A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES
'Impossible, Gavrila Antonitch, to do otherwise; I speak as before God Almighty; impossible.'
Silence followed.
I got up softly and looked through a crack in the partition. The fat man was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat a merchant, a man about forty, lean and pale, who looked as if he had been rubbed with oil. He was incessantly fingering his beard, and very rapidly blinking and twitching his lips.
'Wonderful the young green crops this year, one may say,' he began again; 'I've been going about everywhere admiring them. All the way from Voronezh they've come up wonderfully, first-class, one may say.'
'The crops are pretty fair, certainly,' answered the head-clerk; 'but you know the saying, Gavrila Antonitch, autumn bids fair, but spring may be foul.'
'That's so, indeed, Nikolai Eremyitch; all is in God's hands; it's the absolute truth what you've just remarked, sir. . . . But perhaps your visitor's awake now.'
The fat man turned round . . . listened. . . .
'No, he's asleep. He may, though. . . .'
He went to the door.
'No, he's asleep,' he repeated and went back to his place.
'Well, so what are we to say, Nikolai Eremyitch?' the merchant began again; 'we must bring our little business to a conclusion. . . . Let it be
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