She thought she was speaking sincerely. The invigorating freshness of the autumn air, the bustle at the station, the consciousness of her own beauty, and the pleasure she felt sensing Bobrov’s loving gaze fixed upon her, electrified her, like all hysterical characters, into lying with inspiration and charm, and quite unwittingly. Admiring herself in her new role of a young lady craving for moral support, she wanted to say agreeable things to Bobrov.
“I know you look on me as a flirt. Please don’t deny it – I admit I give you cause to think that. For example, I often chat with Miller and laugh at his jokes. But if you only knew how I detest that oily cherub! Or take those two students. A handsome man is disagreeable because he’s always admiring himself, if for no other reason. Believe me, although it may sound strange, plain men have always appealed to me particularly.”
As she uttered this charming sentence in her most tender accents, Bobrov drew a mournful sigh. Alas! he had heard this cruel consolation from women more than once, a consolation they never refuse to their ugly admirers.
“So I may hope to appeal to you some day?” he asked in a joking tone which, however, clearly suggested bitter self-mockery.
Nina hastened to make up for her blunder. “See what a man you are. I positively can’t talk with you. Must you fish for compliments, sir? Shame on you!”
She was a little embarrassed by her own gaucherie, and to change the subject she asked in a playfully imperious voice, “Well, now, what was it you were going to tell me in different circumstances? Kindly answer me at once!”
“I don’t know – I don’t remember,” Bobrov stammered, his ardour damped.
“Then I’ll remind you, my secretive friend. You began by speaking of last night. You said something about wonderful moments, and then you said that I must have noticed long ago – but noticed what? You didn’t finish. So kindly say it now. I demand it, do you hear?”
She was looking at him with a smile shining in her eyes – a smile at once sly and promising and tender. For one sweet moment his heart stood still in his chest, and he felt a fresh surge of his former courage. “She knows, she wants me to speak,” he thought, bracing himself.
They halted on the very edge of the platform, where they were quite alone. Both were excited. Nina was awaiting his reply, enjoying the piquancy of the game she had started, while Bobrov was casting about for words, breathing heavily with agitation. But just then, following the shrill sound of signal horns, a hubbub broke out on the platform.
“I’m waiting, do you hear?” Nina whispered, walking away from Bobrov. “It’s more important for me than you think.”
An express train, wrapped in black smoke, leapt into view from beyond a curve. A few minutes later, clattering over the points, it slowed down smoothly, and pulled up at the platform. At its tail end was a long service carriage shining with fresh blue paint, and the crowd rushed towards it.
The conductors hurried respectfully to open the carriage door; a ladder was unfolded instantly. Red with running and excitement, a frightened look on his face, the station master was urging the workmen uncoupling the service carriage. Kvashnin was one of the principal shareholders of the X Railway and travelled on its branch-lines with greater pomp than was sometimes accorded even to the highest railway officials.
Only four men entered the carriage: Shelkovnikov, Andreas, and two influential Belgian engineers. Kvashnin was sitting in an easy chair, his enormous legs thrown apart and his belly thrust forward. He wore a round felt hat, his fiery hair shining under it; his face, shaved like an actor’s, with flabby jowls and a triple chin, and mottled with big freckles, seemed drowsy and annoyed; his lips were curled in a contemptuous, sour grimace.
With an effort he rose to greet the engineers.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said in a husky, deep voice, holding out his huge chubby hand for them to touch respectfully by turns. “How’s everything at the mill?”
Shelkovnikov began to report in the stiff language of an official account. Everything was all right at the mill, he said. They had been waiting for Vasily Terentyevich’s arrival to blow in the blast-furnace and lay the foundations of new buildings. The workmen and foremen had been hired at suitable rates. The great flow of orders induced the management to start the construction as early as possible.
Kvashnin listened, his face turned away to the window, viewing absent-mindedly the crowd which pressed round the carriage. His face expressed nothing but disgusted weariness.
Suddenly he interrupted the manager to ask, “Look here – who’s that girl?”
Shelkovnikov glanced out of the window.
“There, that one with the yellow feather in her hat.” Kvashnin pointed impatiently.
“Oh, that one?” With an eager look the manager bent to Kvashnin’s ear and whispered mysteriously in French, “She’s the daughter of our warehouse manager. His name is Zinenko.”
Kvashnin nodded heavily. Shelkovnikov resumed his report, but his chief interrupted him again.
“Zinenko?” he drawled thoughtfully, staring out of the window. “Which Zinenko is that? Where have I heard the name?”
“He’s in charge of our warehouse,” Shelkovnikov said again respectfully, with deliberate indifference.
“Oh, yes, now I remember,” said Kvashnin. “They told me about him in Petersburg. All right, go on, please.”
Nina realized by her infallible feminine intuition that just then Kvashnin was looking at her and speaking about her. She turned slightly away, but still Kvashnin could see her face, rosy with coquettish pleasure and showing all its pretty moles.
At last the report was finished, and Kvashnin passed into the roomy glass compartment built at the end of the carriage.
It was a moment which Bobrov thought would have been well worth perpetuating with a good camera. Kvashnin lingered for some reason behind the glass wall, his bulky figure towering above the group that clustered round the carriage entrance, his feet planted wide apart and his face wearing a sullen look, the whole giving the impression of a crudely wrought Japanese idol. The great man’s immobility apparently dismayed those who had come to meet him: the prepared smiles froze on their lips as they stared up at Kvashnin with a servility that bordered on fear. The dashing conductors had stiffened into soldierly postures on either side of the door. Glancing by chance at Nina, Bobrov with a pang noticed on her face the same smile as he saw on the other faces, and the same fear of a savage looking at his idol.
“Is this really nothing but a disinterested, respectful amazement at a yearly income of three hundred thousand rubles?” he thought. “If so, what makes all these people wag their tails so cringingly before a man who never so much as looks at them? Perhaps what’s at work here is some inconceivable psychological law of servility?”
Having stood above for a while, Kvashnin decided to start, and descended the steps, preceded by his belly and carefully supported by the train crew.
In response to the respectful bows of the crowd, which parted quickly to let him pass, he nodded carelessly, thrusting out his thick lower lip, and said in a nasal voice, “Gentlemen, you’re dismissed till tomorrow.”
Before reaching the exit he beckoned to the manager.
“You’ll introduce him to me, Sergei Valerianovich,” he said in an undertone.
“You mean Zinenko?” asked Shelkovnikov obligingly.
“Who else, damn it!” growled Kvashnin, suddenly irritated. “No, not here!” He held the manager by the sleeve as he was about to rush off. “You’ll do it at the mill.”
VII
The laying of the foundations and the blowing in of the new blast-furnace were to start four days after Kvashnin’s arrival. It was planned to celebrate the two events with the utmost pomp, and printed invitations had been sent to the iron and steel mills in the neighbouring towns of Krutogori, Voronino, and Lvovo.