hopelessly as though he had been deserted by the whole world; beside him, besmeared with the same soot, a sow, surrounded by a litter of spotted sucking pigs, was inspecting some cabbage stalks; ragged linen was fluttering on a line; and what an odour, what a stench everywhere! A Russian mill, in fact; not a German or a French factory.
Nezhdanov glanced at Markelov.
'I have heard so much talked about Solomin's great abilities,' he began, 'that, I confess, all this disorder rather surprises me; I didn't expect it.'
'It isn't disorder,' answered Markelov grimly, 'it's the Russian sluttishness. For all that, it's turning over millions! And he has to adapt himself to the old ways, and to practical needs, and to the owner himself. Have you any notion what Faleyev's like?'
'Not the slightest.'
'The greatest skinflint in Moscow. A bourgeois─that's the word for him!'
At that instant Solomin came into the room. Again Nezhdanov was fated to be disappointed in him, as in the factory. At first sight Solomin gave one the impression of being a Finn or, still more, a Swede. He was tall, lean, broad-shouldered, with light eyebrows and eyelashes; he had a long yellow face, a short broad
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