trust me, half-measures are no use now!'

'Half-measures!' screamed Golushkin, suddenly ceasing to laugh, and assuming a ferocious expression, 'there's only one thing now: to tear it all up from the roots! Vasya, drink, you dirty dog you, drink!'

'And so I am drinking, Kapiton Andreitch', responded the clerk, emptying his glass down his throat.

Golushkin, too, tossed off a glassful.

'How is it he doesn't burst?' Paklin whispered to Nezhdanov.

'It's practice does it!' rejoined Nezhdanov.

But the clerk was not the only one who drank. By degrees the wine affected them all. Nezhdanov, Markelov, even Solomin, gradually took part in the conversation.

At first in a sort of disdain, in a sort of vexation with himself for not keeping up his character, for doing nothing, Nezhdanov began to maintain that the time had come to cease to play with mere words, the time had come to 'act,'─he even alluded to the 'bed-rock having been reached!' And then,