doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play of the eyebrows observed:
'What are you going to do now, sir?'
'Well, really, I don't know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and come, we should have gone shooting together.'
'So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he promised?'
'Of course I did.'
'H'm.' Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with commiseration. 'If you'd care to amuse yourself with reading,' he continued: 'there are some books left of my old master's; I'll get them you, if you like; only you won't read them, I expect.'
'Why?'
'They're books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of these days.'
'Have you read them?'
'If I hadn't read them, I wouldn't have spoken about them. A dream-book, for instance . . . that's not much of a book, is it? There are others too, of course . . . only you won't read them either.'
'Why?'
'They are religious books.'
I was silent for a space. . . . Narkiz was silent too.
'What vexes me most,' I began, 'is staying in the house in such weather.'
'Take a walk in the garden; or go into the
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