Now, when he sat down beside me and gave me his hand of his own accord, I vividly recalled his former supercilious expression, and thought that he, as one of inferior rank, was not making quite a fair use of the advantages of his position in questioning me, an officer, in an offhand manner, as to what I had been doing all this time and how I came to be here. Though I answered in Russian every time, he always began again in French, in which it was noticeable that he no longer expressed himself as easily as formerly. About himself he only told me in passing that after that unfortunate and stupid affair of his (I did not know what this affair was, and he did not tell me) he had been three months under arrest, and was afterwards sent to the Caucasus to the N⸺ Regiment, and had now served three years as a private.
“You would not believe,” said he, in French, “what I have suffered at the hands of the officer sets! It was lucky I formerly knew this Adjutant we have just been talking about: he is really a good fellow,” he remarked condescendingly.
“I am living with him, and it is, after all, some mitigation. Oui, mon cher, les jours se suivent, mats ne se ressemblent pas ,” he added, but suddenly became confused, blushed, and rose from his seat, having noticed that the Adjutant we had been talking about was approaching us.
“It is such a consolation to meet a man like you,” whispered Guskov as he was leaving my side; “there is very very much I should like to talk over with you.”
I told him I should be very glad, though I confess that, in reality, Guskov inspired me with an unsympathetic painful kind of pity.
I foresaw that I should feel uncomfortable when alone with him, but I wanted to hear a good many things from him, especially how it was that, while his father was so wealthy, he was poor, as his clothes and habits showed.