the key in my overcoat-pocket, and he has drunk up the whole decanter of sweet vodka. Was that good? And now he wants to go. You didn’t give me orders, and so I could not let him out.”
Albert, seeing Delesof, began to pull still more violently on Zakhár. “No one has the right to detain me! He cannot do it,” he screamed, raising his voice more and more.
“Let him go, Zakhár,” said Delesof. “I do not wish to detain you, and I have no right to, but I advise you to stay till tomorrow,” he added, addressing Albert.
“No one has the right to detain me. I am going to the police,” screamed Albert more and more furiously, addressing only Zakhár, and not heeding Delesof. “Guard!” he suddenly shouted at the top of his voice.
“Now, what are you screaming like that for? You see you are free to go,” said Zakhár, opening the door.
Albert ceased screaming. “How did they dare? They were going to murder me! No!” he muttered to himself as he put on his galoshes. Not offering to say goodbye, and still muttering something unintelligible, he went out of the door. Zakhár accompanied him to the gate, and came back.
“Thank the Lord, Dmitri Ivánovitch! Any longer would have been a sin,” said he to his bárin . “And now we must count the silver.”
Delesof only shook his head, and made no reply. There came over him a lively recollection of the first two evenings which he and the musician had spent together; he remembered the last wretched days which Albert had spent there; and above all he remembered the sweet but absurd sentiment of wonder, of love, and of sympathy, which had been aroused in him by the very first sight of this strange man; and he began to pity him.