And he went out, measuring my suitcase and bundle with his eyes.
I actually had wanted to say something malicious, in revenge for Kraft; and I had said it as I could, but, curiously, he had first taken my thought that “the likes of us are left ” as serious. But be that as it may, he was still more right than I in everything, even feelings. I admitted all that without any displeasure, but I decidedly felt that I did not like him.
When tea was brought, I explained to him that I was asking for his hospitality for only one night, and that if it was impossible, he should say so and I would move to the inn. Then I briefly told him my reasons, stating simply and directly that I had quarreled definitively with Versilov, without going into details. Vasin listened attentively, but without any emotion. Generally, he only answered questions, though he answered affably and with sufficient fullness. I passed over in total silence the letter with which I had come to him previously to ask for advice; and I explained my previous call as a simple visit. Having given Versilov my word that no one would know of the letter besides me, I considered myself as no longer having the right to tell anyone about it. For some reason it became particularly repugnant to me to inform Vasin of certain things. Of certain things, but not of others: I still managed to get him interested in my stories about those scenes in the corridor and with the women in the neighboring room, culminating in Versilov’s apartment. He listened with great attention, especially about Stebelkov. He asked me to repeat twice how Stebelkov inquired about Dergachev, and he even fell to pondering; however, he still smiled in the end. It suddenly seemed to me at that moment that nothing could ever disconcert Vasin; however, the first thought of it, I remember, presented itself to me in a form quite flattering to him.
“Generally, I couldn’t gather much from what Mr. Stebelkov said,” I concluded about Stebelkov. “He speaks somehow confusedly . . . and there seemed to be something light-minded in him . . .”
Vasin immediately assumed a serious look.
“He indeed has no gift of eloquence, but that’s only at first sight. He has managed to make extremely apt observations; and generally—these are more people of business, of affairs, than of generalizing thought; they should be judged from that angle . . .”
Exactly as I had guessed earlier.
“Anyhow he acted up terribly at your neighbors’, and God knows how it might have ended.”
About the neighbors, Vasin told me that they had lived there for about three weeks and had come from somewhere in the provinces; that their room was extremely small, and everything indicated that they were very poor; that they were sitting and waiting for something. He didn’t know that the young one had advertised in the newspapers as a teacher, but he had heard that Versilov had visited them; this had happened while he was away, and the landlady had told him. The neighbors, on the contrary, avoided everybody, even the landlady herself. In the last few days he had begun to notice that something was indeed not right with them, but there had been no such scenes as today’s. All this talk of ours about the neighbors I recall now with a view to what followed; meanwhile a dead silence reigned behind their door. Vasin listened with particular interest when I said that Stebelkov thought it necessary to talk with the landlady about them, and that he had twice repeated, “You’ll see, you’ll see!”
“And you will see,” Vasin added, “that it didn’t come into his head for nothing; he has a very keen eye in that regard.”
“So, then, in your opinion, the landlady should be advised to throw them out?”
“No, I’m not saying they should be thrown out, but so that some sort of story doesn’t happen . . . However, all such stories end one way or another . . . Let’s drop it.”
As for Versilov’s visit to the women, he resolutely refused to offer any conclusion.
“Everything is possible; the man felt money in his pocket . . . However, it’s also probable that he simply offered charity; it suits his tradition, and maybe also his inclination.”
I told him what Stebelkov had babbled that day about the “nursing baby.”
“Stebelkov in this case is completely mistaken,” Vasin said with particular seriousness and particular emphasis (and that I remember all too well).
“Stebelkov,” he went on, “sometimes trusts all too much in his practical sense, and because of that rushes to a conclusion in accordance with his logic, which is often quite perspicacious; yet the event may in fact have a much more fantastic and unexpected coloration, considering the characters involved. And so it happened here: having partial knowledge of the matter, he concluded that the baby belongs to Versilov; however, the baby is not Versilov’s.”
