What was the figure, somewhat ponderous and thick in the legs, but well-dressed, walking in front of him, with a slight roll and waddle in his gait? Where had he seen that head, covered with tufts of flaxen hair, and as it were set right into the shoulders, that soft cushiony back, those plump arms hanging straight down at his sides? Could it be Polozov, his old schoolfellow, whom he had lost sight of for the last five years? Sanin overtook the figure walking in front of him, turned round. . . . A broad, yellowish face, little pig's eyes, with white lashes and eyebrows, a short flat nose, thick lips that looked glued together, a round smooth chin, and that expression, sour, sluggish, and mistrustful—yes; it was he, it was Ippolit Polozov!
'Isn't my lucky star working for me again?' flashed through Sanin's mind.
'Polozov! Ippolit Sidorovitch! Is it you?'
The figure stopped, raised his diminutive eyes, waited a little, and ungluing his lips at last, brought out in a rather hoarse falsetto, 'Dimitri Sanin?'
'That's me!' cried Sanin, and he shook one of Polozov's hands; arrayed in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as before beside his barrel-shaped legs. 'Have you been here long? Where have you come from? Where are you stopping?'
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